Mr President, if the world were a village with a population of one hundred, 61 would be Asian, 13 African, 12 European, eight North American and six South American. Two or three of the people in the village would have an Internet connection at their disposal. Sixteen would own a telephone. Sixty-five of the inhabitants of the global village would have gone to school at some stage of their life, at least for a while. Every year in the village there would be one funeral, and at least two more children would be born there. The World Bank classifies those living on an income of less than one dollar a day as the absolutely poor. This is a partly misleading indicator because it does not, for example, take account of how important public and community services are to the poor. Neither does it say anything about the significance of health, powerlessness, or insecurity. Besides wealth we should also be speaking about power. Apart from the matter of wealth being amassed by just a few, we should turn our attention to how the common wealth is managed, as represented, for example, by common lands and areas, the oceans, most forest areas, natural diversity, the earth’s climatic system, public areas in cities, public libraries, schools, hospitals, and scientific and traditional knowledge. The debate on globalisation and poverty is generally about one of the dimensions of poverty only: income and consumption poverty. Furthermore, the arguments in favour of and against globalisation are often tied to the economic definitions of poverty: its advocates say it increases GNP, and its opponents point out that food is becoming more expensive and unemployment is growing. Consumer culture and thinking that centres on the economy result in a paradox: the richer we are the more things are also in short supply, because globalisation alters needs and changes the nature of poverty. Many local communities, which have not been stripped of their natural resources or where the natural resources have not been destroyed, which have sufficient food and shelter, and where the community culture thrives, may be at least as good places to live as cities in rich countries. One consequence of globalisation, however, is that many members of what was once a prosperous local community become members of the global community and suffer as a result. For that reason it is a very good thing that the excellent report drawn up by my colleague, Mrs Ferrer, argues the case for partnership strongly and on every page. It acknowledges those errors and mistaken attitudes of development policies which prevailed for far too long, such as the concentration on technical solutions and the reliance on foreign models. It recognises the need for a participatory process and grassroots opinion. I would also like to emphasise how important it is for people to have a right to their own natural resources. I can only hope that this will be taken seriously in the Member States when development cooperation resources are distributed and allocated. In my country there were elections in March. During the election campaign nearly all the parties promised to increase appropriations for development cooperation. As a pious hope, it even got as far as the government programme; however, the actual implementation was left to the next government. Thus, preparations are not being stepped up, and in the globalising world we too will have to pay for that before long.

Political group: PPE-DE