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MONTERREY,
Mexico -- The Monterrey Conference on Financing
for Development (FfD) is a crucial middle act
in a three-act drama of international and multi-lateral
conferences according to Mark Malloch Brown,
Administrator
of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). "For
us in the United Nations this is a critical middle
step in a three-conference story line," he
said at the first official event as the conference
started Monday morning. "The first was the
Millennium Assembly where world leaders adopted
the Millennium Declaration." The Monterrey
conference is the second important meeting, and
the final meeting in this 'three-act drama' will
be the World Summit on Sustainable Development
in Johannesburg in August.
The
Millennium Declaration signed in May 2001 by the
then 189 member countries of the United Nations lists
eight development goals including the halving of
global poverty by the year 2015. The most critical
aspect of the Millennium agreement, said Malloch
Brown, is that it seeks to secure adequate Western
support to achieve these goals so "the burden
is not left solely on developing countries.
"Here in Monterrey this week is where
the rubber hits the road," he added. "If
we're successful this week, it gives us the
momentum to go to Johannesburg some months
from now and actually start to present action
plans around the development goals and secure
the partnerships of developing countries' own
contributions, the contributions of the private
sector, of nongovernmental organizations [NGOs]
and of others." While the conference is
about financing mechanisms and assessing how
money should be disbursed for development needs,
Malloch Brown stressed that a high level of
political commitment is an equally, if not
more, important part of the meeting. "Our
expectation for this conference is not to,
in an accountant's way, add up how much closer
we get to this much discussed 0.7 percent of
development assistance," he said. "While
that remains an enormously important long-term
target for everybody, we are much more interested
here in getting the kind of political will
and commitment that President Bush demonstrated
in his speech last week and that the Europeans
demonstrated at the Barcelona Summit."
President Bush announced last week that the
US would increase its development assistance
by five billion dollars over the next three
years. Critics have pointed out that this amounts
to a tiny increase in official development
assistance (ODA), taking the US to 0.12 percent
of GDP from its current level of 0.1 percent.
Malloch Brown countered this view, stressing
that donor countries were showing a change
in attitude by committing to increase development
assistance.
"Yes, the financial commitments are quite
modest and do not come close to the needs," he
said, "but the key point is that the political
debate has changed. It's now about getting
results for increased resources rather than
what it was in the past-a constant cut, cut,
cut, cut of development assistance. I want
to treat this glass as half-full rather than
half-empty. It's a dramatic change to re-engage
in development cooperation in a post Sept.
11 world and thereby reverse a decade of withdrawal
that had left regions like Africa with 40 percent
reductions in development assistance."
Nearly 60 heads of state and government will
attend the Monterrey conference, most arriving
on Thursday. In the meantime more than 300
ministers are already at the meeting along
with the heads of international financial institutions
including the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund. Despite the high-level commitments
there have been some concerns, mainly voiced
by NGOs, about the fact that the outcome document
for the conference does not have room for new
opinions and amendments as it is a consensus
document that in all likelihood will not be
changed.
"As a veteran of UN conferences let me
tell you about the power of having a consensus
document weeks before the conference," said
Malloch Brown. "It liberates world leaders
to focus on brainstorming and moving the agenda
forward and being able to rise above the terrible
battles over minor details which so often consume
these conferences. The document, we think,
has all the elements of the 'big global bargain'-better
performance by developing countries rewarded
with more support by the North, and benchmarked
and kept honest by the monitoring of the MDG
[Millennium Development Goals]."
Jorge
Castañeda, Foreign Minister of
Mexico, added that the consensus was essential,
but that it did not preclude further discussion
and input. "We need to strike the right
balance between the indispensable consensus
that we had to-and did-achieve at the PrepComs
through the adoption of the Monterrey document,
and at the same time being able to have the
participants of the conference engage in discussions
and debates on other issues that go beyond
the consensus of Monterrey," he said.
"All the ideas and goals of civil society
were not included in the final consensus," he
added. "But neither were all those of
Mexico, of Peru, of any of the other countries." In
the meantime, NGOs, especially many Mexican
organizations, are planning protests in the
coming week. Castañeda said that the
Mexican government welcomes demonstrations,
but hopes there will be no violence.
"Although there will be demonstrations,
protests, debates, alternative fora in the
city of the Monterrey-and there will be absolute
complete freedom granted by the Mexican government
to Mexicans and foreigners to come to Monterrey," he
said, "we hope, and are almost certain,
that we will be able to avoid any of the type
of confrontations in the streets that mar many
of these kinds of conferences in other countries."
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