STATEMENT BY THE AFRICAN CAUCUS
on the 4^th PrepCom on Financing for Development
New York, January 25, 2002

The African civil society representatives have looked forward to the FfD process as an unprecedented opportunity for the international community to implement the commitments made by the world’s Head of States at the Millennium Summit “to make every effort to ensure the success” of the FfD event, and to “making the right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing the entire human race from want.”

  We, members of the African Caucus, are deeply concerned by the developments in the negotiations, which are undermining the values and principles of equality, solidarity and shared responsibility of the Millennium Declaration.  Instead of ensuring the availability of sufficient financial resources to reach the goals set by the major UN conferences and summits, the current process is likely to endanger the achievement of the development goals of African countries, thereby worsening the effects of globalization on their peoples.

  Although we welcome the innovative approach adopted by the PrepCom to involve all relevant stakeholders, including the civil society, in an inclusive and participatory manner, we have noted that this process has been perverted by the lack of clarity in procedure and the attempts by some stakeholders to go beyond the agreed-upon rules. 

  We affirm that the purpose of financing is for people-centred, gender-sensitive, equitable and sustainable development, as defined by the UN conferences of the last decade on social development, women, environment, population and development, human rights and racism.  The Monterrey Consensus must re-affirm the rights-based approach to development, in order to ensure the realization of economic, social and cultural rights, gender and racial equity and equality, and the right to sustainable development.

  We note with apprehension the prominence given to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) by the FFD process.  We expect its implementation to respect the principles of transparency and participation of all the relevant stakeholders.  We oppose any attempt to use it to deepen Africa’s external dependence and the exploitation of its resources.

  We are seriously concerned by the discussions on international trade. It is outrageous that attempts are being made by some developed countries, especially the European Union, to make use of the FfD process to advance their WTO objectives of getting new issues to be negotiated to produce new multilateral agreements in the WTO, especially on investment, competition, transparency in government procurement, and trade facilitation. Negotiations and new rules on these topics have been strongly objected to by hundreds of African NGOs, with many other NGOs worldwide. Most African governments have also rejected the start of negotiations. In Doha, in the closing ceremony, the Chairman of the Conference stated clearly that no negotiations could begin until there is an explicit consensus by all countries. Therefore, the developed countries must withdraw their attempts to go further than Doha. Such attempts are reprehensible.

  Furthermore, we are concerned about the emphasis put on trade liberalization in developing countries in the FfD process, regardless of its negative impact on the rights and livelihoods of African peoples, especially the poor, children and women.  We affirm that the FfD process, as well as IMF and World Bank policies such as the PRSPs, must not be used to force African countries to assume new obligations in the WTO.

  We remind delegations of the resolution of the Millennium Declaration “to have halted, and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, the scourge of malaria and other major diseases that afflict humanity by the year 2015”. The failure to meet the internationally agreed targets set for ODA will greatly hamper the realization of this resolution, especially in Africa, where the HIV/AIDS pandemic has a devastating impact on human development.

  The growing number of armed conflicts in Africa is strongly related to the control of international players over natural resources in Africa.  The suffering of millions of innocent victims is going hand in hand with over-exploitation and trade of natural resources at an extremely low rate, and increased trade in arms.  We call for the establishment of an international economic environment in which the trade of natural resources will support the development of African countries instead of fuelling wars that destroy the livelihoods of their peoples.  We also call for sanctions on companies contributing directly or indirectly to the financing of wars in Africa.  

  Many least developed countries, the majority of which are in Africa, are overburdened with unsustainable debts that compromise their human development.  We reiterate our call for the immediate cancellation of the debts of all African countries.  We support the establishment of an independent legal process of arbitration at the international level that will ensure shared responsibility between creditors and debtors, and enable future debt work-out mechanisms to preserve the capacity of debtor countries to meet their national development objectives.

  We urge the governments to expedite action to realize the proposed United Nations Comprehensive International Convention on Corruption, and the transfer of the illicitly acquired public funds to their countries of origin.

   We call for the democratization of global economic governance, and in this connection, for the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and ad-hoc groupings to provide equitable access to African countries for decision-making.  We call for the UN, through the General Assembly and ECOSOC, to be the fundamental pillar for the promotion of international cooperation on global economic policy and finance. In particular, the role of UNDP and UNCTAD needs to be strengthened for more coherent and coordinated approaches within the global financial architecture in order to achieve sustainable human development.

  We express our strong determination to stay engaged in this process and beyond Monterrey in a constructive and open way, and to hold our governments accountable for their commitments.