"GLOBALIZATION: UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT DIALOGUE" RELEASED

Press Release
DEV/2237

‘GLOBALIZATION: UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT DIALOGUE’ RELEASED

Panel Discussion on Making Globalization Work For Development: What Role for United Nations? to Be Held at Headquarters

NEW YORK, 31 March (DESA) -- A new book released today in New York argues that a paradigm shift in development cooperation is in the making, to meet the challenges of development and poverty eradication in the era of globalization.

According to the book, entitled Globalization: The United Nations Development Dialogue, a new human development agenda is opening up for the international community, prompted by the global conferences of the 1990s, the urgency of which has been highlighted by the financial crises of 1997-1998 and manifested in Seattle and Davos. This book illuminates the potential role of the United Nations system to help diminish the pressure on the multilateral system. It argues that the United Nations could play a pivotal role in making globalization "work for development" and inject some of the necessary political impetus to advance human welfare around the world.

Revitalizing United Nations Economic and Social Council

The United Nations and, in particular, its Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) are well positioned as forums in which globalization can be discussed in a comprehensive, balanced and open manner. In many ways the Economic and Social Council is building its capacity to become a part of an institutional design needed for better management of globalization. An important dimension of such design is the close relationship between the Economic and Social Council and the Bretton Woods institutions aimed at contributing to a more stable and development oriented world financial system and for a rule-based and participatory global trade system. For the first time, high-level meetings were held with the senior management and governing bodies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as well as with the Director General of the World Trade Organization.

Another partnership with considerable potential for peace-building, post- conflict reconstruction and long-term development is the emerging cooperation between the Economic and Social Council and the Security Council, which contributed over the past year to the creation of a new international civilian mission and a long-term programme of support in Haiti and will be deployed again for dealing with the scourge of HIV/AIDS, particularly in Africa.

- 2 - Press Release DEV/2237 31 March 2000

Globalization with Human Face

A great deal of public anxiety calling into question the assumption that globalization creates higher welfare overall has emerge. Though potential benefits of globalization are considerable, access to those benefits presupposes an existing degree of wealth, or human resource development, that many developing countries and many people even in developed countries do not have. A key challenge is therefore to make globalization work for all, not just for the few. To illustrate the role of the United Nations and its Economic and Social Council in evolving rules for "globalization with a human face", the book presents key debates, statements and resolutions on issues such as the new financial architecture; trade; poverty; peace- building; and development indicators. In particular, the book contains the summaries of key meetings between the IMF, and the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the Economic and Social Council. It also brings together papers and contributions from academia, civil society and private-sector participants in panels organized in the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly.

To clarify the key contentions made in the book, journalists are invited to a panel discussion on "Making Globalization Work for Development: what role for the United Nations?” at the Trusteeship Council, United Nations Headquarters, on 31 March, at 1:30 p.m.

For further information contact Maria Lehtinen, tel.: 212-963-7478; e-mail: lehtinen@un.org.

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