CIA World Fact Book

YI: What challenges do you see in implementing this MDG?

Wit: In countries sometime you have the national figure as good, but you have pockets of poverty, pockets of malaria, sometimes in richer provinces, or pockets of AIDS, in areas more intense with tourism or whatever, those countries have to be able to pinpoint that and be able to tackle that. If these pockets of problems are because the areas are remote, have poor infrastructure, so they don't have water, they don't have access to basic social services, then it's harder for the country, to achieve that. And that's why special attention needs to be given, special resources need to be made available, be it from the country as well as the international community.

YI: When you say the international community, is that the United Nations, the UNDP?

Wit: Well, it can be international organizations, the UN agencies, UNICEF, WHO, UNDP, etc, it can also be special funds that are made for that. There is the global funds for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, there is also global foreign funds for water, to enable countries who have difficulties in getting clean water for everybody to access, there are also for instance, special funds for special regions, for sub Saharan regions for instance the European Community has special funds for that region, so this is a time when global solidarity can make a difference, that we can really eradicate poverty, if we put all our energy and funds and forces there.

YI: What about countries, we're talking about Asia now, what about countries who have internal conflicts? How does the MDG figure in those countries?

Wit: Yes, in conflict areas, MDGs are more difficult to achieve, and maybe also some cannot be achieved, but at least basic goals, of poverty, of health, of education, need to be incorporated in the peace process, in peace efforts, peace negotiations, achievements of MDGs can be a common agreed act that can and should be done by development workers in those areas, like in Indonesia, for instance, we do give special attention to Aceh, Papua, Maluku, North Maluku, Central Sulawesi, so that conflict areas also reach the services needed to increase their chances of achieving their MDGs.

YI: Tell me, how do you do that, because there is a security problem, how do development workers go in there, when it's dangerous?

Wit: Well, the fact is there are development workers in all those dangerous areas, of course we have special arrangements with the military setup there, it needs special arrangements with the local governments, but it has to be done. You cannot let it stay that way. All efforts need to be done to allow development workers to come in, mostly indigenous, neutral NGOs, and also there are now more and more entry points for peace workers to come in and they're trusted by both sides, so then they can come in and bring development in.

YI: Where has that been successful, can you give me an example?

Wit: Well, in the southern part of the Philippines, in Maluku, the efforts to build the trust between conflicting communities are also including efforts to improve the education, and health, and also before the tsunami in Aceh, we were also doing that, so there are ways, but it needs to be tackled in a more delicate way.

YI: There's this wide gap that still exists between the north and the south, is there a possibility of the MDG narrowing that gap?

Wit: Well, we have to, that's what world aid is about, world aid is about narrowing that gap, not just by the developed world increasing their aid, reducing their loans, or improving their loans, reducing their debts, relieving developing countries from their debts, improving the access of trade, because many developing countries, in Asia for instance, do not just want to have debt relief, but want a more fair and just trade arrangement, where the countries can sell their products and earn on that, taking away of subsidies, having a more egalitarian technology transfer, where developing countries can get technologies that are for the poor without having to pay for the R&D, so, cheaper access of technology of medicine, so those are all efforts in goal eight of global partnership that is supposed to narrow the gap between rich and poor countries.

YI: I'd like to go back to one of the issues, and that's AIDS, this is becoming a really serious problem in Asia. How is that being tackled?

Wit: We have a success story in Thailand, who have already reversed the trend of AIDS, because they started finding out about that and so they started having a campaign, a very broad campaign, with lots of public participation, so they have halted the trend, so it's declining, but yet now there is this new development, where AIDS is not just from sexual transmission, but also from drugs and heterosexual relationships and so this AIDS needs to be more closely watched, but the good news is that there are access, there are medications, there are possibilities of prevention through more wider campaigns. And so all these are available in other countries that can be shared to countries like ours. And so we know where to, there are solutions, we know where to out, where to stop the source, and so we also then know where to extend the possibilities of life, so it's a matter of sharing these solutions from one country to another, from one region to another.

YI: It seems that no program, however small, can succeed if it's not participated by the people, and the MDG is a huge program. What can be done to increase public understanding of, and participation in, this program.

Wit: I think there are more and more now, civil societies campaigning to keep on reminding their governments of their pledges done in the year 2000. Because government changes, policies are sometimes forgetting these longer-term commitments with more pressing short-term political commitments, and so civil society has to be there to keep on campaigning to remind them, and there are several campaigns now being generated globally as well as in countries like in Asia for instance, in the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, there is this campaign to, global call to stop poverty, also in developed countries, so civil society and the media need to remind government, need to campaign, to push, to pressure, and then also there are programs of parliamentarians, that are also monitoring how far their governments are in achieving the MDGs, and now we're also starting a huge effort to generate more and more local governments to actively participate in MDG campaigns as well as in MDG real achievements. And we also now have more popular artists, football players, all the UN ambassadors, will be campaigning more on the MDGs.