CWS Engages UN "Financing for Development"

December 3, 2007

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, addresses the high-level dialogue on Financing for Development of the sixty-second session of the General Assembly, at UN Headquarters in New York. Photo: UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

“Let us begin here, in this High-level Dialogue, to rekindle that ‘Monterrey Spirit.’ Let us renew our commitment to free our fellow human beings from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of poverty and inequality.”

These words from Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, set the stage at the recent High Level Dialogue (HLD) on Financing for Development http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/hld/HLD2007/index.htm (FFD) held at the UN headquarters in New York October 23 rd-24 th. This conference was the latest event in the decade-long process initiated by member nations of the UN to collaborate on issues of finance, development aid, debt relief, and economic coherence at the highest level. The Financing for Development work is based on partnerships among member nations as well as between member nations and civil society. Church World Service is one of the many civil society organizations that remain vigilant throughout the negotiations to ensure that the process remains true to its goal of achieving real, measurable improvements in growth and poverty reduction.

The goals for the Financing for Development work culminated with the 2002 Monterrey Consensus http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/Monterrey_Consensus.htm, a pact signed at the United Nations’ International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey Mexico. This event included over fifty Heads of State and two hundred Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs, Development and Trade, as well as a contingent of civil society and business sector voices. In the years since Monterrey, several “high-level” events have taken place to assess the implementation of the agreements made in Monterrey. The recent High Level Dialogue was the latest of such meetings and offered an opportunity not only to update progress on national targets, but also to set the agenda and modalities for next year’s major review of the FFD process to be held in Doha, Qatar.

Throughout the High Level Dialogue, civil society organizations and NGO’s were present and active in interjecting priorities on behalf of the poor. Civil Society was given representation at each session, including the concluding session that will help set the agenda for next year’s Doha review conference. Church World Service and other NGO’s have remained important interlocutors throughout the FFD process and will remain strong, prophetic voices moving forward.

CWS will continue its work on FFD in the coming year through its partnership with the NGO Committee on Financing for Development http://www.ngosonffd.org/. CWS was recently elected to serve on the Executive Committee of this NGO, a group that includes over 60 NGOs committed to the goals of financial reform. Together CWS and partner organizations will work together to ensure that governments enact a comprehensive reform of the financial architecture through continued follow-up to the Monterrey Consensus as well as the upcoming meeting in Doha and beyond.