Global Partnership for Development
The goal to ‘Develop a Global Partnership for Development’, was designed to enable
the achievement of the other MDGs. The key was to facilitate more conducive
conditions of international cooperation, generate adequate resources, create new
opportunities, and help build the capacities and skills needed to deliver on the first
seven MDGs.
MDG 8 is critical for lower develop countries (LDC’s) in the Asia Pacific region. In
general, LDCs in the region have weak productive capacities, limited space for domestic
resource mobilization, and are economically vulnerable to external shocks.
Since the 1970s, only one LDC, Maldives, has graduated from LDC status, although
Lao PDR, Bangladesh, and Bhutan have ambitions of graduating by 2020.
An important clause in MDG 8 is to ensure tariff- and quota-free access for the LDCs.
Even before the establishment of the MDGs, the LDCs had typically enjoyed duty-free
and quota-free access to developed country markets − notably through the Generalized
System of Preferences.
Across the world, there has been good progress in this area as by 2010 the proportion
of goods admitted to developed country markets duty free had reached 82 per cent for
the LDCs as a whole.
For Asia-Pacific LDCs, however, the proportion was only 69 per cent. This may be
because the various unilateral trade preference schemes do not cover some of the
goods produced by this region.
Developed countries also maintain protection for goods that are of particular importance
for the Asia-Pacific region: agricultural products, textiles and clothing.
Between 2000 and 2010, there were modest reductions in the average most-favourednation (MFN) tariffs applied by the developed countries to textiles and clothing, while for
agricultural products MFN tariffs remained mostly unchanged.
Overall, since the implementation of the MDGs, the Asia-Pacific LDCs, with the
exception of Bangladesh, have not made much progress in increasing their overall
export shares. Some of this may be due to tariff and non-tariff barriers in the export
markets, but the LDCs also have supply-side limitations.
A second major area within Goal 8, official development assistance (ODA), remains well
below target. Except in Afghanistan and Bangladesh the overall growth of the ODA has
lagged, and several LCDs have received very little ODA.
MDG 8 also includes communications indicators. Most Asia Pacific countries have
considerably increased the number of internet users per 100 people, led by the
Republic of Korea, then Singapore, Hong Kong (China) and Malaysia.
Those that are still low on this indicator include the Democratic Republic of Korea (0 per
100 people in 2009), Timor-Leste (~1 in 2011), Myanmar (~1 in 2011) and Papua New
Guinea (2 in 2011).
Mobile phone usage has surged in Hong Kong, China, and Macao. China has more
than 200 mobile cellular subscriptions per 100 people. In a number of other countries,
including Kazakhstan, Maldives, Russian Federation, Singapore and Viet Nam, the
number is between 150 and 200. The countries in the region with the fewest mobile
cellular subscriptions per 100 people are American Samoa, Myanmar, Kiribati,
Democratic Republic of Korea and Marshall Islands.