How the respective governments of 40 Asian and European foreign ministers will prioritize sustainable development is key to achieving the United Nations-led poverty reduction goals and coordinated fight against climate change.

This was what the senior officials who attended the two-day Asia and Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Manila stressed as their respective countries’ foreign ministers meet on May 25-26 in Vietnam.

The ASEM attendees assessed the UN-led Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which their heads of states committed to in the October 2008 Beijing Declaration. They were hoping their foreign ministers would pick up on the results of the Manila discussions in the upcoming Vietnam meeting, and subsequently in the high-level ASEM summit in Germany on October 2010.

“Participants acknowledged the need for strong political will to achieve the Beijing Declaration objectives,” the ASEM Manila delegates said in a statement Tuesday.

Money talks

Koos Richelle, director of the EuropeAid Cooperation Office, said none of the countries that committed to the MDGs is on track in meeting the goals. “Not one country is on track,” he said.

This makes the MDG targets more urgent, said Richelle, adding that world leaders should have “continued attention on the political level.”

The performance of countries in the MDGs speaks volumes of “how much money,” are leaders willing to “put in their goal,” the co-chair in today’s ASEM stressed.

This “money” includes foreign aid—one of the ways countries demonstrates their commitment to sustainable growth. Countries, after all, impact each other.

On Monday, Richelle stressed that foreign aid would be rendered useless if recipient governments fail to deliver tangible results.

The foreign aid provider, however, could draw on its purse power to demand policy reforms in the beneficiary country. Donor states in the ASEM event said they preferred that developing countries do not look at them as sources of “free lunch.”

Delegates from developing countries countered that this is not the case. They said they have realized that long-term commitments from the donor countries are important as they strive to increase resources on their own. Down the road, they said they could eliminate development gaps and survive climate change.