Poverty alleviation and Financing for Development

Later this month, an important meeting is scheduled to take place in Monterrey, Mexico, focusing on Financing for Development. This international conference has raised high expectations and considerable preparatory work has been done to highlight the problems of financing for developing countries. In particular, the work of the Zedillo Panel on Financing for Development has provided very useful insights into the nature of the problem. It has also discussed and put forward several approaches by which solutions can be created. These include efforts that have to be made by national governments and local institutions themselves as well as challenges that need to be met through the actions of international organizations. Dr Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico, was requested to chair the panel known by his name, with 11 other members, including Dr Manmohan Singh of India. The Panel was established by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Annan. One significant finding of the Zedillo Panel is the estimate of resources that would be required annually to meet the 2015 targets established by the Millennium Summit of September 2000 as being in the range of an extra $50 billion a year. In addition, humanitarian assistance would need an extra $3-4 billion a year and seriously addressing the need for global public goods would require a budget of the order of $20 billion a year compared with the current spending of around $5 billion a year. The conference in Monterrey would be an important milestone for preparations leading to the World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg. One area in which the developing countries have expressed disappointment in respect of the lack of commitment shown by developed countries since Rio lies in not providing higher levels of ODA (overseas development assistance). Now that the global community at least exhibits greater interest in the alleviation of poverty, it should be possible to create a climate of public opinion in favour of specific commitments at the Johannesburg Summit for larger ODA. Indeed, the removal of poverty and the restoration of good health of the global commons are two major problems facing the world, and a continued neglect of these would imperil peace, security, and the observance of human rights in different parts of the world. While domestic actions would be critical to the success of any measures undertaken, the global community would have to play a far more active and purposeful role in addressing these two problems before they assume alarming proportions.