From The Administrator

¡¡¡¡AT THE HISTORIC United Nations Millennium Summit last September, world leaders endorsed a set of shared development objective for the year 2015 that include;
¡¡¡¡£­ Halving the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day
¡¡¡¡£­Enrolling all children, boys and girls, in primary schools
¡¡¡¡£­Reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters and under-five child mortality by two-thirds
¡¡¡¡£­Halting and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases, and providing special assistance to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS
¡¡¡¡As governments and other actors now seek to live up to these promises, they need to take advantage of the growing body of knowledge, experience and tested tools to confront the challenges ahead.
¡¡¡¡We enter the 21st century with a much better grasp of what development is about. From a narrow focus on income growth, it is now widely understood that people-centered development combines sustainable growth, poverty eradication, human development, environmental protection, institutional transformation, gender equality and human rights protection. Broad consensus also exists on the need to expand growth and combat poverty at the same time. The challenge for UNDP and other multilateral actors is to help developing countries evolve the right mix of institutions to support their own development policies and priorities.
¡¡¡¡As we do this, we now have powerful new tools available, particularly information and communications technology (ICT). As the leading edge of globalization, ICT has helped to generate an unprecedented spread of wealth and knowledge in some parts of the world. But it has also led to the creation of a vast new digital divide that has exacerbated the gap between the rich and the poor the information have and information have-nots. Bridging this information gap is a daunting task. But firmly believe that if we approach the issue with smart thinking, real commitment and proper resources, information technology can do more to help the poor, the isolated and the excluded than nearly any other resource currently available in the development toolbox.
¡¡¡¡In all these activities, South-South Cooperation will inevitably be an immensely valuable resource for developing countries. Several of these countries have already made remarkable strides in achieving key development goals. Others can and must learn these lessons. In that context, I am very pleased to present to you the current issue of Cooperation South. One set of articles examines key global issues, while another explores experiences in development policy and performance which can benefit developing countries as well as aid programmes.

¡¡¡¡Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator
¡¡¡¡United Nations Development Programme