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FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT
Resolution adopted by consensus by the Special Session of the Council
(Geneva, 27 September 2002)


The Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union,

Meeting in special session in Geneva from 25 to 27 September 2002,

Having debated the Report on Financing for Development drafted by its three co-rapporteurs,

Having considered the above report more particularly in the light of its implications for parliamentary follow-up to the United Nations Conference on Financing for Development held in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002,

Referring to the Declaration on the Right to Development adopted by United Nations General Assembly resolution 41/128 of 4 December 1986 which provides in Article 3 paragraph 3 that States have the duty to cooperate with each other in ensuring development and eliminating obstacles to development,

  1. Thanks the three co-rapporteurs for their report;

  2. Urges IPU Member parliaments to follow up the Financing for Development process and help make it more effective by:
    (a) Strengthening the role of parliaments in ensuring the follow-up to the Monterrey Consensus by monitoring the implementation of government commitments in the area of development financing, scrutinising their outcome and suggesting appropriate measures where necessary, and, more specifically, the allocation of greater resources from national budgets to poverty eradication programmes and broad social policy;

    (b) Examining the possibility of either establishing or reinforcing mechanisms which enable parliamentarians to monitor the work of the multilateral financing institutions;

    (c) Providing for a national legislative framework to promote and protect direct foreign investment and other private financial flows;

    (d) Ensuring that legislative actions in the area of financing for development are the result of national consensus and public participation in decision making, thereby helping to strengthen governance and democracy and respect for human rights;

    (e) Expediting legislative processes necessary for the reform of the financial sector, in a manner consistent with national development goals and priorities;

    (f) Making sure that the gender perspective occupies a central place in development policies, including through legislation to remove obstacles for women to engage in economic activities and promote economic justice between the sexes within the family;

    (g) Adopting special measures to ensure that the most vulnerable in society are included in the political process with the aim, inter alia, of eradicating poverty;

    (h) Enacting legislation that will strengthen the productive capacity of the grassroots economy such as village funds and SMEs, including through effectively managed micro financing;

    (i) Fostering private foreign investment to help to bridge the digital gap in developing countries and countries in transition;

    (j) Enacting legislation to extend debt relief for recipient countries which strive for good governance, while giving due consideration to their self-help efforts;

    (k) Ensuring that their governments strive to allocate 0.7% of their GNP to official development assistance, in accordance with the internationally agreed target, and that they abide by their financial commitments under the HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) Initiative;

    (l) Overseeing the efficient and targeted use of ODA by taking full account of the ideal of human-centred development, from the perspective of "human security", supporting the establishment of democratic systems and good governance, assisting in democracy building, making further efforts to secure transparency in ODA, and, in donor countries, promoting national initiatives to increase public awareness of and political support for ODA;

    (m) Ensuring that private capital and investment flows, which are of the utmost importance for the developing countries, not least the LDCs, are actively promoted by developed countries, and that such investments are treated on an equal basis;

    (n) Helping create and maintain innovative development partnerships between private and public entities;

    (o) Enacting legislation that would promote free and fair trade, afford greater market access to developing countries, and encourage the reduction of subsidies and financial support policies, as well as the elimination of other trade-distorting measures, particularly in agriculture, in order to achieve a just and equitable international trading system;

    (p) Helping determine, with appropriate parliamentary debates and national consultations of constituent groups, the definition of global public goods and the way to finance them;

    (q) Adopting measures to help eliminate corruption in all its forms and manifestations from politics and public administration and from economically powerful entities, and to combat the abuse of power;

    (r) Encouraging their respective governments to work in closer partnership with the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO to accelerate the Financing for Development process;

    (s) Helping to support innovative development initiatives at the regional level, such as the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD);

    (t) Encouraging technical assistance in order to upgrade national capacities in developing countries and countries in transition entitled to financing for development;

    (u) Ensuring coherent development policy internally and greater coordination among the relevant national actors;

    (v) Urging financial institutions and other sponsors, in the interest of assisting countries emerging from periods of conflict, to revise their mechanisms for disbursing pledged funds and ease the conditions which, in the final analysis, block access to these funds;

  3. Entrusts the Inter-Parliamentary Union to promote and facilitate the Financing for Development process by:
    (a) Strengthening cooperation and coordination among its Members in the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus;

    (b) Creating public awareness among its Members of the Financing for Development process so that they can encourage the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus by their respective governments, paying particular attention to the development aspect of the multilateral trade and financial systems;

    (c) Encouraging continued and intensified cooperation between the IPU and the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO in order to provide those institutions with a parliamentary dimension and thus create a more participatory and inclusive multilateral system;

    (d) Promoting the adoption of rules on upholding the general principles of law and human rights which can be applied globally;

    (e) Intensifying its cooperation with related institutions and its Members to facilitate the empowerment of parliaments, particularly those in developing countries, so as to enable them to cope better with increasing responsibilities;

  4. Endorses internationally accepted development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration, and calls on parliaments in all countries to take them into account when debating economic, development and trade policies;

  5. Resolves to monitor follow-up to the present resolution and calls on the rapporteurs to prepare a report to be submitted to the IPU at a future meeting.

Note: you can download a complete electronic version of the brochure "Results of the Special Session of the Council and related meetings of the Inter-Parliamentary Union" in PDF format (file size approximately 534K). This version requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can download free of charge.Get Acrobat Reader

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