Five years after the first International Conference on Financing for Development, which took place in Monterrey, Mexico in 2002, the third High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development was held at UN Headquarters from 23 to 25 October 2007. More than 99 delegations from both donor and developing countries participated in round-table meetings on the six major thematic areas agreed upon in the Monterrey Consensus: mobilizing domestic financial resources for development; mobilizing international resources, such as foreign direct investment (FDI) and other private flows; international trade; international financial and technical cooperation for development; external debt; and systemic issues, including the coherence and consistency of the international monetary, financial and trading systems in support of development.
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General Assembly President Presides Over Dialogue on Financing for Development
UN
photo Evan Schneider |
UN General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim, who chaired the High-level Dialogue, stressed the importance of the review of the Monterrey Consensus at the follow-up conference to be convened in Doha, Qatar in mid-2008 in order to explore options for moving the development finance agenda forward. “We have reached a critical juncture in the financing for development agenda. Despite the promises made, progress has been slower than expected. While there have been some successes, many of the development finance objectives set in 2002 have not yet been met”, he said. At the close of the three-day event, Mr. Kerim stressed that FDI remained a major challenge, but that the current trends in developing countries were very encouraging.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking at the High-level Dialogue’s plenary session, called for the “Monterrey Spirit” and urged the international community to do its utmost to fulfil the commitments made at Monterrey in 2002. “The Consensus reiterated that poor and economically distressed people should be welcomed as partners in the development process”, he said, adding that it “affirmed the importance of substantially increased and predictable official development assistance to achieve development objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals”.
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