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Tuesday,
18 March 2002
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At a press conference this
morning, Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator, UNDP, said the
Conference wanted developing countries to give a higher priority
to social spending -- on education, health and the environment
-- and to democratic governance. In return, developed countries
would support them with more trade, market access, investment
and fresh external development assistance.
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At a press conference,
Jorge Castaņeda Gutman, Foreign Minister of Mexico, said his
Government looked forward to seeing demonstrations and protests
by Mexicans, as well as foreigners, but hoped that protestors
would avoid the violence seen during similar events elsewhere.
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The Conference elected
Mexican President Vicente Fox as Conference President, by
acclamation.
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Preparatory Committee Co-Chairs,
Shamshad Ahmad (Pakistan) and Ruth Jacoby (Sweden), presented
the Monterrey consensus to the Conference. Mr. Ahmad said
the United Nations should play a catalytic role in unleashing
globalizationīs potential to finance development.
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At a press conference,
Hartwig de Hean, Assistant Director-General of FAO, said hunger
was not only a consequence of poverty, but also one of its
major causes.
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Trevor Manuel, Minister
for Finance of South Africa, said greater openness to trade
and capital flows, as well as reform of international financial
arrangements, were essential.
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Ivan Simonovic (Croatia),
President of the Economic and Social Council, said that sharing
benefits of globalization by all was a fundamental prerequisite
for peace, security and well-being.
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Joseph Sanusi (Nigeria),
on behalf of the Group of 24, said that debt relief was not
enough to overcome the conditions that led to the debt overhang,
it must be complemented with extra resources and an improved
performance in the recipient countries to induce development.
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Myoung-Ho Shin, Vice-President,
Asian Development Bank, said that sustainable economic growth
and good governance must be addressed in the fight against
poverty.
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Emil Salim (Indonesia),
Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the World Summit
on Sustainable Development, said he hoped the development
agenda would cover environmental, economic and social development.
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Clare Short, Co-Chair
of the Ministerial Seminar of the Global Environmental Facility,
said poverty eradication was seen as the heart of
sustainability for the future of the planet. ODA must be used
in a way that invested in competent modern States.
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Rubens Ricupero, UNCTAD,
said the use of agricultural subsidies by developed nations
represented a major distortion in financing of development.
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Lennart Bage, IFAD, said
that development cooperation must focus on where the poor
were -- the rural areas.
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Didier Reynders (Belgium),
Chairman of the Group of 10, said that in the coming year
the G-10 would examine ways to improve the resolution of international
financial crises and to make the international financial system
more robust.
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Arun Shourie, India's Vice
Minister for Privatization and Chairman of the Group of 20,
said, "Help those who are willing and enable those in
want."
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Klaus Toepfer, UNEP, said
development was based on the three pillars of financial capital,
good governance and environment capital.
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Carol Bellamy, UNICEF,
said that children were the engine of development, and the
physical, emotional and intellectual impairment that poverty
inflicted on children could mean a lifetime of suffering and
want.
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Carlos A. Magariņos, UNIDO,
said that mobilizing domestic resources and developing an
enabling environment at the domestic level were of central
importance.
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Thoraya A. Obaid, UNFPA,
said action to end poverty was a matter of morality, and that
commitments to fight poverty and inequality must be matched
by resources.
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Seiichi Kondo, OECD, said
that there was potentially enough capital, goods, knowledge
and technology for the development of the whole world. The
challenge was to overcome barriers and impediments to mobilizing
those elements for developing countries to overcome persistent
poverty. Official development assistance (ODA) in the year
2000 totalled $50 billion. Developing countriesīcumulative
benefits from more open trade (from removal of barriers to
access and from greater productivity) if realized, were estimated
at $500 billion.
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Vijay S. Makhan, OAU, said
a good policy environment had been put in place in most countries
in the region, however, African efforts had not been sufficiently
complemented by the international community.
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Byron Blake, CARICOM, said
that development gaps were widening exponentially, and control
over the means of development was becoming increasingly concentrated
in a few countries, corporations and individuals.
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March 2002
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21 March 2002
22 March 2002 |
