Regional Dialogue on Financing for Development and Foreign Debt ahead Doha 2008

Regional Dialogue on Financing for Development

and Foreign Debt ahead of the UN High-Level Meeting

to review the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus; Doha, 2008

Venue: Permanent Secretariat of SELA

Torre Europa, 5^th floor,

Caracas, Bolivarian Republic Venezuela

Caracas, 20 June 2008

Background | Objectives | Expected Results

Activities | Provisional Agenda |

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Official Foreign Exchange Rate | Transport | Migration Information | Photo gallery

Background

The Monterrey Consensus summarizes the commitments taken on by the international community upon the conclusion of the UN International Conference on Financing for Development (held in Monterrey, in March 2002). Since its adoption, the Monterrey Consensus has become a fundamental reference for all the discussions on cooperation, financing and international development.

In the latest Latin American Council of SELA (26 to 28 November 2008), participants raised the need for SELA to support its Member States – particularly the Caribbean nations – in order to obtain new answers from the international community as regards the problems posed by their foreign debt and their access to external financing. This is a fundamental task to ensure an increase in economic growth and social development rates in these nations.

Against this backdrop, emphasis has been made on the fact that highly-indebted poor countries (HIPC) – five of which were Member States of SELA – have benefited from the debt relief programme implemented for them by the international community. Nevertheless, various nations in our region, which do not qualify to be included in the HIPC group, are faced with the need to reduce their expenses – even to the detriment of their social programmes – due to the heavy burden of their foreign debt and the high costs of servicing it. According to various Member States of SELA, this problem should be dealt with as one the fundamental aspects for the necessary reform of international financial institutions, and should also be a subject of discussion at the high-level meeting convened by the United Nations in Doha, capital of Qatar, by year-end (29 November to 2 December 2008) which will review the compliance with the commitments taken on in the Monterrey Consensus. It would be of special for the Member States of SELA to analyze and consider the proposals about financing projects to support the social and economic development of the region, which would be implemented within the framework of regional institutions such as CAF and FONPLATA, as well as newer entities such as the ALBA Bank and the Bank of the South. In addition, they could consider alternative sources existing at present – such as the OPEC Fund, the Perez-Guerrero Trust Fund, and the Islamic Development Bank, among others – which have not been extensively used by Latin American and Caribbean nations.

It should also be borne in mind that, during the Regional Dialogue of Latin America and the Caribbean vis-ŕ-vis the XII Ministerial Conference of UNCTAD, held in SELA on 26 March 2008, the representatives of the Member States unanimously agreed “to analyze within the framework of SELA and other regional organizations the convenience of outlining a strategic position at the regional level as regards financing for development in the current conditions and its relation with issues associated with the service of the external debt by highly-indebted, middle-income countries and other nations facing problems with their external debt, with a view to complying with the Millennium Development Goals.” The delegates also agreed that “it is very important for SELA, along with other regional organizations, to work in the formulation of criteria to determine the sustainability of the external debt, which take into account the development needs and interests of the countries of the South. In this connection, the approach focused on the countries’ payment capacity should be gradually replaced by another one based on the logics of development.” They concluded that "this proposal, as well as a previous one, should be developed by SELA within the context of the preparatory work for the UN High-Level Conference on Financing for Development, to be held in Doha by the end of this year.”