Doha conference on developmental assistance
Saturday, 22 November 2008
The second UN sponsored conference on Financing for Development (FfD) is now set for holding in the Qatari capital of Doha from November 29 to December 03. The conference is expected to take stock of developments since the first such meeting at Monterrey in 2002. The outstanding achievement of the Monterrey Conference was the pledge to form a global fund for its pooled resources to be dispensed to developing countries as a new window of developmental assistance to them. But this was to be no all- purpose fund for giving developmental assistance. It was to be a global trust fund for funding the World Trade Organisation's trade-related technical assistance (TRTA) programme.
The principle was adopted some years ago that a significant part of developmental assistance ought to be channeled towards building greater competitive trading capacities for the developing countries. From doing this, they would be turning more capable to pay their own way and carry out their developmental programmes with their own resources --from doing greater trade-- rather than remaining hopelessly dependent for succour to arrive from the rich countries. But as the second FfD gets under way, it does not seem that contributions to the TRTA fund has risen to any significance. Resources so far raised for TRTA-related activities are still a pittance compared to the need or expectation.
It is only understandable that the developed countries at Doha will point to their economic troubles and decline to avoid pledging greater sums for the TRTA. But even under the depressed conditions, most of them already have provisioned adequate resources for financing international organizations and efforts. This is important also for maintaining their political clout . So, any drastic going back on the TRTA-fund commitments by the developed countries, are not visualized at the Doha conference. However, all participating countries ought to concert their policies at this assemblage to persuade the new financial powers in the world stage to ease their fists for contributing generously to the TRTA fund. China and Saudi Arabia presently hold very strong foreign currency reserves. Even the traditional donor country, Japan, has an enormous such reserve. Therefore, financing the TRTA with enough funds should not otherwise be a problem, notwithstanding the economic downturn in the Western developed countries. The shortfall or whatever incapacity may be raised by the developed countries, are capable of being more than compensated with generous funding activities by these new centres of financial powers.
Bangladesh will be sending a delegation to the Doha conference led by its finance adviser. A strategy was suggested in a recent seminar about what Bangladesh's strategy needs to be at this conference. The discussants in the seminar proposed that Bangladesh needs to press for increasing grants and assistance for coping with the climate change-related challenges and impact of the global economic crisis. However, the upcoming UN conference is not about general aid disbursements to developing countries. It is meant to be essentially an UN effort to help WTO to raise greater resources for helping developing countries in technical areas or for capacity building to engage in more international trade and increasing earnings from the same. Therefore, the focus of the conference has to remain mainly centred on the TRTA fund ---how to augment it in the changed scenario of the shifting sands in the global balance of economic power.
The principle was adopted some years ago that a significant part of developmental assistance ought to be channeled towards building greater competitive trading capacities for the developing countries. From doing this, they would be turning more capable to pay their own way and carry out their developmental programmes with their own resources --from doing greater trade-- rather than remaining hopelessly dependent for succour to arrive from the rich countries. But as the second FfD gets under way, it does not seem that contributions to the TRTA fund has risen to any significance. Resources so far raised for TRTA-related activities are still a pittance compared to the need or expectation.
It is only understandable that the developed countries at Doha will point to their economic troubles and decline to avoid pledging greater sums for the TRTA. But even under the depressed conditions, most of them already have provisioned adequate resources for financing international organizations and efforts. This is important also for maintaining their political clout . So, any drastic going back on the TRTA-fund commitments by the developed countries, are not visualized at the Doha conference. However, all participating countries ought to concert their policies at this assemblage to persuade the new financial powers in the world stage to ease their fists for contributing generously to the TRTA fund. China and Saudi Arabia presently hold very strong foreign currency reserves. Even the traditional donor country, Japan, has an enormous such reserve. Therefore, financing the TRTA with enough funds should not otherwise be a problem, notwithstanding the economic downturn in the Western developed countries. The shortfall or whatever incapacity may be raised by the developed countries, are capable of being more than compensated with generous funding activities by these new centres of financial powers.
Bangladesh will be sending a delegation to the Doha conference led by its finance adviser. A strategy was suggested in a recent seminar about what Bangladesh's strategy needs to be at this conference. The discussants in the seminar proposed that Bangladesh needs to press for increasing grants and assistance for coping with the climate change-related challenges and impact of the global economic crisis. However, the upcoming UN conference is not about general aid disbursements to developing countries. It is meant to be essentially an UN effort to help WTO to raise greater resources for helping developing countries in technical areas or for capacity building to engage in more international trade and increasing earnings from the same. Therefore, the focus of the conference has to remain mainly centred on the TRTA fund ---how to augment it in the changed scenario of the shifting sands in the global balance of economic power.