TDB president addresses economic, social summit
Jean Feyder, President of UNCTAD´s Trade and Development Board (TDB), discussed UNCTAD´s views on the financial crisis and the role governments should play in development at a UN meeting in New York on 19 March.Ambassador Feyder of Luxembourg spoke before the annual high-level session of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), UNCTAD, the WTO, IMF and World Bank.
The world is facing multiple serious crises, Mr. Feyder said: a financial and economic crisis that doubles as a social crisis; a food crisis; and an environmental crisis. In the face of these challenges, it is important that the international community learns from them and that it responds in a way that takes into account the lessons taught by economic and social development, he said.
UNCTAD´s view of the current situation is that public policy should not be limited to easing the impacts of the crises now affecting developing countries, Mr. Feyder said. Governments must also take an active role in development and adopt measures that favour fixed-capital formation and enhancement of the productive capacities of poor nations.
"Productive capacities" contribute to and even define the scale, sophistication, and diversity of goods and services a national economy is able to produce.
External financing and reductions in debt should take into account the conditions that affect the capacity of developing countries to promote economic progress, said the President of the TDB, UNCTAD´s governing body. The countries concerned, meanwhile, should respect standards of good governance: participation, justice, decency, responsibility, transparency, and efficiency.
Focusing more attention and resources on enhancing productive capacities should help in achieving sustainable progress towards the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, resulting in widespread job creation and raising family living standards, Mr. Feyder added.
He went on to call for urgent reforms to the international financial system to prevent similar crises in the future. The global recession, he said, was spurred by the existence of enormous speculative investments that played out in an "artificial financial universe" that was entirely disconnected from the real economy and had no relation to actual global demand. The challenge facing the international community is to create mechanisms to re-launch the global economy on a more equitable basis.
Mr. Feyder pleaded for a reduction or complete elimination of the external debt of Haiti, saying that in the wake of the 12 January earthquake, the international community must provide the country with favourable economic conditions for resuming growth. Steps also are needed to help Haiti expand its productive capacities in industry and agriculture, he said.
http://www.unctad.org/sections/wcmu/docs/BoardPresident_ECOSOC2010_en.pdf
