issues_wssd.jpg (1968 bytes)

icon.gif (870 bytes) Financing for Development (FFD)

A first-ever ‘International Conference on Financing for Development’ is being held in Monterrey, Mexico, from March 18-22, 2002, at the behest of the UN General Assembly with the World Bank, IMF, WTO, UNDP and UNCTAD as the principal official stakeholders. The goal is to holistically take on board the various issues affecting development finance and to find innovative, efficient and urgent ways to finance poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Extensive participation is expected from Governments, international financial institutions, regional development bodies, civil society and businesses - and outcomes are expected to feed into the WSSD meet at Johannesburg. 5 regional meetings, several sectoral hearings and 4 prepcoms have transpired, with the last PrepCom concluding on January 27, 2002. The conference agenda is organised under six themes and outlined in the ‘Monterrey Consensus’, the main draft for discussion, titled "Confronting the Challenges of Financing for Development: A Global Response’: 
  • Mobilising domestic financial resources for development
  • Mobilising international resources for development: foreign direct investment and other private flows
  • Leveraging international trade for development
  • Increasing international financial cooperation for development through inter alia official development assistance
  • External debt
  • Addressing systemic issues related to the international monetary, financial and trading systems in support of development. 

While the conference is expected to be unique in terms of its scale of participation and scope in addressing the problem of mobilising enough resources for development and poverty alleviation, concerns are already being raised. These relate, among other things, to achieving environmentally ‘sustainable’ development, financing global public goods, overcoming traditional institutional barriers to development finance and reconciling Northern, Southern and global interests. A major determinant of the conference’s success will be to what extent it is able to (in addition to strengthening conventional finance through Official Development Assistance or ODA, Foreign Direct Investment or FDI, trade/debt) push through ‘innovative’ financing (such as a global tax like the Tobin tax or a carbon tax’) and integrate outcomes with WSSD. Details on the conference are available at www.un.org/esa/ffd.