SECOND COMMITTEE DELEGATES AGREE ON NEED FOR BETTER
MONITORING OF MONTERREY CONSENSUSIMPLEMENTATION
AS DEBATE CONCLUDES
NEW YORK, 12 November (UN Headquarters) -- While agreeing on the need to better monitor implementation of the Monterrey Consensus, delegates to the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) this morning proposed various courses of action for tracking and sustaining progress, as they concluded their discussion on Follow-up to the International Conference on Financing for Development.
Japan’s representative said that a monitoring mechanism should laud successful efforts and their concrete effects on development, as well as encourage further work, cautioning that neither the North nor the South should use it to point fingers over any lack of progress. Many developing countries were working hard to create domestic environments that would be conducive to development, while slowly implementing the Monterrey Consensus. The question now was, whether States could generate and sustain the political will to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
Iran’s representative, noting that the mid-term and long-term nature of the actions and recommendations contained in the Monterrey Consensus would not necessarily lead to immediate results, called for an assessment of current trends, approaches and activities undertaken by institutional stakeholders, governments and other participants to ensure that implementation was moving forward. Permanent offices should be created in the secretariats of relevant institutions to coordinate follow-up and better coherence in the international monetary, financial and trading systems.
Canada’s representative said that all stakeholders must be full players in the financing for development process, in order to maintain the spirit of partnership that had emerged at Monterrey. The international community must expand outreach and participation, in existing efforts concerning tax and sovereign debt, among other issues, rather than duplicate the work of the United Nations, in that regard.
Meanwhile, the representative of the Barbados, speaking on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), welcomed the attention paid to the needs of small island developing States during the High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development. Small States were more easily hurt than others by globalization and trade liberalization and international standards, codes and norms should be based on the principle that all countries had the right – not the privilege – to participate, that all participants be treated equally, and that the monitoring of international standards be conducted through a mutual evaluation process or peer review.
Also this morning, representatives of Morocco introduced, on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, eight draft resolutions on the promotion of new and renewable sources of energy, including implementation of the World Solar Programme 1996-2005; further implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States; international trade and development; unilateral economic measures, as a means of political and economic coercion against developing countries; rules of procedure of the Governing Council of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT); implementation of the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) and the strengthening of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT); international migration and development; and the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries.
Others speaking this morning were representatives of Switzerland, Croatia, Indonesia and Tuvalu (on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States).
The Second Committee will meet again at a time and date to be announced in the Journal.
* *** *
|
