Political will and steadfast commitment can avert larger crisis - Dr. Amunugama

The best guarantee of averting a larger global crisis is ensuring a political will and steadfast commitment to development and providing the resources for it.

“We need to be mindful that, our decisions here will have an impact on many millions of humanity, who yearn for peace, development and the right to a decent life free from fear, hunger and poverty,” Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion, Dr. Sarath Amunugama said addressing the follow up Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus at Doha, Qatar recently.

Minister Dr. Amunugama addressing the gathering.

Following is an extract from his speech:

“About one quarter of children living in developing countries are still at risk of malnutrition; about 2.5 billion people in the world live without proper sanitation and more than 500,000 mothers die every year, at childbirth or due to complications associated with pregnancy.

We need to renew our faith and deliver on our commitments made in Monterrey.

We cannot resile from our collective responsibility towards the worlds poor and, moreover, our moral obligation towards the next generation. We have to bequeath to them a better tomorrow.

Against many odds, a limited progress in certain areas has been made in developing countries, and we should not let this hard achieved progress be reversed by the numerous challenges that confront us today.

We therefore endorse the call for an urgent and concerted global response to help maintain the positive developments gained by developing countries and to advance along the growth paths that we jointly agreed upon in Monterrey.

However, without an enabling local and international environment that helps mobilise the domestic public and private savings and efficient, coherent and consistent macro economic policies, that are conducive for productive investments, it will be an arduous task to maintain a sound economic growth and sustainable development. In this regard, we recognise the importance of good governance, human resource development and appropriate policy reforms to harness the benefits of globalisation and to minimise its negative impact.

“We reckon that ensuring economic development and the well-being of all people lies with each and every country; yet, most developing countries are often at a disadvantage in a heavily competitive and interdependent global economy. Vulnerabilities arising out of frequent natural catastrophes, deficiencies in socio economic infrastructure and institutional capacities, have exacerbated the challenges faced by us.

To face these formidable challenges, the Government has integrated the MDGs into the national development strategy - Vision for a New Sri Lanka - A Ten-Year Horizon Development Framework 2006-2016.

In this era of a globalising world, national efforts in promoting sustainable economic development no doubt requires international assistance. However, each country should have the right to decide their development priorities and the level of government regulations in managing the national economy.

Unless the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) is properly aligned with the national development priorities and strategies, the effectiveness of aid will become a meaningless notion.

In order to create tangible and sustainable progress in developing countries, not only the quantity of aid, but also the quality of ODA remains highly important.

According to the MDG Gap Task Force created by the UN Secretary General, out of the eight identified goals, the progress made with respect to the eighth goal, i.e., to create global partnership in achieving development goals, has fallen far short of the commitments made.

The net ODA flow in real terms has grown only marginally over the last few years, and that a bulk of this flow from 2002 onwards constituted debt relief for a few developing countries and also humanitarian aid.

In this context, achieving the ODA target of 0.7% from the developed countries by 2015 seems a challenge, if not an impossible endeavour. We therefore hope explicit and expeditious action will be taken by then to deliver on promises made.

ODA remains a stepping stone in stimulating the national growth, nevertheless, what most of the lower-middle income countries, like my own country Sri Lanka, may require is global partnership in promoting fair trade that is universal, transparent, open, rule-based, and non-discriminatory.

However, since the impasse in the Doha WTO negotiations, we have been experiencing the biggest implementation gap in the area of international trade.

It is ironical that at a time when international trade should be rightfully playing its role as a catalyst to enhance economic growth, and promoting productive employment for all, there exist many market distortions: more restrictions than concessions. It is therefore our hope that this conference will be able to send a strong message to WTO to maintain a development-focus in its work and programmes.

When we talk about barriers to international trade, there is no gainsaying that non-trade related barriers have increasingly been used against developing countries. Most disturbing is selectivity in human rights approach, using the promotion of civil and political rights in a manner that subverts social, economic and cultural rights.

This will not help bring a realisation of peace and development, nor ensure aid effectiveness.