Note to Correspondents

UN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL TO MEET WITH BRETTON WOODS INSTITUTIONS,

WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION ON MONDAY, 14 APRIL

Secretary-General Kofi Annan will deliver the opening statement to a key meeting on financing global development, hosted by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Monday, 14 April.

The event will bring finance ministers and policy makers of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to New York, one day after the conclusion of the Bretton Woods annual spring meeting in Washington, D.C.  Addressing the morning session of the meeting in the ECOSOC Chamber will be South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, chairperson of the Bretton Woods Development Committee, and Lebanese Finance Minister Fouad Siniora, chairperson of the
Bretton Woods-associated “Group of 24” developing countries.

Also speaking in the main plenary session will be Mary Whelan, chairperson of the Trade Policy Review Body of the World Trade Organization, and German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul.

The meeting, a follow-up review to last year’s development finance summit in Monterrey, Mexico, takes place under conditions of a continuing global economic slowdown, uncertainties about the war in Iraq and stalled international trade talks.

Key finance, development cooperation and economic ministers, together with leaders of multilateral institutions and Executive Directors of the Bank and the Fund, will participate in this meeting to assess the progress in the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus, agreed at the conclusion of the
18-22 March International Conference for Financing for Development, to promote the future course of Financing for Development and to improve coordination and policy coherence among the institutions.

The 54-member Economic and Social Council has taken a lead role in other international policy areas in recent years.  Its 1999 “Manifesto on Poverty”, in many respects, anticipated the development goals that were approved at the
United Nations Millennium Summit in New York the following year.  The Council’s Ministerial Declaration in 2000 proposed specific actions to address the digital divide, leading directly to the formation in 2001 of the United Nations

Information and Communication Technologies Task Force.  The ECOSOC’s consideration of African development resulted in the first formal international endorsement of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), also in 2001.

For information, contact Tim Wall of the Development Section of the United Nations Department of Public Information, tel.: 1-212-963-5851, e-mail: wallt@un.org.

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