New York, October 30, 2003
Statement by Roberto Bissio, director of Instituto del Tercer Mundo on behalf of Social Watch and the International Facilitating Group of NGOs on the Financing for Development (FfD) follow-up. High-level dialogue on Financing for Development United Nations General Assembly.
Mr. President,
I was honored with the task of moderating one of the civil society hearings in preparation of this session last Tuesday. In summarizing the main messages emerging from those sessions, let me start by thanking the secretariat for organizing this innovative and valuable mechanism, that resulted in an active dialogue with country delegations and international organizations. We hope these hearings will have an increased participation in future sessions, as we also hope that the follow-up of the Monterrey Summit on Financing for Development gains strength and time and competes less with other meetings.
Through six major interventions and during the debate, the NGOs assessed progress and setbacks since Monterrey and suggested a vision and concrete steps for the future. The Monterrey conference was hailed as a success because it resulted in pledges of additional funds. And total ODA actually increased 5% in 2002. Yet this is an increase relative to the lowest levels of development aid contributions in history and it is a small fraction of the money deemed necessary to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. In the same year, before the Iraq war, military expenditure in the world grew by 6%, reaching 794 billion. Money still seems to be more easily available for war than for development.
Several mechanisms to raise resources were identified by civil society organizations during the hearings, like for example the proposed International Finance Facility, taxes and levies on the utilization of the global commons, the proposed currency transaction tax and last but not least the recovery of assets taken out of our countries by corruption, which could be agreed in the framework of the FfD follow-up and the implementation of the international convention against corruption.
The experience of Argentina was debated, as a dramatic example of how, once more, "model countries" failed dramatically. The consequences of these repeated failures were suffered by the people, and particularly by women and children and not by those that recommended the policies or implemented them. We also learned from these dramatic crises that macroeconomic policies
are not gender blind.
Mr. President,
The need for monitoring implementation of the pledges made in Monterrey has been repeatedly mentioned in these days. Social Watch has been monitoring internationally agreed commitments since the 1995 Social Summit and we regret to have to report that in the "new contract" emerging from Monterrey, one side has still to meet its part of the deal. The developed countries are not meeting Goal 8 of the MDGs, and among them the members of G7 are those lagging behind. In fact there seems to be an inverse ratio, the greater and more powerful the country is, the slower it moves towards meeting its commitments.
The promise of a development round made in Doha and praised in Monterrey failed to materialize in Cancun. The lack of agreement shows governance problems that have historic roots. The role of the UN has been reduced in the last two decades by a political decision of the G7. The Bretton Woods Institutions and the WTO have encroached in areas not in their original mandate. The WTO should do trade, and not services or health policies through TRIPs; the IMF should do finances - ensure stability, combat volatility and speculation, and not trade policies by demanding unilateral liberalization; the World Bank should support well designed projects and not impose structural adjustments.
The United Nations should recover its role of setting normative standards, particularly in human rights, labour rights and social policies. There is a scandalous inbalance in the enforceability of corporate rights through trade sanctions and the lack of power of human right treaties, including the right to life itself.
Finances, trade and development are inter-related, as Monterrey recognized, but nobody is looking at the relation. The need of a supervising body like a Social and Economic Security Council has been suggested. While such an ambitious reform is negotiated, concrete steps can be taken now, during this session of the General Assembly.
Concrete steps that can be taken are outlined in the paper of the NGO International Facilitating Group called A political agenda for the reform of global governance (pdf format). Allow me to mention some of them:
Following the Monterrey recommendations, we need to change the voting powers in the Bretton Woods institutions, ensure more representation of developing countries in their boards and regular accountability towards the UN General Assembly. The WTO has to be brought into the UN family. There is a gap in global governance related to debt: All decisions on debt sustainability, amount and conditions of relief are done by the creditors. The world needs a UN led mechanism to ensure fair and balanced burden sharing.
The civil society organizations therefore urge the General Assembly to adopt the recommendation made by the UN secretary general in paragraph 137 of his report to establish an expert group on debt.
ECOSOC needs to be strengthened and the mentioned IFG document explains how. Expert working groups with civil society participation can advise policy decisions. A permanent ECOSOC executive committee needs to be set up as described in paragraph 182 of the secretary general report.
In summary, the spirit of Monterrey that we all praise, needs to find a body to live in.
The Monterrey summit was symbolized by an albatross, that contrary to all previsions could indeed fly. Now we need to make sure that by 2005 the albatross can find an appropriate nest to incubate her eggs.
Thank you, Mr. President.
