PHA-Exchange> Let's get educated about the Monterrey Consensus

[aviva]

A proposition for PHM approval as our group’s position.

Heads of State met in Monterrey, Mexico at the end of March this year. 
They discussed how to finance development in the Third World worldwide. 
They came out with the ‘Monterrey Consensus’.

Here is what this document says and does not say:

The document is more a ‘declaration of intentions’ than a ‘declaration 
of principles or intentions’ advancing some concrete commitments. It 
does not provide concrete responses regarding the quantity and quality 
of resources that the rich countries are willing to commit to support 
development efforts in the poor countries.
The document is rather a consensus among unequal partners. The weaker 
partners agree to accept the norms set by the strong who, in turn, 
define what good governance (a pre-requisite to join the club) is.
Therefore, the Consensus document rather is an instrument of coersion 
around policies set by the rich governments and the IFIs. It 
unequivocally favors globalization in which financial capital is to 
continue having a controlling role on productive and development 
investments.
The document’s motivation is the promotion of longer term development 
without paying attention to the many current crises (i.e. aims 
expressed in the Consensus are mostly long term, disregarding urgent 
measures needed in the short term).
The document thus never arrives at proposing meaningful, needed 
transformations of what we already have.  It puts too much emphasis on 
de-regulating private capital markets --not proposing any measures 
against the well known accompanying risk of speculation. Moreover, it 
does not systematically critique the failure of the international 
development strategies used so far.
The document recognizes the existence of an enormous deficit in 
resources for development financing, but does not offer mechanisms to 
mobilize new such resources. It extols the successes of globalization 
and ignores the high social costs that have come with it, particularly 
in the health field.

There is little evidence in the Consensus that there is a real 
commitment by signatory governments to needed structural changes. There 
are no mechanisms presented to assure greater accountability and 
greater all-inclusive participation of civil society in the decision 
making related to development work worldwide.
The documents does not mention the need for the mobilization of local 
national) resources for development that is as much a must as the need 
for foreign resources; it leaves our own governments off the hook. It 
also ignores the issues of foreign debt and the need for poor 
governments to also mobilize domestic resources towards more equitable 
development alternatives.

The Consensus is further weakened by making no mention of the need to 
profoundly reform the global economic governance system.

As PHM, we do not accept the economic model underlying the Consensus, 
the conditionalities that it imposes and its foreseeable negative 
impacts, including those related to health, education, gender 
relations, human rights and many other. We denounce the absence of 
language directed at equity, human rights, and sustainable development.
We contend that foreign aid has never been, nor will be, a panacea if 
the types of investments to be made are not defined in advance and with 
full civil society inputs. (Investments that are against a sustainable 
development with a gender perspective also have to be identified and 
opposed). On the other hand, we contend that foreign aid has not to be 
allowed to denationalize our own Third World economies and has to fully 
respect the free movement of labor (and not only capita) across 
North/South borders.

Any new consensus has to tackle the issues of fair trade, illegal 
capital flight, land reform, access to land, access to health and 
education, protection of internal markets and national enterprises, the 
penetration of transnational corporations and their dumping of products 
(especially agricultural) in our market. The Monterrey Consensus does 
not.  International development institutions have to show their 
commitment to change in development policies more forcefully and with 
facts that point in the right direction. The Monterrey Consensus fails 
to do so.

This Consensus basically recommends that the private sector directs and 
supervises the development of the nations in the South. It totally 
avoids mentioning the issue of rich nations having to devote 0.7% of 
their GNP for aid, as well as the issues related to a Tobin tax.  It 
tells us nothing how rich countries use their monopoly over and 
manipulation of information channels to ‘sell’ us their ideology (with 
the passive complicity of all those this information subordinates...). 
Instead, the Consensus document continues to tell us that globalization 
will bring us universal happiness. 
Moreover, there is a veiled warning to be found between the lines: 
those who oppose globalization have to be conscious that the rich 
countries and IFIs will combat them, even at the expense of further 
violations of human rights.

Finally, it is to be pointed out that NGOs in Monterrey at the time 
were allowed no access to the official deliberations process, as 
opposed to what has become practice in such meetings elsewhere.

Claudio