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Passez à l'action sur le Financement du développement
En cours de traduction
An official international conference on Financing for Development
(FfD) is scheduled to take place towards the end of 2008 in Doha (
Qatar ). This aims to review the implementation of Monterrey ’s
decisions and determining the new initiatives that would be necessary
to meet the increasingly compromised MDGs. The political challenge
faced by governments lies in frankly assessing what has or has not
occurred since the Monterrey meeting and in achieving specific
agreements at the Doha Conference well beyond the minimum Monterrey
Consensus. For civil society groups this is a UN-led inter-governmental
process which offers an opportunity to raise public and official debate
about individual and systemic issues affecting development finance.
Between
now and the end of 2008 the UN General Assembly (UNGA) will decide a
number of process related issues which strongly impact on the potential
outcome of the conference in Doha and the ways in which civil society
can participate. Once the resolution on process matters is adopted by
mid-December, Member States will start discussions to set the agenda
and debate substantive issues.
A number of civil society
organisations are advocating for the preparatory process for the Doha
Conference to be made as open as the previous Monterrey one. Our
demands include:
- the conference should be held at Summit level with participation of Heads of State or government;
- all stakeholders, including civil society, must be involved in the preparatory process;
- preparatory meetings (PrepComs) should take place before the conference; and
- the outcome of the conference should be an agreed Outcome Document that builds upon the Monterrey Consensus, assesses progress, and promotes additional measures for implementation.
A civil society letter is now being sent to decision-makers,
including the co-facilitators of the process – Egypt and Norway – as
well as main UN groupings and a number of Member States. You can obtain
the letter and a background explanatory document from Carol Brandt,
co-chair of the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, at brandt_cj@yahoo.com
What can be done to ensure a meaningful process?
Civil society groups should ensure that the Conference in Doha
a) involves a thorough review of progress in achieving the Monterrey
Commitments; b) takes stock of challenges to be addressed and obstacles
to be overcome; and c) explores new issues on financing development
that have emerged or become more pressing since the Monterrey
Conference, and that merit a detailed review.
In particular,
during the next few days and if possible before Wednesday 21st of
November, civil society groups should contact their governments, UN
missions, UN Ambassadors and Presidents of UN groupings where their
governments are affiliated to insist that the resolution approved in
December should include the provision that Preparatory Committees
should take place in the run-up to the Doha conference.
During
2008 civil society groups will combine to analyse progress and gaps in
the Monterrey agenda, and to conduct joint advocacy and public
messaging on development finance challenges. Eurodad will play a strong
role in this at the European level ahead of a joint European position
for the summit that is due to be announced in May or June 2008. Eurodad
has also started discussions with colleagues in North America, Africa
and Latin America about how we can combine forces and complement each
other. While some work can be done at regional and global levels, it
will be important for as many groups as possible to be active in
relation to their national decision-makers. They are the ones who have
to take positions and make decisions.
For more information see
