Negotiators near agreement on targets for poverty reduction

GENEVA - A United Nations summit on poverty reduction was drawing to a close Friday with delegates stressing the importance of debt relief, market access and more aid, but with few concrete commitments from rich or poor nations.

Negotiations continued into the evening on a declaration of intent aimed at making sure the money and the political will is in place to meet the summit's declared target of halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. The final agreement was not expected until Saturday.

The summit opened with high hopes, five years after the original poverty summit in Copenhagen drew up a set of commitments which have been largely ignored. The new declaration says its aim is to ''give new momentum to our collective efforts to improve the human condition.''

But pressure groups and grass-roots organizations said they could see little to give them confidence.

Rich countries ''haven't put their money where their mouth is,'' said Julian Disney of the International Council for Social Welfare.

In one of its few references to money, the document says it will cost $8 billion a year to achieve universal primary education.

To achieve this goal, the report says, ''It is ... essential that new, concrete financial commitments be made by national governments and also by bilateral and multilateral donors,'' but it does not commit nations to anything specific and the agreement is not binding.

Pressure groups said they were particularly disappointed that no mention was made of the so-called ''Tobin Tax'' - a plan to raise money for development by taxing currency transactions.

''We were disappointed that the language wasn't much stronger, that there wasn't a much more solid case made for a study - even implementation - of some kind of currency transaction taxes ... It is a very small step indeed,'' said David Pfrimmer of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.

The issues that divided the rich and poor at the meeting were the same ones which have hindered trade negotiations and other major conferences in recent months.

While developing countries complained that their products do not have fair access to world markets and that creditors are not moving quickly enough to write off crippling debt, rich countries said the developing nations must begin to help themselves - by eliminating corruption, putting comprehensive poverty reduction plans into place and ensuring basic human rights.

On top of that, countries struggled with the role of private companies and employers in poverty reduction and the need for rich countries to make larger donations.

The Copenhagen agreement called for developed countries to donate at least 0.7 percent of their gross national product in official development assistance, but only four nations - Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands - meet that target.

Among other major nations, France provides 0.4 percent, Japan 0.28 percent and the United States 0.1 percent.

The new declaration does make some proposals for poverty reduction, stressing the need to provide technological assistance to poor countries. It also calls for creditors to consider debt standstills when countries are faced with a sudden financial crisis.

Disney said there was a long way to go, but he was pleased that the meeting had taken place.

''This is part of a a very long fight against the forces of greed and inhumanity and hypocrisy,'' he said.

''One can't expect when one's up against powerful forces of that kind a dramatic or rapid victory, but it's a modest and useful step.''