Interlinkages Statement                                                                                10/17/01

Martha Benavides- Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)

On behalf of the Interlinkages Caucus

            On behalf of the NGO Community we congratulate the Secretary General and the United Nations for having been awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.  We recognize that today’s world has changed since the terrible tragedy of September 11^th, when the citizens of 80 countries lost their lives.  And this peace prize is both a recognition of the work done, and a call to further the work of eradication poverty, promote sustainability and equity, engage in disarmament and conflict resolution, as fundamental requirements for peace in the world.  And we understand that this noble prize challenges all of us to bring a lasting peace in the world.

            We very much appreciate the opportunity to address you at the beginning of this weeks’ ongoing discussions on Financing for Development, we like to express our appreciation to the facilitator and his team for providing a good working document.

            We believe the preamble – contained in section I (para 1-5) – titled “Towards a Fully Inclusive and Equitable Globalization,” captures the mission and spirit of this innovative multi-stakeholder intergovernmental process.

            From the outset, we in the NGO community have viewed this FfD process as filling the critical gaps of identifying concrete mechanisms for financing the global economic and social agenda that governments have committed to in the 1990’s series of UN World Conferences and Summits.  Beginning with the Earth Summit on Environment and Development, the Vienna Conference on Human Rights, and the Cairo Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Women’s Conference and the Copenhagen Conference on Social Development, member states have committed to a multi-faceted development agenda that is sustainable and recognizes the specific needs of women, racial minorities, indigenous people and other marginalized groups.  These commitments have been reaffirmed by governments in the Plus 5 General Assembly reviews and given concrete expression in the UN Millennium Development goals.

            Several speakers have raised the different context of our work, given the terrible tragedy of September 11^th.  They expressed renewed urgency to promote development and address the economic consequences that are being felt not only in New York but also worldwide, especially in impoverished countries. We wholeheartedly agree with them!

            We in the NGO community urge the government delegates to this Conference to recognize in Section I that the goal of achieving a fully inclusive and equitable globalization involves the implementation of fundamental human rights to which member states have committed themselves in numerous international agreements.  This conference should reaffirm the principle that development is a human right, just as adequate food, shelter, health care, freedom from discrimination, peace.

            The Human Rights Conventions are the only legally binding and enforceable instruments.  We urge that explicit references to these Conventions be included in Section I.  This is essential so that financing for economic and social development is inclusive of women, the impoverished, ethnic and racial minorities, immigrants, and all vulnerable groups – is a matter not merely of voluntary moral action, but rather of political commitment at the highest level and international legal obligations.  We strongly associate ourselves with today’s remarks by the Honorable Mary Robinson on the importance of a Rights based approach to international cooperation, and the remarks by the Honorable Angela King on the urgent need to further take gender perspectives into full consideration in the six agenda items.

            Another critical principle we support in the Facilitator’s Draft Outcome Paper is ref. Para 6 to the primary responsibility that each country has for its own economic and social development, and to the fact that “unsustainable international asymmetries and imbalances must be redressed”.  Asserting the primary responsibility of countries themselves is insufficient unless we acknowledge the constraints that the current international economic environment poses to their development options and seek to address them.

            The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the UN could not be more timely.  While much attention has been focused on the UN and the Security Council in this time of crisis, we call on the UN to exercise its leadership in peacekeeping through assuring human security for all peoples of the world.  This Conference of FfD has a unique opportunity and responsibility to do that—by going from words to deeds!