Mr / Madam Chairperson:
First of all, let me on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) congratulate you on your appointment to the Chair, and at the same time, thank all of those, including the Facilitator, the Bureau, the UN Secretariat Staff, the other Chairpersons, and all those who participated in the preparatory process for this Meeting in this beautiful city of Monterrey. The Government and people of Mexico and of the city of Monterrey deserve our highest commendation.
Partnership for Development:
Mr / Madam Chairperson:
This Conference faces a monumental challenge. It seeks to address the critical issue of the means to development in a spirit and context of partnership. The Conference comes at a time when the development gaps are widening exponentially and control over the means of development is becoming increasingly concentrated in a few countries, corporations and individuals. Among the critical gaps are:
- the human development gap;
- the technology gap;
- the knowledge and information gaps;
- the production gap;
- the trade and terms of trade gaps.
Development requires a narrowing of these gaps. The Conference is therefore challenged to identify and to facilitate the organization of resources in a manner which will begin to close the gaps and raise the level of development in developing countries, particularly in the least developed and in the most vulnerable, and for all segments of the populations, especially the most disadvantaged – the poor, women, children and the elderly.
One question to be asked is whether, “the Monterrey Consensus” identifies and secures access to a level of resources for the majority of countries – members of the United Nations – which could begin to address their development challenges. As early as 1965, when the development gap, measured by the income gap, was nearer 25:1, it was assessed that development assistance of 0.7% of the GNP of the developed countries would be necessary to begin to close the gap. With that gap more in the region of 100:1; with global climate change and sea-level rise; and with increasing demands to provide for global security; the Consensus remains uncommitted to the expansion of development assistance beyond the average of 0.35% achieved in recent years. There is no real link between the recognition of the need for “a substantial increase in Official Development Assistance (ODA) and other resources” and the open-ended, non-specific “urging” to developed countries to make best efforts towards the 0.7% of GNP. The Rio Declaration of 1992, the Rio-plus 5 Conclusions of 1997, the Millennium Summit Declaration of 2000, and the declarations of all the global summits of the 1990s made similar urgings with the result of declining percentage contribution to ODA by some of the major developed countries during the 1990s – the most prosperous decade in recent history.
CARICOM’s Interest in the Conference:
The Caribbean Community – CARICOM, is comprised of fourteen (14), soon to be fifteen (15) of the smallest and most vulnerable countries in the world. Its entire membership is included in the forty-nine States which the Commonwealth Secretariat / World Bank Task Force described as “small states” in its April 2000 Report. Ten CARICOM States would fit into any definition of ‘micro states’ with population of under 300,000. The Commonwealth Secretariat / World Bank Task Force Report concluded that “small states share a number of special developmental challenges in the global economy”. These challenges arise from factors beyond their control including:
- remoteness and isolation;
- openness;
- susceptibility to natural disasters and environmental change;
- limited resource, production and export diversification,
- limited capacity; and
- limited access to global capital markets.
The small States of the Caribbean Community are particularly vulnerable to the volatility in income and hence in their internal resources for development in light of their trade openness, high export dependency and the adverse terms of trade for primary products. The increasing loss of market security in recent years arising from international trade policy has magnified this situation. They are also extremely vulnerable to natural disasters which often reduce the life of otherwise long-term infra-structural investments to less than 5 years. This creates the need for repeated outlays of the available resources for development on replacement of infrastructure rather than on building new infrastructure or on new non-infrastructural type activities which stimulate development.
Yet, small States generally, and those in the Caribbean in particular, are among States which the international community considers not to be in need of any special categorization for development resources. Worse, they are often candidates for graduation from the concessionary resources of the international financial institutions because of the application of inappropriate criteria and the general scarcity of such resources. The Caribbean Community is concerned / urging that the Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development address this issue squarely. Small size, coupled with extreme vulnerability, must create conditions deserving of special consideration in the direct provision of resources for development and in the indirect provision through a more equitable and responsive international trading system.
This Monterrey Conference must cause the international community to recognize that the more than one-quarter of its membership, classified as ‘small states’, and in particular, the ‘small island developing states’ (SIDs) are not geographic curiosities. They are real geographic, social, economic and political realities which the international community must embrace, accommodate and facilitate. The challenges they face in their quest for people-centred and environmentally sensitive development cannot be ignored.
What Have the Small States in CARICOM Been Doing to Assist Themselves to Overcome the Challenges
Mr / Madam Chairperson:
While the small States in the Caribbean recognize the need for international cooperation they also acknowledge their own responsibility to address the challenges and constraints to their development.
The need to address the challenges of size and of limited capacity has motivated and underpinned the drive to integration which commenced with the creation of a free trade area in 1968. The Grouping has now evolved to the stage of a single market and economy. In its new Treaty of 2002, the Community has:
– achieved free trade in goods for upwards of 99% of trade among all of its members, except for one which is not a party to the trade regime;
– agreed to the free movement of capital and to free trade in services as well as provided the right to business persons to establish operations anywhere in the enlarged economic space. This is to be achieved by the end of 2005;
– established a programme for the removal of restrictions in respect of the foregoing, which came into effect on 1 March 2002, whereby each Member State is committed to remove immediately any restriction which is not on the agreed list and to phase out some of those on the agreed list by the end of December 2003, some by the end of December 2004, and the remainder by the end of December 2005;
The strategy here is to increase the resources available to each Member State for development while, simultaneously, positioning the States to participate in larger integration or cooperation arrangements;
reaffirmed cooperation and joint or common programmes in a number of areas critical to development such as education and training, health, natural disaster management, scientific and technological research and cultural development;
The strategy here is to optimize the use of the scarce resources available for development and to provide vehicles for effective cooperation with international and bilateral agencies willing to provide resources to assist development.
The Caribbean Community has also been establishing trade and cooperation agreements with other developing countries. In this context, it has:
– established a free trade area with the Dominican Republic. This became effective in December 2001; and
– established asymmetrically reciprocal trade and economic cooperation agreements with Colombia, Cuba and Venezuela.
The strategy here is to both increase market size and to gradually stimulate competition among enterprises and countries of roughly similar sizes and stage of development.
These are examples of actions taken by the Caribbean Community States to reduce the constraints and adjust to changing circumstances using the strategy of open regionalism.
What Did CARICOM Expect Of the Monterrey Conference:
CARICOM recognizes that the challenges of development are deep-seated and that significant resources and appropriate and mutually re-inforcing policies at national, regional and international levels are required to address the difficulties facing developing countries, in particular, the least developed and the small and vulnerable States. CARICOM, therefore, expected this long overdue International Conference on Financing for Development, at least, to:
– identify the financial resources, including the new resources which are required to assist developing countries in addressing the major development challenges including those which will arise from trade liberalization (inter alia, the WTO process), global environmental degradation (the World Summit on the Sustainable Development Process), and global security issues;
– ensure that the rules for access to development resources recognize and provide specifically for the special circumstances of small and vulnerable States:
– direct that the rules for attracting private investments are no more onerous for developing countries, in particular, small and vulnerable developing countries, than they are for developed countries;
– seek to ensure that the conditions for access to financial resources for development do not increase the bureaucracy, the time and technical demands on developing countries;
– seek to foster genuine partnerships – nationally, regionally and internationally – with appropriately shared responsibilities.
Conclusion:
Mr / Madam Chairperson:
Coming in the wake of the dastardly events of September 11; and of the Doha Ministerial Conference on World Trade and just ahead of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa, this Monterrey Conference is uniquely placed to assess the need for, and to put in place mechanisms to mobilize the required financial resources. The Leaders must now summon the will to act.
Thank You.
