Financing for development: from Monterrey to Doha

This Analytical Note aims to evaluate how far the commitments contained in the 2002 Monterrey Consensus were fulfilled. It also seeks to examine the adequacy of the Monterrey Consensus as a framework for guiding international policy decisions and actions in current circumstances, and then outlines the significant changes and developments that have occurred since Monterrey that call for a fresh approach to addressing financing for development issues. Finally, the Analytical Note seeks to identify policy and institutional areas where the world community needs to be more ambitious in its approach, decisions, and actions at the UN International Review Conference on Financing for Development that will take place in Doha at the end of November 2008. It concludes with observations on the post-Doha agenda that developing countries might wish to consider, including:

• The South should engage with the global economy but manage this engagement and promote greater self-reliance within the South. This should not undermine multilateral discussions on finance, trade and development, but rather it could give the South greater leverage in those discussions
  
• Improving South’s voice in multilateral forums. It is evident from the institutions where developing countries are better represented that voting power on its own does little to change institutional orientation. On the other hand, the activism of civil society has demonstrated that directional changes in policies and institutions can be brought about through informed debate and discussion
  
• South-South cooperation in matters of trade and finance could help in giving the developing world policy independence it needs and seeks. This could include developing an approach towards South-South investment flows in support of development; promoting and strengthening South-South trading arrangements and seeking ways to reduce aid dependency.

(adapted from the author)