NGO Comments on Preamble

Facilitator’s Second Draft, FFD, 18 January 2002

1. We, heads of State and Government, have gathered in Monterrey, Mexico, on 21-22 March 2002, to join forces to confront the challenges of financing for development around the world, particularly in developing countries. Our goal is to fulfill the outcomes and commitments of the UN conferences and special General Assembly Sessions of the last decade[1], to combat eradicate poverty and achieve sustained growth[2] sustainable and equitable development, as we advance and to fulfill our commitment to human rights, ensconced in the UN Charter, in particular the right to development. to attain a fully inclusive and equitable global economic system. We commit ourselves to tangible actions towards this end, including monitoring and accountability to commitments under the aegis of the United Nations.

2. Mobilizing the financial resources and achieving the national and international economic conditions needed to fulfill all internationally agreed development goals—including those in human rights treaties, the outcomes of UN conferences of the last decade, and contained in the Millennium Declaration, to aimed at raising the quality of life of the world’s poor, removing inequities and other barriers to development, and significantly improving social conditions—will be our first step to ensuring that the 21st century becomes the century of development for all.

3. After the September 11 attacks, the global economic slowdown deepened, further reducing growth rates, and with them, prospects for better living standards.  The continued poverty and mounting level of economic crisis in developing nations are symptomatic of larger  inequities and imbalance in current arrangements for global economic governance and development financing. It has now become all the more urgent to enhance collaboration among all stakeholders to jump-start a sustainable recovery and to address the obstacles and long-term challenges of financing for development. Our resolve to act together is stronger than ever.

4 While development must come from within and the role of national policies cannot be overemphasized, this is not possible without national autonomy over economic and social policy in the framework of human rights and sustainable development. Each country has primary responsibility for its own economic and social development.  Yet As domestic economies are now interwoven with the global economic system, national development efforts need to be fully supported by an enabling international environment.

5. The increasingly interdependent world economy requires a holistic approach to the interconnected national, international, and systemic challenges of financing for development. — In addressing these challenges, we reaffirm the important commitments made in the major United Nations Conferences and Special Sessions of the past decade, aimed at achieving sustainable, gender-sensitive[3], people-centered development in all parts of the globe in fulfillment of the UN Charter commitment to all human rights. To this end, coherent actions are needed in each interrelated area of our agenda, with the active partnership of all stakeholders, public and private.

6. As leaders, we will join forces through a strengthened multilateralism that recognizes the need for full participation of developing nations in economic decision-making, and a balanced participation of women and other marginalized groups committed to the development goals.  We must fully realize the potential of the United Nations system for fostering worldwide cooperation. Upholding the Millennium Declaration values and goals, we commit ourselves to consolidating transforming the global economic system around the on the primacy and observance of the United Nations human rights instruments[4], and to integrating the principles of equity and equality[5], participation, ownership, transparency, solidarity, cooperation, co-responsibility, social dialogue, good governance, democracy, respect for the rule of law  and accountability in all follow-up actions of the Financing for Development Conference.

[1] These include the UN Millennium Declaration; the World Social Summit 1995 and the UN Special Session on Social Development (Geneva 2000); The Beijing Platform for Action and the Further Initiatives of the Beijing+5 Special Session (2000), Agenda 21 of the Earth Summit and the Program for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21; The Plan of Action of the Third UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries (2001); The Platform for Action of the International Conference for Population and Development (Cairo 1994) and ICPD+5 outcome document; The International Conference on Human Rights (Vienna 1994); the UN Conference on the Rights of the Child; and the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and related Intolerances (Durban, 2001). 

[2] Growth can be a means to achieve development, not a goal in itself.

[3] Women constitute 70% of the worlds poor; three out of every four individuals who can’t read or write are female; billions of women support their families through precarious employment in the growing informal sector.

[4] These instruments include the UN Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women, Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-up.In the Millennium Declaration, Heads of State reaffirmed the centrality of a human rights framework for development in these terms:”We will spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law, as well as respect for all internationally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development”(Article 24.)

[5] As specified in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, para 20: „We also resolve to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as effective ways to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate development that is tryly sustainable.“

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