Global Policy Forum

By Thalif Deen

A Special Session of the UN General Assembly, which opens in Geneva Monday, is expected to be yet another battle ground for rich and poor nations to fight over a key weapon against global poverty resources.

The United States has expressed strong reservations over a Third World proposal for the creation of a World Solidarity Fund designed to help eradicate poverty and promote social development in the world's poorest regions.

The United States, Japan and the 15-member European Union (EU)- representing virtually the entire donor community - are also opposing a proposal urging donors to take "necessary action" to reverse the current decline in aid and meet the agreed target on official development assistance (ODA).

The proposal, sponsored by the 132 developing countries of the Group of 77, also seeks a stronger commitment from donors asking them to reach the target at least by 2005.

But industrial nations, who are refusing to agree on time-bound commitments, say they will only "strive to" meet the agreed target - nothing more.

In 1970, the General Assembly set a target of 0.7 percent of gross national product (GNP) as the quantum of aid that each of the rich countries was expected to provide developing nations. But so far, only four countries - Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden - have met or exceeded this target.

Ambassador Cristian Maquieira of Chile, chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the Special Session, told IPS that resources will be a key issue at the weeklong meeting which will review the successes and failures of the 1995 Social Summit in Copenhagen.

The Special Session, also called "Copenhagen-Plus-Five," will adopt three documents: a short political declaration reaffirming the commitments made at the Social Summit; a review and assessment of the implementation of those commitments; and new initiatives and actions to further implement the Programme of Action adopted in Copenhagen.

Maquieira said the Preparatory Committee, which consists of all 188 member states, has successfully negotiated about 90 percent of the political declaration and about 60 percent of the document spelling out new initiatives. Both documents will be further negotiated in Geneva.

On the other hand, he said, the document reviewing and assessing the Copenhagen Programme of Action has been fully negotiated by consensus.

Maquieira also pointed out that key discussions will also centre on resources for social development. Besides traditional sources such as ODA, the Special Session is looking at ways and means of finding new sources of funding, including taxation at the national and international level as a means to generate fresh resources.

"We will be discussing the 'T' word," he said, "meaning taxation".

He said there is a proposal to study the feasibility of a currency transaction tax called the Tobin tax.

The proposal, he said, is resisted by many countries. "The division is not entirely on North-South grounds because there are several Western nations which are supporting the Tobin tax," Maquieira added.

Named after James Tobin, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, the proposed tax is on the international movements of speculative capital.

Maquieira said there was also a proposal to tax transnational corporations on profits among the various jurisdictions in which they operate. Although the proposals for international taxes have been kicked around for years now, the strongest opposition has come from the United States.

The Washington-based General Accounting Office (GAO), a US watchdog body, has said the United States is opposed to any suggestion that the United Nations be granted authority to impose taxes.

"Because the United Nations is an organisation of sovereign states with no independent power of its own, it has no authority to impose taxes within the jurisdictions of its member states," the GAO said.

The GAO study also listed six options to raise revenues that have been discussed in the UN system -- the issuance of bonds; an international lottery; a UN-issued credit card; levies on international transportation- related activities and financial transactions; a UN-established international currency exchange; and borrowing of funds from the World Bank.

The proposal for global taxes has also been shot down by Senator Jesse Helms, a rightwing Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who advocates deep cuts in US funds for the world body.

At the Copenhagen Summit, representatives from 186 countries, including 117 heads of state or government, agreed on an agenda to make social progress a priority issue at the international level.

The world leaders also approved a Copenhagen Declaration containing 10 commitments to social development, including the eradication of poverty, the promotion of full employment, an increase in resources for social development and the promotion of equal rights for women.

Maquieira said the 10 commitments had been implemented "in different ways." Five years after the Summit is too short a time for implementing programmes, he said.

He also said that there are at least 173 countries which, in the aftermath of the Summit, came out with specific programmes on poverty eradication. This includes both rich and poor countries.

In other areas, he said, it takes more time to implement programmes. But the Copenhagen summit accomplished one thing: it put social issues on top of the international agenda.

He specifically pointed out two areas which produced results after Copenhagen: tariff concessions to least developed countries (LDCs) and debt forgiveness to some of the heavily indebted poor countries.

'When some people say: well, this is another conference and another waste of time. I don't agree with them. That's purely a cynical view of things," he added.

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