At UN, Caribbean nations call for rethinking of global financial structure

The international financial architecture must be revised to advance the development of poorer nations, Caribbean leaders told the annual high-level debate of the General Assembly today.

In the face of skyrocketing food prices which have triggered riots worldwide, countries of the region are “buffeted by the winds of unequal trade liberalization, in which the agricultural subsidies of developed States force our own nascent agro-industries to an uncompetitive demise,” Prime Minister Ralph E. Gonsalves of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines said.

Improving the plight of the world’s poor and hungry can only be achieved by addressing “systemic issues,” such as trade barriers, biofuels, climate change and “anemic development assistance,” he said.

“The banana farmers of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines continue their heroic struggles to eke out a living in the face of corporate greed, thinly disguised as principled globalization,” Mr. Gonsalves said.

“The evidence to date suggests that the international community has inadvertently institutionalized and entrenched poverty within a system of global winners and losers,” labelling the Doha development round as a “suicide pact” within the World Trade Organization (WTO), he pointed out.

The Prime Minister lamented the limited progress in meeting the targets set by the 2002 landmark anti-poverty agreement known as the Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development, which produced “grand, unfilled commitments” to poorer nations.

Developed and developing countries must join hands to implement these “carefully calibrated” initiatives of integrating aid, debt relief, market access, good governance and foreign direct investment,” Bruce Golding, Prime Minister of Jamaica, said.

“Proceeding with some elements without the others will not achieve the goals we have set,” he told the Assembly. “Indeed, it might make it worse.”

The Prime Minister also called on wealthier countries to live up to their commitment to contribute 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product to Official Development Assistance (ODA).

“This is a modest amount. Yet only five countries have to date done so.”

Hubert Alexander Ingraham, who serves as Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the Bahamas, underscored the need for “effective, permanent representation of developing countries, particularly small developing countries, in international economic, trade and financial organizations,” such as the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO.

Further, global tax issues must be discussed in an open forum to address issues crucial to smaller nations, he said.

“It is for this and other important reasons that the Bahamas calls for the convening of a major international conference to review the international financial and monetary architecture and global economic governance structures,” Mr. Ingraham said.

The current global market crisis, the Prime Minister of Barbados said, cannot be solved by those responsible for it because they also “created, controlled and manipulated the global financial system for their own advantage.”

David Thompson – who also serves as his country’s Minister for Finance, Economic Affairs, and Development, Labour, Civil Service and Energy – told the General Debate that developing countries must take the lead in finding a way out of the problem.

Poorer nations must also be given a greater say in decision-making processes in international financial institutions, he said.

“The causes of the present global financial crisis are firmly rooted in the failure of the international community to reform an undemocratic and antiquated system of international economic governance that has not kept pace with the rapid growth of global interdependence,” the Prime Minister added.

Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Dominica, recalled one its worst economic crises, which occurred when the banana industry, on which the country is heavily reliant, was devastated from 2002 to 2003.

The emergency was triggered by United States-supported challenges to the European Union Banana Import Regime of the WTO.

“What might have been an academic argument for some became an issue of survival for us,” the Prime Minister said, adding that Dominica’s farmers have yet to recover.

His country was ravaged by “decisions taken by representatives of developed nations and multilateral agencies, who seemed totally unmindful of or indifferent to the impact of such actions on the small and vulnerable economies,” he told delegates.

Despite the best efforts of small island developing states (SIDS) to grow their economies, “policies that are ill-conceived and ill-advised will continue to negate our efforts and reverse some of the gains that have been made,” said Stephenson King, who serves as Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Economic Affairs and Development, Labour, Civil Service and Energy.

Mr. King also said he looks forward to “meaningful progress” at the November follow-up conference in Doha, which will review implementation of the Monterrey Consensus.

Saint Lucia calls on its “development partners to give practical expression to the numerous commitments that have been offered in the past, but which remain unrealized.”

Also addressing the General Debate was Prime Minister Tillman Thomas of Grenada, who listed the steps his country is taking to build a new and prosperous economy, including revitalizing the cocoa and nutmeg industries; boosting labour productivity; fostering a knowledge-based export services sector; and modernizing the tax system.

But these efforts are thwarted by “unfavourable external factors” such as high energy costs, soaring food prices and the slowdown in global financial markets, he said.

Mr. Thomas, also Grenada’s Minister of National Security, Information and Legal Affairs, said, therefore, that a global partnership for development is essential to assist States.

“Serious attention should be paid to addressing the special needs of the least developed countries, in the areas of trade debt relief and the environment,” he said.