PRESS BRIEFING ON MEETING BETWEEN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL, BRETTON WOODS INSTITUTIONS, WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

PRESS BRIEFING ON MEETING BETWEEN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL,

BRETTON WOODS INSTITUTIONS, WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

More coherence was needed between international financial trade and monetary policies and development institutions, Oscar de Rojas, Director of the Financing for Development Office in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said at a Headquarters press briefing today.

He told correspondents that today’s yearly meeting between the Economic and Social Council, the Bretton Woods Institutions -- the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- and the World Trade Organization (WTO), was devoted to the theme of coherence, a very important aspect of the International Conference on Financing for Development held at Monterrey, Mexico, in 2002.  Monterrey had set up a much more streamlined follow-up process compared to those of other major United Nations meetings such as the Cairo Population Conference, the Beijing Women’s Conference and the Rio Earth Summit.  The Monterrey Conference had decided to use some of the main United Nations organs -– the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council -- to follow-up on financing for development issues.

Outlining the structure of today’s proceedings, he said they had included a plenary session in the morning, with representatives of the intergovernmental institutions involved making statements to explain their activities in implementation of the Monterrey Consensus.  In addition to the World Bank, IMF and WTO, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) took part.

He said that even though there had been no negotiated outcome or resolution adopted at the end of the meeting, the summary by the President of the Economic and Social Council formed the basis of subsequent action that the Council may take at its regular session in July, or even by the General Assembly when it took up the matter in the fall.  The President’s summary is expected in the next few days.  Also available to the meeting was the Secretary-General’s note in which he posed a number of questions on the issues before the meeting.  Forming the basis of today’s discussions, the note was prepared in close consultation with the secretariats of other stakeholders.

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