UN SETS PREPARATORY PROCESS FOR MONTERREY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 USUN NEW YORK 001173 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT PASS USTR FOR EBRYAN NSC FOR DPRICE/ADEMOPULOS DEPT FOR IO/EDA, EB/ODF AND EB/OMA USAID FOR EGAT/EG E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAID ECON EFIN ETRD ECIN SENV UN SUBJECT: UN SETS PREPARATORY PROCESS FOR MONTERREY CONSENSUS REVIEW REF: A. (A)USUN 774 ¶B. (B)USUN 939 ¶1. (SBU) Summary. The United Nation General Assembly's Second Committee passed by consensus a resolution on December 7 setting out the modalities for a review in 2008 of the 2002 Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development (FfD). The review process will conclude with a November 29 - December 2, 2008 high-level conference in Doha, Qatar. The resolution splits the preparatory process into two segments, a substantive review of the six main chapter of the Consensus, to take place via a series of expert roundtables in New York in the first half of the year, and a three month negotiating period on an outcome document from September to November ¶2008. The substantive roundtables offer the United States and like-minded countries and institutions an important opportunity to balance the UN Secretariat's traditional south-centric bias on development issues. We offer initial suggestions on how the USG can take advantage of this process in paragraph five. The UN Plenary will pass the resolution the week of December 17. End Summary. KEY ELEMENTS OF THE RESOLUTION ¶2. (SBU) After lengthy negotiations, the UNGA's Second Committee passed by consensus a resolution on December 7 setting out th modalities for a review of the 2002 Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development, as called for in paragraph 73 of the Consensus document. The key elements of the resolution include the following: -- Conference Date: The review process will conclude with a November 29-December 2, 2008 high-level conference in Doha, Qatar. The Qatari authorities have indicated they consider November 29 to be an arrival day. --Level of Participation: This was the most contentious issue, with the G77 insisting on a summit level event, but the United States and like-minded countries, including EU states, Canada, Japan, Korea, and Russia, supporting either a ministerial-level conference or a more generic high-level event. In the end, paragraph 1(b) of the resolution sets out an ambiguous formula, indicating the conference "will be held at the highest possible political level, including participation of Heads of State or Government, ministers, special representatives and other representatives, as appropriate." -- Substantive Review: At the request of the United States and other developed countries, prior to launching negotiations on an outcome document, the President of the General Assembly (PGA) will organize "six substantive informal review sessions of the whole on the six thematic areas of the Monterrey Consensus" during January-June 2008. We expect roughly one review session per month lasting 1-2 days each, beginning in late January or early February 2008 The sessions are to be held, to the degree possible, in conjunction with other pre-existing meetings, such as the Spring Meetin between ECOSOC and the Bretton Woods Institutions. These sessions will present important opportunities for member states, international financial institutions, UN and other bodies to provide written inputs as part of the preparation for the conference. -- Conference Outcome: The outcome of the review conference will include both an intergovernmentally agreed outcome document USUN NEW Y 00001173 002 OF 003 and summaries of the plenary meeting and roundtable discussions. According to paragraph nine of the resolution, the PGA is to present a first draft of the outcome document by the end of July 2008, with negotiations on the document commencing in September. The United States, EU, Russia, Korea, and Japan each stated repeatedly during the negotiations of the resolution their expectation that the outcome document would be a short, political declaration that would not re-open the substance of the 2002 Consensus document. -- Role of the PGA: Unlike the 2002 Financing for Development Conference in Monterrey, the review process will not require the creation of a formal preparatory committee, with its attendant budget costs. Rather, paragraph eight of the resolution requests the PGA to continue the "direct intergovernmental consultations of the whole with the participation of all states and the major institutional stakeholders involved in the financing for development process." The Egyptian and Norwegian Permanent Representatives to the UN have served as co-facilitators on the FfD issue to date and will continue in this role through the Doha conference. SHAPING THE PROCESS ¶3. (SBU) The substantive roundtables outlined in paragraph nine of the resolution offer the United States and like-minded countries and institutions a key opportunity to balance the UN Secretariat's traditional south-centric bias on development issues. Th SIPDIS G77 and UN Secretariat have consistently fixated on official development assistance (ODA) as the primary means of financing development while downplaying the importance of private capital flows, despite the latter's much larger size. They have also been reluctant t recognize positive developments in the FfD arena since Monterrey, including, for example, the substantial increase in foreign direct investment and the large amounts of official debt relief granted through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiatives processes. ¶4. (SBU) Most UN development resolutions begin with a G77 draft text based largely on a one-sided report by the UN Secretariat, putting the United States and like-minded countries at a negotiating disadvantage. If properly managed, the substantive roundtables and opportunity to submit written inputs should give the US and like-minded stakeholders an opportunity to level the negotiating field, particularly since the first draft will originate from the co-facilitators. ¶5. (SBU) Given the above, we recommend Washington agencies consider the following steps, as appropriate, to maximize U.S. influence on the preparatory process. -- We recommend strongly that Washington agencies consider participating actively in the substantive roundtables, including by submitting written inputs. Submitting inputs in writing will increase the chance that U.S. views will find their way into the written summaries of the roundtables, which will in turn inform the first draft of the conference outcome document. -- Equally importantly, we recommend Washington agencies encourage participation in the roundtables by capital-based officials from developing countries with a positive story to tell in the six USUN NEW Y 00001173 003 OF 003 areas of the consensus (mobilizing domestic financial resources, foreign direct investment and other private capital flows, international trade, international financial and technical cooperation for development, external debt, and "enhancing the coherence and consistency of the international monetary, financial, and trading systems"). Encouraging the participation of capital-based officials from G77 countries, particularly from finance and development ministries, could help balance the more ideological views of their New York-based diplomats. -- Paragraph 11 invites governments and other stakeholders to submit written inputs into the preparatory process. In addition to contributing submissions on behalf of the USG, we also recommend the USG encourage key development finance institutions, such as the World Bank, IMF, Paris Club OECD Development Assistance Committee, and regional development banks, to voluntarily submit report on their activities since Monterrey to the PGA. Such reports could do much to increase the knowledge level of participants in the review process about the significant advances in development finance since Monterrey. -- The upcoming roundtables on trade, investment, and debt would benefit from substantive inputs from U.S. business groups/NGOs, banks, or companies active internationally. We have asked the UN Secretariat for a list of U.S. companies and organizations that were accredited to the Monterrey conference and that, according to the terms of the resolution, would only need to go through a simple registration procedure to participate in the roundtables. As appropriate, we recommend Washington agencies encourage them to participate. RESOLUTION TEXT ¶6. (U) The full text of the resolution can be found at: HTTP://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/N07/63 0/06/PDF/N0763006.PDF?oPEN ELEMENT Khalilzad