PRESS BRIEFING BY UNDP ON ANDEAN DEVELOPMENT

5 November 1996

Press Briefing

19961105 FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY

"Without resources there can be no development", United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Fernando Zumbado, told a Headquarters press briefing yesterday afternoon, as he introduced Dawn in the Andes, a report of the Latin American and Caribbean Development and Environmental Commission.

Mr. Zumbado was joined at the briefing by the President of the Inter- American Development Bank, Enrique Iglesias, the former UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean and a founder of the Commission, Augusto Ramirez Ocampo, and the following members of the Commission: Misael Pastrana Borrero, former President of Colombia; Oswaldo Hurtado, former President of Ecuador; Antonio Cafiero, Vice-President of the Senate of Argentina; Jose Goldemberg, former Minister of Science and Technology of Brazil; and Domingo Santa Maria, President of the Development Bank of Chile.

Mr. Zumbado said the report detailed the need for economic and social development. Without appropriate policies, it would be impossible to stem poverty in the region. The report gave a perspective on the future of the Amazon, how it related to the future of the Andes and what was needed to explore its enormous potential. The seven countries which shared the Andean range needed to share policies as well, and the report's goal was to make it easier for governments to rally around a shared position, to discuss regional solutions to regional problems and to develop a consensus on environment and human development. He noted that the report bore the same name as the mural in the delegate's lounge by the Colombian artist Alexandro Obregon.

Mr. Ramirez Ocampo said the report would be presented to the President's Summit on Sustainable Development at Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. The Andes were not a single entity, but a "bedrock of the kind of diversity left in the world today". It was rich in cultural diversity, with historically important indigenous governments and cultures. Today, it was vital to the future of sustainability in South America. The still unexplored systems of biodiversity were gravely endangered by the disorderly use of resources. The report discussed the region from both the Amazonian and the Andean perspectives and addressed, as well, the necessity for joint action to defend the energy potential and biodiversity of the region.

Mr. Ramirez Ocampo said the area had given the world a large array of foodstuffs, including potatoes and tomatoes. There were enormous possibilities for other indigenous products, such as quinea, a grain that could replace protein sources in the future. The report also dealt with the

UNDP Press Briefing - 2 - 5 November 1996

issue of governance and emphasized the need for more transparent, participatory and decentralized democracies. It recognized the importance of education and underlined the need to ensure compatibility between modern concepts in the use of resources and the survival of indigenous habits in farming and mining.

The report states that the cities have attracted extensive and ever-growing migration from the countryside, intermingling the indigenous world with the modern world, increasing the amount of poverty and creating conflicts of all kinds, he said. The environmental situation of the urban areas had deteriorated to lamentable extremes.

Fernando Romero, Ambassador of Bolivia in charge of the Summit to take place in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, said the report was prophetic because it summarized the many aspects of what sustainability meant in the quest for development, which was related to the models of development that had not provided good solutions.

Asked by a correspondent what those models were, Mr. Romero said that the first work of the Commission, Our Own Agenda, had referred to two enormously unsustainable development models: that of the North, which was a model of opulence and waste that would make it impossible to sustain development in the future; and that of the South, which was a model of poverty that destroyed the environment and undermined its protection.

Asked to explain how the current report was different from all the other reports that had been circulating since 1989, a member of the panel said that Dawn in the Andes presented a reality that was not properly known or appreciated, perhaps because the region harboured indigenous peoples who were among the poorest in the world. The report presented the realities of the Andean region.

A correspondent asked for comment on the World Bank's severe criticism of the Common Market of the Southern Cone (MERCOSUR), a backbone of integration in the Andean countries. The President of the Inter-American Development Bank, Mr. Iglesias, said the document that criticized MERCOSUR was not an official document of the Bank, but rather a statement by an expert. The international press had frequently criticized MERCOSUR. That criticism had a narrow view and was poorly focused. It did not reflect MERCOSUR's successes.

Continuing, Mr. Iglesias said MERCOSUR had not only increased exports in the region, but had increased imports from Europe and North America even more. Any free trade zone introduced deviations, but MERCOSUR was being asked to be more perfect in five years than others had been asked to achieve in a longer period of time. He regretted that the criticism distorted the efforts of MERCOSUR. It had negative repercussions not only for the region, but for the entire world.

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