• Mark Malloch Brown, UNDP Administrator, said global public goods could, in due course, lower overall public spending in industrial and developing countries. George Soros, President of Soros Fund Management, presented his initiative concerning special drawing rights (SDRs), which he said would be helpful for investment in developing countries.
  
  
• Jean-Claude Faure, OECD, said ODA rates rose in 1998 and 1999, then stabilized in 2000. Though too early to tell, ODA may have again increased in 2001.
  
  
• Poul Nielson (European Union), announced an increase in EU official development assistance to 0.39 per cent of gross national product -- from the currently 0.33 level -- which would translate into an extra $7 billion in aid per year by 2006.
  
  
• That a free market system would effectively address society's woes was pure science fiction, said Joy Kennedy of the Ecumenical Team. The Monterrey consensus was a weak, watered down, lowest common denominator document, but she was not ready to throw it out and start over.
  
  
• Conference Spokeswoman Susan Markham said that, as of today, 53 heads of State and government had confirmed their intentions to participate at the Summit portion of the Conference, which will take place on Thursday and Friday. A total of 171 Member States will participate in the event.
  
  
• Carol Bellamy, UNICEF, stressed that economic development must go hand in hand with human development.
  
  
• Rouben Indjikian, UNCTAD, said e-finance was steadily reshaping the world financial landscape and making inroads into the developing countries and transition economies.
  
  
• Alan Larson (United States) said the US would increase its international assistance by $5 billion over the next three budget years. Accountability on the part of both developed and developing nations, good governance, and an economic policy framework that promoted entrepreneurship were needed.
  
  
• Former United States President Jimmy Carter said that in agricultural protection policies alone, "we cost the developing world three times as much as all the overseas development assistance that they received from all sources".
  
  
• Josefina Vasquez, Secretary for Social Development of Mexico, said Mexico had come to the Conference, not only as a transition country and as a member of the OECD, but also acknowledging the backward stage in which many Mexicans lived. Social development was a right for all Mexicans.
  
  
• Didier Opertti-Badan (Uruguay), stressing the need for rules to govern capital and financial flows, said the Bretton Woods agreements should be revised. However, they had become, like the United Nations Charter, almost untouchable.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM LAST NIGHT'S PLENARY

• Rolf Boehnke, Common Fund for Commodities, said more than 1 billion people depended on export commodities. Many developing countries were endowed with rich natural and human resources, which could be harnessed.
  
  
• Maria Livanos Cattaui, International Chamber of Commerce, said indigenous domestic capital formation was the key to attracting foreign capital; micro-credit could serve a key role in start-ups.
  
  
• Jean-Jacques Graisse, WFP, said the Millennium Development Goals were far from being reached, as nearly 800 million people went hungry each day.
  
  
• Marika Falhen, Global Programme on HIV/AIDS, said that poverty bred the disease and the disease deepened poverty. AIDS was on track to single handedly wipe out 50 years of development gains in some developing countries.