Is there any reason to believe that next year will be any better for the countries of the developing world? Paul Cullen thinks not.
'If 2003 was a year of deep division, and 2004 has been a year of sober reflection, 2005 must be a year of bold action.' So said the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, speaking in Dublin at the National Forum on Europe in October 2004
Optimism tends to be a commodity in plentiful supply at this time of the year, especially among those charged with improving the lot of the world. Yet anyone taking a cool, clear look at the prospects for the developing world over the coming year would have to look long and hard for favourable signs in the tea-leaves.
Bono is one campaigner who believes 2005 will be a "great year" for the poor of the world, but it's hard to see what his hopes are based on. It's true that a number of high-profile reports (Jeffrey Sachs's report for the UN, Tony Blair's Commission on Africa) and summits (WTO, the G8) are slated for 2005, but isn't that the case every year? Even Kofi Annan has shied away from positive predictions - understandably, perhaps, given the corruption scandal affecting the UN, division over its reform plans and its continued sidelining from events in Iraq and elsewhere.
The world's main yardstick for global progress these days is the UN's Millennium Development Goals, a 15-year programme which aims to halve global poverty, provide education for all, halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, cut child deaths and slow environmental degradation.
Four years into the programme, the signs are not good. Most of the eight targets are seriously off course and the professed commitment of the developed countries to the MDGs is beginning to look like lip-service.
Yet Oxfam has quantified in stark terms what will happen between now and 2015 if current trends continue and the MDGs are not reached: 45 million more children will die; 247 million more people in sub-Saharan Africa will be living on $1 a day; 97 million more children will remain out of school; 53 million more people will lack proper sanitation.
So why is the West failing to meet the UN's goals, with the appalling results listed above? One reason is that the US and other Western countries are still obsessed with the Middle East and the security threat which has arisen since 9/11. But, to understand what is really happening, it is helpful to look at each of the giant steps envisaged for mankind by the MDGs as a series of smaller measures.
One of these, for example, is the commitment by wealthy countries to increase their overseas aid to the UN target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product in a definable time period. Meeting this target would make another $120 billion available to help the world's poor. By way of comparison, Western consumers spend $33 billion a year on cosmetics.
We can understand better how the MDGs are going awry globally by examining the faltering efforts of one country - Ireland - to reach one part of one goal, the aid target. Few issues have been the subject of so many and such clearly-stated promises in recent years, but none of this has stopped the Taoiseach and his ministers breaking their own commitment to reach the 0.7 per cent target by 2007 with breathtaking insouciance.
Back at the parish pump, the same old factors that have always held back the aid programme kicked in once again; even when massive amounts of money were available, overseas aid just didn't rate when pitted against rival demands for cash to spend on better services for the sick and disabled.
For decades, we were told that Ireland was too poor to spend more on overseas aid; now, extraordinarily, the Minister for Finance, Mr Cowen, argues that the Government would have reached its target if the economy had gone into recession.
One of the more tantalising prospects for next year will come in September, when the UN is due to review progress on the MDGs in New York. Just how Bertie Ahern plans to explain away his failure to honour the solemn pledge on aid that he made at the same venue in 2002 isn't known, but here's hoping he doesn't resort to yet another meaningless promise.
If we can't meet the aid target, maybe Ireland and its neighbours can do something else to give a leg-up to developing countries - like opening up their wealthy markets to imports. But that means standing up to the farming lobby, something no Irish government is prepared to do. Check out the WTO trade summit in December for progress on this front.
If Ireland can't reach the aid target - and meet its own promises - it is poorly placed to lecture other countries on what they are doing.
Perhaps it's time for us to take a rest from our self-serving, self-adopted leadership role in such matters. Not that there are many role models elsewhere. Only five countries have reached the 0.7 per cent target. In real terms, the wealthy countries spend half as much on aid today as they did in the 1960s.
Global funds for tackling AIDS, TB and malaria have only one-quarter of the sums they need to carry out vital work in 2005.
Sometimes it seems that our optimism - however unfounded - is all we have to offer the world's poor.