Assembly President terms Doha call for aid to developing countries ‘remarkable’

United Nations General Assembly President Miguel D´Escoto today hailed the outcome of the recent Doha global finance meeting as “remarkable,” noting that it urged donor States to maintain their aid commitments to developing countries despite the global economic crisis.

“It was also agreed that the United Nations is the uniquely representative forum where major changes in the international financial and monetary architecture can be discussed to make the system more stable and equitable,” Mr. D´Escoto said in a statement issued by his spokesman.

He stressed that the declaration issued at the end of the meeting in Doha, Qatar, called for the convening of an inclusive international conference under the General Assembly President to review the international financial and monetary architecture.

“This key meeting should take place in the first half of 2009,” he said. “Doha marks the last rites of the so-called Washington Consensus and represents a call to greatly expand the narrow representation of institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF),” he added, referring to the 10-point reform agenda for international financial institutions adopted in 1989.

“It is now very clear that the confluence of crises affects all countries and the G-192 [the total UN membership] must be involved in finding the global solutions that meet every country’s needs and concerns, not just the traditionally dominant interests of groups like the [industrialized] G-8 or, more recently, the G-20 [that includes both industrialized countries and emerging economies].”

The four-day Doha meeting ended on 2 December with a declaration in which nations affirmed that the commitment made at the 2002 global partnership agreement for development in Monterrey, Mexico, for developed countries to devote 0.7 per cent of their gross national product (GNP) to official development aid (ODA) must be maintained, despite the current financial crisis.

“The Doha consensus sets the basis for an inclusive, democratic and transparent process to rebuild trust of all nations in the international financial, monetary and trade institutions,” Mr. D’Escoto said. “Only with the participation of all nations can we ensure that these policies truly benefit all people, especially the most vulnerable and poorest among us.”