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 On 29 November - 2 December a follow-up international conference was held in Doha, Qatar to review the implementation of the 2002 Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development (FfD). The conference was attended by officials of more than 160 countries, including nearly 40 heads of state or government. A declaration was adopted which reaffirmed the principles of the Monterrey Consensus and urged that the global financial crisis should not detract attention from development financing.
A statement released by the Civil Society Forum for Financing for Development following the conference commented: "The Review Conference re-affirmed Monterrey goals, took hesitant note of the current crises and their impacts, failed to move adequately forward in a number of urgent subjects, but moved beyond Monterrey in several important areas. In many respects this Conference was a missed opportunity." The statement praises the conference's written declaration for its strengthened commitment to gender equality, but notes that "the commitments to gender equality in the document will only be truly meaningful if the systemic issues that underpin poverty are decisively addressed". While the statement welcomes the decision to hold a high-level UN conference on the world financial and economic crisis and its impact on development in March 2009, it states that civil society is "most concerned about the lack of urgency and of any further commitment concerning the implementation of a great number of recommendations - including core issues challenging financing for development such as trade, Foreign Direct Investment, mobilizing local resources, innovative funding - all these were inadequately dealt with or postponed to forthcoming meetings, at a time that people around the world are suffering directly from the persisting and combined crises". Sources: |
