A Great Little Woman!

What a great little woman. Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, spoke at the Montreal Millennium Summit, and I was relieved to finally hear something concrete from someone. As all speakers recalled long and large their own stories, she was the first and only one to actually have an idea of a solution.

Shirin Ebadi took the opportunity to have as audience the vice-Secretary of the United Nation (and me of course) to make the following proposal: to bring in front of the General Assembly a resolution (and pass it) that would limit development aid only to countries that have a educational and healthcare budget at least equal to their military expanditures. And this is a good point: why give money to country that spend it in army stuff, while they could cut the military budget and pour more money in health and education instead. Costa Rica manage quite well without military...

A good point.

I assisted today the Montreal Millennium Summit. First I was appalled by the [ridiculous] performance of Quebecois singer Ima, the pompous speech given by Canada's Governor General Michaelle Jean, which was further followed by the Quebec Education Minister Michelle Courchesne's own. But then I finally heard some really interesting facts. Indeed as the Vice Secretary General of the United Nation Asha-Rose Migiro was recalling, it seems ridiculous that in times of economic crisis countries from the OECD use the lame excuse that they are too short of money to continue giving aid to poorer countries. And as we speak the amount of given aid is plummeting dramatically.

But then at the recent G20 meeting in London over one trillion dollars was suddenly found, overnight. And the annual amount of total aid given to developing countries barely goes over 100 billion dollars! And they say there ain't no money? Hum... In the last 8 months, over 3 trillions US$ was injected in the biggest banks owned by the richest people on earth, and another 3 trillions US$ was also spend in army stuff in 2008... And there ain't no money for developing countries?

Because it's actually there that the lack of money will be most felt, of course. How about the millions people's life depending on aid? As Mia was saying, if people in darfur don't start receiving food again soon maybe one millions people might die!

And finally Salil Shetty, the director of the UN millennium development goal, the great Canada, which sponsored the goal of 0.7% of countries' income to be given as development aid as early as 1969 only gives 0.32% in 2009! We are going backward instead of forward! Let the rich go richer and the poor be bamboozled!