PRESS BRIEFING ON PREPARATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT FINANCING CONFERENCE

The Co-Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for next year’s International Conference on Financing for Development Shamshad Ahmad of Pakistan, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference today that the Conference was not to be seen as a “stand-alone event”, but as the first building block in a long and continuing process aimed at evolving a new paradigm for development based on new patterns of cooperation in terms of healthy trade, investment, partnership, and interdependence.  Reporting on the work of the Preparatory Committee at its current session, he said the basic purpose of the Committee would be to discuss a draft text that would address the key financial issues related to development while taking into account the views of not only the Member States of the United Nations but those of representatives from all major international development institutions as well.

[The international conference is to take place in Monterrey, Mexico, from 18-22 March, 2002.]

Mr. Ahmad said that although the international community had, for more than a decade, made various commitments to advance the goals of development at major United Nations Conferences, the “long cherished goal of universal prosperity has remained elusive”. As the world witnessed ever-widening income and social gaps between the “haves” and the “have-nots”, there was now a growing realization that, in the rapidly globalizing world, development should be a shared agenda and goal, requiring coherent, collaborative, and consistent support from all stakeholders.

He recalled that at the Millennium Summit, leaders of the international community had resolved to spare no effort to free more than 1 billion people from dehumanizing extreme poverty.  They had expressed concern at the obstacles faced by developing countries in gaining resources for sustainable development, and had committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone, as well as to freeing the entire human race from want. 

The Financing for Development process, he went on, provided a unique opportunity to build a global partnership to address today’s complex problems.  The Preparatory Committee had had three sessions, with a final session to be held in January, by which time he hoped a discussion document would have been prepared.  Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been actively involved in the preparatory process, he said, and their leaders had given assurances that they, as stakeholders, would play their roles “from beginning to end”.

A correspondent asked why there was such a gap between the specific recommendations laid out in the Secretary-General’s report on Financing for Development and the recommendations in the draft document for the Conference, which seemed to be “loose and non-specific”.  Mr. Ahmad explained that although it was important, the report was only one input among many in a process that sought at all times to be comprehensively consultative.  If the intent was to follow only the recommendations of the Secretary-General, then there would not be any need for a Preparatory Committee.  To be successful in creating a usable document, input

from many sources must be included.  The views of 189 Member States had to be taken into account and there had also been interactive dialogue with Civil Society, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the World Bank, the IMF, and even the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The spirit of cooperation that had characterized the process thus far was expected to continue and be sustained, he said.  The objective of the Financing for Development Process was very clear:  to build strong partnerships and maximize mutual cooperation to create an enabling international environment which delivered fruits of development to all parts of the global village.  

Another correspondent asked for Mr. Ahmad’s thoughts on the statement made to the Committee earlier this week by the Australian representative who said the draft document was “inappropriate, impractical and ineffective”.  Mr. Ahmad replied that, as the forum where Members States get together to discuss those issues, the Preparatory Committee was the correct place for those comments.  Because the six topics being dealt with in Financing for Development were important and sensitive, there were bound to be differences of opinion.

He listed the issues as:  mobilizing domestic resources for international development; mobilizing international resources for development; international trade; increasing international financial cooperation for development through official development assistance (ODA); external debt; and addressing systemic issues of coherence and consistency in the international monetary, financial and trading systems.

He said perceptions had to be different in a world in where there were “two humanities” -- one quarter of the population had three-quarters of the wealth and was “embarrassingly rich”; the other humanity was “desperately poor”.  The United Nations had been created to provide a “moral edifice and genuine, multilateral basis” for a world community governed by rules.  The reality was that the world was governed by power politics and political expedience.

Progress in minimizing those differences had therefore been “woefully slow”, but would be easier to make because the process was not a “tug-of-war between North and South”. Problems could be overcome through consensus and through processes like the one through which the Preparatory Committee was being conducted.

The draft text that was under negotiation was the first draft, he said.  It was “raw meat” to which ingredients would be added.  He hoped that by the time the final preparatory session ended next January, a “delicious goulash” agreeable to all would have been shaped.      

Another correspondent asked whether at earlier United Nations conferences differences between rich and poor countries had been resolved to the point where they could work together.  Mr. Ahmad said there was no substitute for diplomacy and negotiations, whether or not they produced any results.  The United Nations remained a constructive forum, which at least kept alive the hopes for a world community.

He said the world was passing through troubled times -- both economically

and politically -- in which the entire international community was vulnerable to

any negative development taking place in any part of the world.  The shocks of those events were now transmitted through the world at “electronic pace”.  It was hoped that the fruits of prosperity would spread throughout the world, even if not at such velocity.  The process of development was one of the most important rights of human beings today. 

Asked whether he thought the problems facing the world at the moment were the result of tensions between those with power and the powerless, Mr. Ahmad said the attacks of 11 September were regarded with horror, anger, and sorrow, and that they had been a “wake-up call” not just to one country, but to the entire world. The phenomenon of terrorism did not represent any culture, region or religion.  It had no faith, religion or culture and had only one language:  brutal violence.  The entire world community had to fight terrorism resolutely and together.  It could not be eliminated by punishing a few hundred individuals.  To properly confront terrorism, or any other disease, the root causes must be addressed. Looking at the situation objectively, the root problems appeared to be oppression and injustice.  If the international community rooted out the causes of oppression and injustice, it would be free of all pain and disease.    

* *** *