CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

Statement by Rodolfo Reyes Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations Office and Other International Organizations in Geneva on Behalf of the Group of 77 and China at the Executive Session of the Trade and Development Board, 8 – 9 June 2010
Tuesday, 9 June 2010 at 10.00 a.m. - Room XXVI, Palais des Nations

 

Ambassador Jean Feyder,
President of the Trade and Development Board
Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates

Mr. President,

I have the pleasure of speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.  We look forward to having a spirited and substantive discussion as yesterday.

As we embark on our deliberations on the MDGs, I would like to recall the commitment of the Group towards the achievement of the IADGs, including the MDGs.  As a Group, and as expressed in the group's Ministerial Declaration on the occasion of UNCTAD XII, we appreciate the importance of achieving the internationally agreed development goals and we welcome the United Nations Secretary-General’s initiative to scale up efforts to accomplish the MDGs to enable the 'bottom billion' to finally escape from the poverty trap.

We highlighted that the current global institutional architecture for global economic governance requires fundamental reforms to provide an adequate framework for dealing with the realities of today’s international economic and financial relations and responding to the needs of the vast majority of the poor people. The current crises had not been officially declared when we said that there was the need for more inclusive and transparent global economic relations, with an adequate voice and participation of developing countries in international economic decision-making.

As we deliberate on the specific and individual issues pertaining to the accomplishment of the MDGs, I wish to highlight from the outset that while the MDGs are an important and useful tool for development, they themselves do not represent development and the development agenda.  We must always be conscious of the need to address the fundamentals of development, and always bear in mind how the MDGs can be improved so that they can serve more effectively to accomplish the broader objectives of the development agenda as articulated in the various conferences and summits on development.

We must also recognize that the MDGs were not new and represented the accumulated commitments and aspirations in the field of development as articulated in decades of work in the UN.  Today, when many of these persistent challenges remain as obstacles to a brighter future for much of humanity, we must also examine the systemic implications including the need to address fundamental reforms of the international economic architecture to make it more development friendly.

Mr. President.

Global inequality in distribution of wealth is the primary cause of poverty, hunger, and of all shortcomings in the Third World. The primary cause of inequality in distribution of wealth is the old and failed paradigm on the capacity of markets to operate alone. The era of the invisible hand of market has to finish. The blind interpretation of Adam Smith’s theory for more than two centuries has led billions of people to misery.

In times of the optic fibre and space missions, over one billion people continue to go hungry.  The current economic system generates deep gaps. Life expectancy is considerably lower in developing countries than in developed nations. For every 1,000 live births, more than 100 children die before their fifth birthday in developing countries, while fewer than 10 die in the high-income world.

It is time to move to a new era of coexistence, a new era of better sharing resources and hopes. Good intentions and social policies must govern societies, and not only the market power, not only the value of the shares in the stocks.

The recent economic and financial crisis has increased the difficulties to face the great challenge of achieving the MDGs. A sustained and inclusive economic growth is essential to attain these goals in all countries.

National development efforts need to be supported by an enabling international economic environment. We recognize and accept the positive role of national authorities to ensure the adequate environment for development, but national development efforts require the support of an enabling international economic environment.

That international environment has to include not only rules in all fields of human activities, not only surveillance or assessment mechanisms to qualify developing countries behaviour, but also and more importantly, real market access, permanent mobilization of public and private resources, expansion of productive investment in key sectors, transfer of technology in affordable conditions, sharing of knowledge, financial and technical assistances.

The global nature of poverty and inequality requires a multifaceted and integrated approach that addresses its economic, political, social, environmental and institutional dimensions, as well as their root causes, at all levels.

On the way to achieve the MDGs, there are more obstacles and reasons for concern than progress and hopeful signs.

Under current trends, it is almost certain that the MDGs will not be met by most developing countries. The world cannot go from summit to summit repackaging commitments. The poor of the world need only one assurance: that political will shall be deployed by developed countries to help and by the continuity of state policy in developing countries to consolidate progress.

 So, urgent actions are needed by the international community to significantly accelerate progress to achieve the MDGs. As noted by the Secretary-General in his “Keeping the Promise” report (doc. A/64/665), the lack of delivery on MDG 8 commitments has now reached emergency proportions. We believe it is imperative not only to implement the agreed commitments, but also to urgently scale up the partnership for development.

Global economic growth and a stable international financial system can support developing countries to achieve the internationally agreed development goals, including the MDGs. In order to foster an enabling international environment for development, there is a vital request to enhance the coherence, governance and consistency of the international monetary, financial and trading systems.

It is time to a substantive and comprehensive reform of the international economic, trade and financial system to better enable it to respond and prevent financial and economic emergencies, effectively promote development and equitably serve the needs of Member States, particularly developing countries.
In this regard all the top international institutions must have a clear development orientation.

Organizations related with finance, trade, intellectual property rights, technical standards, energy, cooperation, etc., should engage in an open, inclusive and transparent dialogue in order to re-examine their agendas and put them in parallel with development demands because the systemic barriers to development must be definitively removed.

Developing countries will remain vulnerable while they do not get their own capacity to generate prosperity. To do that, they need technical assistance, financing, responsible investment, cooperation in economic and social areas, fair trade rules and solidarity, among others. But those needs can be neither abstract nor cyclical; they have to be measurable and permanent.

Mr. President.

We are conscious that when we are on board analyzing the achievement of old objectives and targets relating development goals, at the moment we hesitate whether they can be minimally attained, it is not the right time to question them. But in the near future the international community has to re-examine at least two things:

1) Whether the MDGs are sufficient to construct the base for development, and
2) Whether all the international organizations have a development orientation.

Therefore we look to UNCTAD to assist developing countries including the following:

• To continue with its work on systemic issues to strengthen the central role of the United Nations in global economic governance, and to contribute to the reformation of the international economic architecture to ensure that it is development-friendly, and indeed to ensure that trade is fully harnessed as an engine for development;

 

• To prepare dossiers for groups of developing countries, which have similar productive structures and difficulties to enhance exports, with substantive information that include, inter alia, main and more responsible investors, upgraded market studies, financing sources associated to those activities, possible partners, South-South cooperation alternatives, successful  practices and experiences in other developing countries;

• To prepare a simple “trade guide” where stakeholders could find appropriated and needed information to do business in the main markets or integrated regions;

 

• To identify South leader companies in different economic areas where partnership is possible;

• To identify worldwide banks, financial institutions, traders, companies and others which could be interested in productive association;

 

• To work together with the World Tourism Organization, elaborate a set of recommendations for all tourism modalities,  to orientate national authorities for a better performances of the sector in developing countries;

• To collect and diffuse more information on research centres in developing countries, on those centres that are able to cooperate or associate with other institutions;

 

• To identify specific demands from developing countries in the global negotiations to achieve the most in addressing climate change;

• To identify incentives to promote foreign and national investments in Agriculture in developing countries, keeping the national sovereignty and local’s property on land;

 

• Assist to diffuse simple technologies amongst rural and poor areas in developing countries to support  agricultural producers;

• Assist to create new forms or model of association among producer in developing countries to allow them to benefit from acceding to international markets;

 

• Evaluate how to directly assist local authorities and stakeholders to improve infrastructures and logistics to support producers and exporters.

 

Mr. President

We think that UNCTAD can play a very important role in helping developing countries not only in preparing for negotiations on the MDGs, or enhancing capacity in our countries to work on them, but also in constantly giving us ideas and practical instruments to fight against poverty.

It is necessary that special attention be given to the situation of LDCs, African countries, LLDCs and many other weak and vulnerable countries. Yesterday we heard many delegations from those groups making references to specific limitations and problems.

Palestinian people also need especial attention from UNCTAD and from the international community.  While Palestine's policies towards achieving MDGs have been appreciated by international community and by relevant UN bodies, the foreign occupation has sabotaged those policies aiming to achieve not only the goal of Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. The occupation has also affected the ability to achieve universal primary education and seriously harmed the efforts at reducing child mortality rates and improving maternal health.

The Palestinian people face unique and complicate challenges in their attempt to achieve the MDG. Although substantial progress has been made in achieving critical development targets, Palestinians need additional help in creating an enabling domestic environment; an environment free from the punitive restrictions and oppression of military occupation. 

So, we request the secretariat of UNCTAD to assist Palestine in its effort of joining the LDCs IV and the MDGs UN Conference

 

Thank you.

(Cubaminrex- Embacuba Ginebra)