Summits to focus on Financial Crisis

Thalif DEEN

As the financial meltdown continues to spread to the far corners of the globe, over 30 world leaders are scheduled to participate in two key international conferences aimed at seeking short and long-term solutions to the economic crisis worldwide.

The first of these meetings will be a two-day G20 summit in Washington DC beginning Nov. 14 followed by a four-day U.N. conference on Financing for Development (FfD) in Qatar, beginning Nov. 29, which is open to all 192 U.N. member states.

Asked if the U.S.-sponsored summit in Washington may upstage FfD in Doha, Oscar de Rojas, executive secretary of FfD, says the United States has underscored that this weekend's summit is focused on specific measures to be taken to address the financial crisis.

But it should not be seen as attempting to go too far beyond that, in terms of more fundamental systemic reform, he said.

"Therefore, that meeting could be seen as complementary to, and feeding into, the discussions in Doha," de Rojas told IPS.

"It is also our expectation and hope that there will be opportunities for the subjects on the agenda of the Nov. 15 meeting to be discussed with the wider international community, and in our view the Doha U.N. conference provides a good opportunity for that," he noted.

Originally billed as a meeting of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised countries - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan, and Russia - the Washington summit will also include developing nations such as India, China, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey.

Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the General Assembly, points out that any discussions on the current financial crisis should "be inclusive, not exclusive".

"The place to discuss is neither the G8, nor the G20, nor the G25 or the G63. It is the G192, which is the General Assembly of the United Nations," he adds.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who is taking a lead role in the Washington summit, is not likely to call for any radical changes in the structure of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or any substantial increases in financing - two proposals that have been kicked around recently.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn says the Washington summit should deal "with the immediate fallout from the financial crisis, for example, through coordinated policy responses and by providing financing to restore confidence and growth." Additionally, he said, the summit should also tackle longer-term issues relating to the international financial architecture, such as fixing "an inadequate regulatory system" and developing a reliable early warning and response system.

In its latest forecast, the IMF has projected that world growth will decline to 2.2 per cent in 2009, down from 3.7 per cent in 2008 and 5.0 per cent in 2006.

The meeting in Doha is a follow-up to the first international conference on FfD held in Monterrey, Mexico in March 2002.

A draft 'outcome document' that will be adopted in Doha deals with several issues relevant to the current financial crisis, including mobilizing domestic and international financial resources for development; international trade as an engine for development; an increase in official development assistance (ODA); and innovative sources of financing for development.

The document says that a number of new innovative financing sources have become a reality, or are in an advanced stage towards implementation- such as the International Financing Facility for Immunisation, advance market commitments and the airline ticket solidarity levy (which finances the international drug purchasing facility UNITAID to help combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria).

"We acknowledge that these funds should be additional to, and not a substitute for, ODA and that they should not unduly burden developing countries." The outcome document also acknowledges the need for a major international conference to review the international financial and monetary architecture and global economic governance structures, specifically relating to the IMF.

Asked what he expects out of the FfD meeting, de Rojas told IPS there are a number of interesting proposals contained in the draft outcome document, under all six 'chapters' of the Monterrey consensus, which could come to fruition.

"It would probably not be appropriate for me to comment on them at this time, when they are being intensely discussed and negotiated at an intergovernmental level. But I am sure you know which they are, and are easily identifiable in reading the draft outcome document." De Rojas said intense negotiations are currently taking place and some progress is being made.

"You know that these important negotiations in the U.N. are always slow and painstaking. Just yesterday, they added a few more sessions to the calendar, so that we will have practically two meetings per day for every day of the next two weeks," he noted.

While there are areas of agreement and differences, he said, "it is our hope that, if the political will is there on the part of all, a consensus might be arrived at by the time of the Conference in Doha." Asked if Doha meeting will be transformed into a summit of world leaders, particularly in the context of the spreading global financial crisis, de Rojas said the General Assembly decided that the FfD Conference should be held at "the highest political level, including at the heads of state and government level".

A number of heads of government have already confirmed that they will be attending, "and we expect that this number is likely to rise, given, as you indicate, the importance of the issues being examined especially in the context of the present day global financial turmoil and the growing calls for fundamental reform of the international financial architecture, structures and governance mechanisms and institutions".

"However, as was the case in Monterrey in 2002, we probably won't know this until the last minute. If several important world leaders announce their intention to go to Doha, it can be expected that many others will be encouraged to follow suit," he added.

- IPS