New effort on financial front to mobilize resources for development

Preparatory Committee Meeting on Financing

for Development, 15–19 October, at Headquarters

(Received from a UN Information Officer.)

NEW YORK, 15 October -- Noting that in today’s world, “someone else’s poverty and despair very soon become one’s own problem”, the draft text for an international conference on mobilizing resources for accelerated development will be under negotiation for the first time at a

15 to 19 October meeting at the United Nations.

The New York meeting is the resumed third session of the Preparatory Committee for the International Conference on Financing for Development, which will take place from 18 to 22 March in Monterrey, Mexico.  The Conference is organized by the United Nations and involves the close participation of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, non-governmental organizations and business.  Another distinctive feature of the Monterrey summit is that countries will be represented at a high level by both finance and foreign ministries.

The negotiating text calls for international systems of finance and trade that fully support economic growth and social justice, and for “strengthened multilateralism” to ensure that national and international resources are available for fulfilling universally agreed development goals, such as those contained in the Millennium Declaration.

In the Millennium Declaration, world leaders pledged that, by the year 2015, the proportion of people suffering from severe poverty and from hunger should be cut in half; all boys and girls equally will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling; maternal mortality and under-five mortality rates will be sharply curtailed; and the spread of deadly diseases such as AIDS and malaria will be halted and reversed.

As per its United Nations General Assembly mandate, the International Conference on Financing for Development will seek discussion and decision on six interlinked areas:  mobilizing domestic financial resources; cross-border investment; international trade; official development assistance; debt relief; and the international financial architecture.

Representatives of non-governmental organizations will attend the five-day “PrepCom” at United Nations Headquarters in New York  In addition, a Steering

Council that will marshal the viewpoints of the private sector will be inaugurated on Wednesday, 17 October, on the third day of the Preparatory Committee.

Preparatory Committee deliberations will take place in Conference Room 2 of the Secretariat Building.

The fourth and final meeting of the Preparatory Committee will take place in January 2002, also in New York.

It is expected that governmental representatives of the Preparatory Committee will hold a press conference on the morning of Thursday, 18 October.

Reporters without United Nations credentials who wish to attend should fax a letter of assignment to 212-963-4642, and follow up with a call to the United Nations Media Accreditation Unit at 212-963-7164.

For more information, or to obtain interviews, please contact Tim Wall,

1-212-963-5851, wallt@un.org; or Nick Snyder, 1-212-963-4382, snyder@un.org, at the United Nations Department of Public Information.

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