Global Policy Forum

Helsinki Process Track Groups propose in their new reports a leader level G-20 to bridge North-South gaps. Track Groups see a need for a new instrument for coherent and legitimate global leadership. Helsinki Process Track Group reports have been released today simultaneously in World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Davos, and World Social Forum, Porto Alegre.

"We need urgently global political leadership and coordinated action to achieve the Millennium Development Goals of the UN," Foreign Affairs Ministers of Finland and Tanzania Erkki Tuomioja and Jakaya Kikwete, co-chairs of the Helsinki Process say. For the time being, G-7/8 is the closest suitable forum for this, but it is not sufficiently global in its membership. Helsinki Process Track Groups propose a regular summit of 20 (or thereabouts) heads of the government from the North and the South. This leader level G-20 could act as an effective coordinating mechanism for global economic governance.

One Track, led by former UN Under-Secretary-General Nitin Desai, proposes a G20 Summit to be rooted in broad-based consultations on membership, on rotation and on the possibility to represent a group of states, undertaken by some disinterested countries. "It may also be possible to use the reconstituted UN Security Council of 24, proposed recently by UN High Level Panel, as a legitimate basis for the composition of this ‘development coordination council,'" Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland Erkki Tuomioja says.

Fight Against Corruption, Air Travel Fee for Public Health

"What we need to do now is to translate our promises into action for the global majority of the poor by doubling aid, opening markets and canceling debt. We also need to find a new, more open and participatory approach to root out corruption, which is one of the main obstacles for development," Minister Erkki Tuomioja notes.

The Helsinki Process Track Groups have today released three reports. The published reports are on new approaches to global problem solving, on financing for development, and on human security. The reports include proposals such as public-private partnership to combat corruption, full cancellation of poor country debt, doubling aid, reforming agricultural trade, negotiating a global arms trade treaty, creating a World Environment Organization as well as a joint accountability report of the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. The Helsinki Process Track Groups also propose the introduction of an international travelers' fee for financing global public health. The fee would be similar to an international security fee which has been paid by international travelers on top of their airfares after 9/11.

Helsinki Process Bridges Davos and Porto Alegre

The Helsinki Process brings together business life, civil society, and governments of the North and the South to search for concrete solutions to problems created by globalization. The Helsinki Process Track Groups, formed of experts from around the world, have been developing ideas for policy recommendations for the Helsinki Group, a group of 22 eminent persons from business life, civil society and governments. The final policy recommendations will be formulated by the Helsinki Group, co-chaired by the Foreign Ministers of Finland and Tanzania, Mr. Erkki Tuomioja and Mr. Jakaya Kikwete.

The Helsinki Group is scheduled to deliver its final report by June 2005. The Helsinki Conference, titled Mobilizing Political Will, will be held in Helsinki in September 2005.