Destination Doha: Test for a new multilateralism
December 1, 2008
Fraser Reilly-King
& John W. Foster
As the credit crisis cascades through world economies it threatens to put millions out of work, throw another 40 million into extremepoverty in the South, and exacerbate the already extensive food and fuel
crises. It also detracts attention and resources from the most urgent challengeof all: climate change.
While the Group of 20 (G-20) meeting in Washington added some new faces to theexclusive club of the G-7/8, and their current dominance of world economicdecision-making, it left aside representatives from more than 170 governmentswhose peoples bear a hefty share of the impacts of Wall Street’s excesses.
How can the voices and needs of the rest of humanity be integrated into global economic governance? Luckily, the G-20 is not the onlyforum this month.
This week, officials and civil society organizations fromaround the world will meet in Doha,
Qatar, under the auspices of the United Nations to review progress on the Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey
Consensus (FfD). Quite the mouthful, we know.
The agenda for Doha sounds like a good starting point for tackling today’s current global financial
crisis. The meeting has a comprehensive agenda which the G-20 lacks, and an inclusiveness and legitimacy of which the push for multilateralism-by-numbers –be it G-7, G-8, G-13 or G-20 – is bereft.
Six years ago, in response to the Asian financial crisis of 1997, world leaders met in Monterrey,
Mexico. There they examined the UN’s Millennium Development Goals to determine what countries
could do to address both the dramatic shortfall in resources required to achieve the goals, encourage
better resource mobilization at home, and deal with already chronic shortfalls in global economic governance. The Monterrey “consensus” which resulted involved not only the UN and its member states but the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization as well.
This was more than just a big push to reverse the decade-long decline in aid – although countries did commit (yet again) 0.7% of their gross national income to official development assistance (ODA). The role of domestic policy autonomy to use tariffs, taxes and apply domestic revenues to development was to be
strengthened. It noted the potential of foreign direct investment and private capital flows, as well as trade, as engines for growth. It highlighted the importance of debt relief and debt cancellation as mechanisms for freeing up resources and creating policy space for countries, no longer bound to the conditions tied to that debt relief, to pursue their own development goals. Finally it pointed to the need for greater coherence between finance, debt, aid and trade policies, within international bodies, and for a greater voice for developing countries in the institutions that help guide those policies and that system.
Developing countries in turn committed themselves to “sound policies, good governance at all levels and the rule of law”.
Today the UN is moving ahead with its high-level taskforce to assess the global financial crisis and its institutions, chaired by economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Last week it announced that next September’s General Assembly will focus on the global financial crisis. This year, the UN’s Development Cooperation Forum met for the first time, providing a more representative forum for discussing aid and development issues than the the more restricted OECD Development Assistance Committee.
Fundamental to the success of these initiatives is whether finance ministries and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund buy into a more comprehensive approach. Initial indications bode poorly. It appears that the heads of the Bank and the Fund, who were both active in Monterrey,
have both opted-out of attending Doha. Similarly, as heads of government, global agencies and ministers move to Doha, it is Development Minister Bev Oda who will head the Canadian delegation. If Monterrey
merited the participation of the Canadian Minister of Finance, shouldn’t Mr. Flaherty be packing his valise?
But, should it be the question of one or the other – the G-20 or the UN? In the lead-up to the
original Monterrey FFD conference, former Mexican President Zedillo and European Union Commissioner Delors proposed a global economic “security council” within the United Nations, an idea that had been broached by the Carlsson-Ramphal Commission a few years earlier. Such a body, composed on a basis similar to the G-20 but accountable to the whole family of nations in the UN, could have
the legitimacy and the political resources required to tackle today’s global challenges. The UN’s new Development Cooperation Forum is playing a similar role alongside the traditional forum for
discussion about aid – the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee.
Crises that confront virtually every nation require global, not partial, responses. Canada should be in the vanguard to this 21st century multilateralism, using it to develop solutions that will serve all.
If it doesn’t, the world may be faced with not just a crisis of food, fuel and finance, but a much longer-term crisis of multilateralism.
Fraser Reilly-King is Coordinator of the Halifax Initiative Coalition.
John W. Foster is Principal Researcher at The North-South Institute. Dr. Foster is attending the Doha FFD Conference and the Civil Society Forum in Doha.
The opinions expressed
are their own.
NSI Senior Researcher Pablo Heidrich recently travelled to Venezuela for the Annual Conference of the Latin American Association of Political Economy which took place in Caracus from October 7th – 11th. The conference theme for this year was very timely: “Southern Solutions for a Global Crisis”. These writings contain impressions on some of the presentations heard during the conference, discussions with some of the participants and what was seen, heard or smelled while in Venezuela.
Day 1
Staying at the Hotel ALBA, named in honour of the regional block Venezuela is building and now already includes Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Honduras and some of the smaller Caribbean island-nations. ALBA (which stands for Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America) was chosen as the name for this recently “nationalized” Hilton hotel. In fact, it was a government-built hotel being managed by Hilton, whose lease Chavez chose not to renew. However, there was a referendum late last year and so, the non-renewal of the Hilton’s lease was repackaged as a “nationalization”. A cheap one, indeed, since some of the other have cost billions of dollars.
The conference does not begin in its pre-arranged location but in a different one, the auditorium of the new National Academy for Economic Planning. The reason, we are told, is that our conference has already created a lot of interest and many of the students want to attend.So, we are taken by bus to that institution’s campus. Once there, a rumour provides the real reason, Chavez himself will likely attend and the university auditorium is a more “appropriate” venue than a conference room for 50 at the top of some high-rise.
Besides rumour, however, nothing is ever formally confirmed. After some 3 hours waiting and polite but persistent strategic seating changes among the intelligentsia in attendance, we assume Chavez is ready to appear. First, some 300 students come in and fill the back of the auditorium, a couple hundred more are bused in just in case and told to take the day off and picnic in the park nearby. Secondly, a chorus of some 20 people takes-up position on one side of the auditorium and starts testing their harmonies. They are dressed in Venezuelan flags, Chavistas red berets and fluorescent-blue Nike shoes (specially made for them, I am told). Thirdly, some very large guys come in jeeps and take positions around the auditorium, while two stunningly beautiful young women in very tight military uniforms stand by the platform, next to the chair where Chavez is likely to sit.
The conference begins suddenly and just five minutes into it, as the People’s Minister for Economic Planning is giving us the opening speech, he picks up a cellphone call in front of the microphone and evidently talks to Hugo Chavez. He hangs up and tells us that the President is coming to listen in and participate in our discussions. An uproar of happiness and enthusiasm comes from the crowd and the Minister struggles to continue his formal speech.
Just 10 minutes later, Hugo Chavez does arrive with a rather average entourage of bodyguards and secretaries. He greets every person in the opening panel of the conference, thanks them for coming to Venezuela, and is sincerely polite with each and every one there. He then looks straight at the public calling his name, clapping strenuously, and smiles slightly, almost shy in the face of the multitude’s visible affection for him. The chorus comes in singing the national anthem. Right after, some people in the audience ask to sign the International Socialist, a request that Chavez fatherly ignores.
After thanking and expressing his interest in listening to addresses of the conference participants, he proceeds to talk for 2 hours and 18 minutes. It is a political speech on the virtues of progressing towards socialism, while capitalism is facing its ultimate fate: crisis, chaos and dissolution. While very heavy on Marxist theory, his discourse is anchored on material benchmarks, nationalizations of various industries, building of this or that hospital, very specific measures to reduce capital flight, prevent internet shopping, and channel credit away from consumption, etc. He can’t hide two contradictory thoughts through his speech. One is his visible joy at the Wall Street tumble taking place, and the other, his obvious worry about what this might mean for Venezuela’s economy.
So, Chavez ably uses one to give strength to the other, converting contradiction into logical cohesion. Chavez believes that this crisis is the most powerful endorsement of his route to socialism, as capitalism has shown that it can’t deliver. For example, nationalizations have made utility and productive enterprises stronger in Venezuela than they are in the rest of the region, where they depend on banks and stock markets for credit and function. Therefore, the more nationalized the economy is, the more insulated from global crises. His diversification away from US and towards China, Iran and Russia will also lower the vulnerability of Venezuela. Even having moved the national reserves from New York to Switzerland a couple of years ago is proving to have been a good, even profitable, decision.
After such long speech, punctuated by his attractive aids bringing him note cards with Bloomberg or Reuters cables he reads the news dispatches aloud to illustrate the depth of the crisis, sidetracks to tell of conversations with Fidel Castro, and crescendoes his discourse with new slogans (i.e. “a socialist country is the only defence against the crisis”), Chavez announces he must leave for another meeting and soon after, we are taken back to our hotel, too. After all, 5pm is a good time to perhaps have some lunch. No more speeches or presentations for that day.
-siempre Pablo
Caracas, Conferences, Chavistas…..
October 22, 2008
NSI Senior Researcher Pablo Heidrich recently travelled to Venezuela for the Annual Conference of the Latin American Association of Political Economy which took place in Caracus from October 7th – 11th. The conference theme for this year was very timely: “Southern Solutions for a Global Crisis”. These writings contain impressions on some of the presentations heard during the conference, discussions with some of the participants and what was seen, heard or smelled while in Venezuela.
Day 0
Leaving Ottawa for Chicago, Latin America already shows its borders. Spanish is spoken in O’Hare International Airport at least as much as French is in Ottawa. From Chicago, I fly on to Miami, where Latin America truly begins. Spanish is the language spoken here. English is spoken here, as well, as airport shop signs occasionally point out for those in doubt.
Caracas receives travelers in its 70s-style airport, and along a highway to the city which is slowly being eaten away by tropical forest. The taxi driver takes advantage of his resting spot against a pole to chat with me, and provide a first impression of life under Chavez. He goes from his thanks for a nearby new bridge, to puzzlement and dismay over the price of food and the problems of finding goods even at official prices. He is careful not to ever mention Chavez by name or in a way, make his government directly responsible for any policy mishaps.
My two neighbours on the Miami to Caracas flight were Venezuelan. One was a small town bakery-owner, returning from a 35-day vacation in Portugal, and a 5 day shopping spree in Miami. He laughed at how he could spend 5 whole days shopping, and replied that he was bringing back 8 suitcases, having left with just one. (for his whole family of four.) The other neighbour was Venezuelan with Canadian residency, returning for a relative’s funeral. He migrated to Canada as “he could no longer recognize his own country”. While the touring baker is witty and indirect in his depiction of domestic issues and troubles, the immigrant is bitter, direct and loud in his denunciations. Eventually, their conversation moves on to where one might buy the cheapest mp3 player, and how to beat currency controls (Venezuelans can only take US $ 4,000 per year our of the country) and, of course, baseball.
