Brining home globalization or globalization, home; Second Committee: Economic and Financial - GA 57 Session

UN Chronicle, March-May, 2003

Three UN conferences held in 2001 and 2002 left in their wake commitments on development. The Second (Economic and Financial) Committee, in discussing these commitments, marked a turning point in deciding how to measure them against the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals, one aim of which is to halve poverty by the year 2015.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa in August/September 2002 associated poverty reduction with environmental protection; the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico in March 2002 was concerned with resource shortfalls for development goals; and the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar in November 2001 declared that it put the interests of the developing world at the heart of trade reform. These conferences bracketed three main needs of developing countries: sustainable development, finance and commerce for development.

The Committee passed four resolutions to specify targets, set time frames and evaluate achievements as a follow-up to the conferences. "That became a turning point for how the United Nations is doing business with the Bretton Woods institutions", Committee Chairman Marco Antonio Suazo Fernandez of Honduras told the UN Chronicle. "It was a complicated matter", he said, "how to fulfil the demanding need of developing countries after those huge conferences, where donors and the Bretton Woods institutions made a lot of commitments to eradicate poverty." The Committee also decided to review its work programme in light of the commitments made.

The General Assembly decided to hold a high-level dialogue by October 2003 involving WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and civil society to "evaluate progress" after Monterrey. The conferences raised hopes in the developing world as it faced unilateral trade barriers, Ambassador Suazo Fernandez said. "Developing nations can be rich in resources, but if you don't have the possibility to exploit them and put them in the market for your own people, then you are stuck."

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), between 1980 and 2001 exports of the developed world shot up from $1,296 billion to $3,919 billion, with 64 per cent share in world trade, while exports of the developing world climbed from $581 billion to $1,922 billion, with 30 per cent share.

In the debate on measures to cut poverty, delegates from Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, India, Myanmar, and Venezuela, among others, said the commitment in Monterrey by developed nations to increase the official development assistance (ODA) to 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP)--roughly $100 billion--must be realized alongside increased access to developed markets.

"It's a kind of a package" involving developed and developing nations, Chairman Suazo Fernandez said. "If you want us to increase our ODA, then you have to have good governance, fair and free elections and combat corruption." Whereas the donors had the same message, the same structure, the same philosophy--"we will give you something, help your own poor people, don't steal"--he said that for the developing nations their share of the burden was more complicated. "The G-77 is more than 180 countries of the 191 in the UN, so you cannot compare the economic and social system in India with that of Cuba, with that of Brazil or Argentina or Indonesia or Thailand", he said.

The debate on poverty concluded in a consensus resolution with the "developing countries not denying responsibility" for their part in the problem, the Chairman told the Chronicle, and with the General Assembly adopting without a vote the text on "Implementation of the first United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006)".

According to UNCTAD, eight of every ten persons in the least developed countries (LDCs) spend less than $2 a day and are said to suffer generalized poverty. Of the 49 LDCs, 16 are landlocked countries whose trade advantage is dependent on transit rights and transport infrastructure in neighbouring countries. Reporting before the Committee, the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, Anwarul Chowdhury of Bangladesh, said high transport costs slowed export growth, increased import prices and limited trade gain.

The representative of the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Saleumxay Kommasith, told the Chronicle that the complexities of geography made his country's products uncompetitive. "For Laos to ship its goods, it has no choice but to use the designated transport-source companies in transit countries", he said. "This results in high costs. We want concrete measures to address three aspects: liberalization of transport services; roads. communication, port and checkpoint facilities; and easier document processing and customs procedures in transit countries."