September 28, 2002
Meeting globally endorsed development goals "will require a sustained commitment of the international community to strengthen the coherence and consistency of the international monetary, financial and trading systems", the United Nations said in a statement delivered today to the meeting of the Development Committee of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, in Washington D.C.
Pledges made earlier this year at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, to improve the quantity of development assistance, and the quality of its delivery and deployment, constitute a notable improvement in the fight against poverty, and need to be followed up on, the UN said.
But the international community "has not yet developed a sufficient set of international frameworks, principles or policies for the world financial system to successfully mediate a stable, effective and adequate transfer of real resources to developing countries", Oscar de Rojas, UN Executive Coordinator for Financing for Development, said in the UN statement to the Bretton Woods Development Committee.
Follow-up on the Monterrey Consensus on financing for development was the primary agenda item of today's annual meeting of the Development Committee. The Monterrey Conference, organized by the United Nations with the joint participation of the Bank, the Fund and the World Trade Organization, stressed the need for coordinated action on the interrelated issues of aid, trade, debt, investment, improvement of national financial environments and international monetary, trading and financial systems.
Broadening the base for international decision-making
The Monterrey Consensus highlights the need for developing countries to improve governance and financial infrastructure. At the international level, it also calls for "broadening the base for decision-making on issues of development concern", the UN noted in its statement to the Bretton Woods Development Committee. "We welcome the concrete steps by the Bank and the Fund in this direction", the UN said. "More can and should be done."
Important areas of follow-up on Monterrey agreements were detailed in the statement by the United Nations to the Group of 24 developing countries, at their meeting in Washington yesterday. These include:
o increased and more effective participation of the developing countries in the international financial institutions;
o sustaining and broadening ongoing efforts by the Financial Stability Forum and the Basel Committee to allow greater participation by developing countries in discussion of financial system vulnerabilities and reforms of international standards and codes;
o fully taking into account the views of debtors as well as creditors in discussions of means to resolve sovereign debt crises; and
o taking into account the views and interests of developing countries in dialogues on international coordination on tax issues.
Shaky world economic outlook
The statement by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs to the G-24 also noted that the current world economic situation confirmed the skepticism about the strength of the global economic recovery that it expressed in its July 2002 report. "The short-term prospects for many developing countries and economies in transition remain somber", the UN said. "The worst predicament is faced by Latin America, where GDP is expected to decline in 2002 as a result of the financial and economic difficulties of the region and the weak external economic environment."
UN General Assembly
Follow-up on the Monterrey Consensus and related consideration of international economic and financial matters will be taken up by the UN General Assembly in its current session. In addition, the General Assembly will be addressed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan 4 October, regarding the first annual UN report on implementation so far of the Millennium Declaration. Included in the Declaration, which was agreed at the UN Millennium Summit in New York in 2000, are the Millennium Development Goals. The MDGs, including cutting extreme poverty in half by the year 2015, were considered to be guiding principles for the Monterrey conference in March 2002, and for the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, which concluded early this month.
More Information on Social and Economic Policy at the UN
More General Analysis on Poverty and Development
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