The Doha Conference on Financing for Development: Missed Opportunities at a Decisive Moment

Author: 
Jana Silverman

The Doha International Conference on Financing for Development was a unique opportunity to strengthen the commitments of States, intergovernmental agencies and private actors to eradicate poverty and end gender discrimination through the adequate use of development aid. However, it was a “missed opportunity” and concrete actions have been postponed, despite the fact that the needs of poor and disadvantaged people in developing countries cannot be postponed.

During the last week of November in 2008, over 250 members of civil society organizations, including representatives of Social Watch national groups from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Kenya, Lebanon, Nepal, Philippines, Spain, Sudan, Thailand, and the USA, gathered as part of the Follow-Up International Conference on Financing for Development, to advocate for improved and expanded development aid policies.

During the three days prior to the opening of the official Conference, civil society activists met to explore the underlying issues in the financing for development agenda in the context of the current financial, environmental and food crises, and to draft a declaration later presented to the official Conference delegates as the principal recommendations of these representatives of citizens´ groups from around the world.1 This declaration urged the governments participating in the Conference to commit to policy changes that would put “effective development, poverty eradication, human rights, gender equality, decent work, and environmental sustainability at the fore.”

Expectations were high that the Doha event would consolidate the advances made during the 2002 Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development, which was the first effort by the UN to comprehensively deal with the financial and social issues linked to development aid, with the active participation of leaders of civil society and the private sector together with governmental representatives. The Monterrey Consensus addressed all sources of aid financing, including trade and investment as well as public sources, and also tackled themes such as debt and the so-called “systemic issues” related to the structure of the international financial system and social constraints, which impact upon the capacity of countries to effectively mobilize all of their resources to stimulate social and economic development.

In Doha, all of the topics addressed in Monterrey were revisited, but in the end little substantive progress was made. Unfortunately, the call to action launched by civil society went largely unheeded especially by government delegates from developed countries such as the USA, who attached little importance to the Conference process, preferring instead to focus their attention on the negotiations regarding the impacts of the financial crisis taking place between the G-20 countries, which excludes the participation of the majority of aid recipient countries such as the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The Doha event also went practically unnoticed by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), despite the fact that the neo-liberal conditionalities that they attach to their loans and financial bail-outs tend to constrict the policy space for developing countries, thus limiting their possibilities for utilizing aid to promote the social welfare of their citizens.

In the end, no mention was made in the final outcome document of the Doha summit of the necessity of reformulating trade policy so that it promotes capital accumulation and the creation of decent work in LDCs and emerging market countries, calling instead for a swift conclusion to the Doha round of trade talks in the WTO.2 Likewise, in the section on debt, all references to the legitimacy of debt claims and the negative impacts of policy conditions placed on debt cancellation were erased from the outcome document as a result of the negotiations over the text. Civil society at Doha was also very active in pushing for strong language on stemming illicit capital flows and shutting down tax havens as a way of conserving resources for development, however, the final text only calls for a “strengthening” of the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters, with no specific language on the need to eliminate tax havens.

On the positive side, the Doha declaration preserved all the commitments made in Monterrey regarding the mechanisms necessary to reach the millennium development goals, and the pledging of 0.7% of developed countries´ Gross Domestic Product destined towards official development aid. The text also explicitly recognizes that the promotion of gender equality and women´s economic empowerment is essential in achieving equitable development.

The most concrete outcome of the Doha summit was the convening of another summit, in which the “G-192” (all of the member States of the UN) will meet to discuss solutions to the financial crisis and propose changes to the international financial architecture. This is a positive step if put in comparison with the exclusionary G-8 and G-20 process currently underway. However, the mandate and scope of the UN summit is not made clear in the Doha document, and there is a striking lack of urgency, as the text only states that the “modalities” of the summit will be agreed upon by March of 2009, without setting a more precise date for the conference itself.

Looking back, the qualification of the Doha outcome by civil society representatives on the last day of the official Conference as a “missed opportunity,” seems an apt one. A unique opportunity to strengthen – and not just reaffirm – the commitments of States, intergovernmental agencies and private actors to eradicate poverty and end gender discrimination through the adequate use of development aid was squandered, postponing any concrete actions for a forthcoming summit whose future is shrouded in uncertainty. Is it possible that the needs of the poor and disadvantaged people in developing countries, who will undoubtedly be the most negatively impacted by the repercussions of the multiple crises currently raging across the globe, can be postponed as well?

1 The complete text of the Civil Society Declaration, with the outcomes of the Doha Civil Society Forum, can be found at http://www.ffdngo.org.

2 The Doha Outcome Document can be found online at http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N08/630/55/PDF/N0863055.pdf?OpenE....

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