EU NGO Caucus
Press Statement, 15 March, 1:30 pm (Mexican time)

EU Summit announces ODA commitments for Development Conference in Monterrey

Face-saving and inadequate say European NGOs at the Foro Global

European NGOs gathered at the Foro Global in Monterrey, Mexico, welcome the announcement of a commitment for more and improved ODA at today's Summit of European Heads of States and Governments in Barcelona, Spain. The package which the Spanish EU Presidency will bring to next weeks International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey includes, among others, the raising of development assistance to 0,39 percent of Gross National Income by the year 2006, a renewed commitment to reach the level of 0,7 percent GNI for ODA, further steps of untying bilateral assistance, and engagement in a global participatory process for the identification of relevant Global Public Goods and their financing.

European NGOs gathered at the Foro Global in Monterrey, Mexico, regard this decision as a last minute recognition by the European Union that the lack of concrete commitments for achieving global poverty eradication and development goals undermines the relevance of the so-called Monterrey Consensus, severely damaging the credibility of the European development policy. In a similar last ditch effort to save the Monterrey Consensus from complete meaninglessness, US President Georg Bush has announced yesterday additional development assistance by 2004.

We regard these efforts by the industrialized countries as face saving reactions to the mounting critique by civil society organizations which make northern governments fully responsible for the failure of the Monterrey Consensus to provide for a new beginning in global poverty eradication and development policy. These efforts, though, remain woefully inadequate to the task of the Monterrey Conference to find a global political consensus on financing strategies for equitable, gender-sensitive and sustainable development. They cannot brush over the fact that the EU and the USA failed to seriously negotiate in the two years of the UN-process on Financing for Development.

Throughout the Financing for Development process, civil society organizations have forwarded innovative and realistic proposals how to tackle poverty eradication and sustainable development. We do not ask for token commitments by the industrialized countries. We ask for recognition that the actual international financial system is designed to maintain developing countries in a situation of structural dependence, through debt related reverse financial flows, unfettered and volatile financial markets, and global economic decision-making structures that exclude the victims of the present system. We ask for a serious effort of reforming the actual international financial system, in order to make the world a safer and liveable place for all people. This task is still completely lacking in the Monterrey Consensus, which therefore is not the consensus of civil society organizations.

In the frame of the Foro Global, we will contribute to the building of a new agenda, of a real consensus, in the spirit of Porto Alegre that "another world is possible". We will make our voice heart whereever we are - tomorrow in the streets of Barcelona in occasion of the EU Summit -, and we will closely follow the implementation of the EU commitments and its position in the negotiations for the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.

For further information: Martin Koehler, mkoehler@crbm.org