Financing for Development
The United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development, FfD, was held in Monterrey, Mexico, 18-22 March 2002. The FfD process was spurred into being after WSSD+5 and NGO pressure at Seattle forced unprecedented collaboration between the UN and world finance and trade institutions to find better ways to finance development and fully implement the agreed action plans of the major UN conferences of the past decade.

The focus was on six central areas: mobilizing domestic resources; mobilizing international resources; trade and investment; official development assistance (ODA); debt; and systemic issues. Under pressure from NGOs and other stakeholders, another area on interlink ages has recently been added. Since the December 1999 agreement, several preparatory meetings and events have been held.

DAWN was one of the few women's organisations interested in the FfD process from the outset. DAWN's involvement stems mainly from its concern over the global trend towards the privatization of social goods and from an interest in seeing Currency Transaction Tax (CCT) or Tobin Tax introduced and its income mobilised for development. Continuing to influence the outcomes of FfD is important because of their impact on the status of global poverty, gender justice and economic justice.

One of the FfD activities was a panel held by the DAWN/REPEM-supported Feminist Initiative of Cartagena at the 4th FfD Prepcom in New York, 15-24 January 2002. More than 60 people participated,among them representatives from WEDO, women from Mexico, Peru, Cuba, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Salvador, Costa Rica, Norway, Canada and women from Africa and Asia. Panellists later gave radio and press interviews for the UN, USA and Mexican media. The title of the panel was Justice and Democracy: gender scopes in the FfD Process. It was held on 22 January 2002.
The panellists were Sonia Correa for DAWN, Brazil, who spoke on CTT at national level: first findings in Latin America; Marina Durano of DAWN on Global Public Goods; Cecilia Lopez from the Feminist Initiative of Cartegena, Colombia giving comments on the Facilitator draft outcome paper; Carol Barton representing WICEJ,EEUU speaking on race, poverty and globalization, and Yassine Fall of UNIFEM, RPD,Francophone Africa.

See bottom of page for other websites with FfD process information.

DAWN papers and other key documents concerned with the FfD process available on this site:

Statement of Concern
Roundtable on Looking Ahead in Financing Development
DAWN statement from "Looking Ahead" discussions
Civil Society Participants Statement on "Looking Ahead"
Linking together for world-wide resistance to neo-liberal globalisation.

Financing for Development in the Context of Globalisation and Trade Liberalisation: Opportunities and Constraints facing the Caribbean, a paper presented by Mariama Williams at the Heinrich Boell Stiftung Conference on Gender Budgets, Financial Markets, Financing for Development - the Gender Dimensions of the Global Financial Architecture, 19-20 February 2002 in Berlin, Germany

Report One and Report Two by the Cartegena Initiative from the 4th FfD PrepCom, New York14-25 January 2002.There is deep concern about the draft text, which is viewed as a wholesale endorsement of the neo-liberal model that has removed most of the items the South had endorsed the the previous draft paper. It is a framework for making Southern countries more legally and institutionally acceptable for iternational investment and for their compliance with WTO trade requirements. There is no discussion on 'new global architecture' or any real systemic changes. There are isolated references to gender and a rights framework is absent, as are clear references to outcomes of the UN conferences of the 1990's as the goal of financing.

WEDO Assessment of the FfD 4th PrepCom, New York 14-25 January 2002.

Asia Pacific Regional Meet on Gender Dimensions of
Finance for Development 7 -8 January 2002, Kathmandu :Response to the Revised Draft Outcome Document Prepared by the Facilitator

What kind of Development Should Be Financed? A paper delivered at the FfD Resumed PrepCom, New York, 15-19 October 2001, by Cecilia Lopez Montano, with contributions from Alma Espino and Rosalba Todara, on behalf of the Cartagena Feminist Initiative, in which DAWN participates.

Policy paper from Danish United Nations Association, August 2001

NGLS Fact Sheet, High Level Panel Issues Report. July 2001

Report of the REPEM-DAWN/UNIFEM Latin American Workshop-Seminar on Financing for Development: New Tendencies, New Exclusions and New Strategies from Women's Perspectives in the Region, from Sonia Correa. Cartegena de Indias, Colombia, 15-17 July 2001.

Gender and Trade in the International Economy: A Brief Overview. Mariama Williams, Research Coordinator, International Gender and Trade Network.For REPEM-DAWN/UNIFEM Seminar on FfD, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, 15-17 July 2001.

Understanding global public goods and differentiating them from publicly provided goods. Marina Fe B. Durano, 26 June 2001.

Women's Priorities in FfD. Presented at WEDO Panel during 3rd FfD PrepCom. Marina Fe B. Durano, 6 May 2001

WEDO Summary of 3rd PrepCom on FfD, May 2-8 2001

Women's Consultation Recommendations, 3rd PrepCom, New York, 2-8 May 2001

Women's Caucus Statement on Systemic Issues presented by Alejandra Scampini, 21 February 2001

NGO Working Group on Foreign Direct Investment at the 2nd Substantive Session of the Preparatory Committee for the High-Level International Intergovernmental Event on Financing for Development, New York, February 15 2001

Women's Caucus Statement at the 2nd Substantive Session of the PreCom for FfD, New York, 14 February 2001

Recommendations from the UN Secretary-General's Report on Financing for Development, from NGLS January 2001

Mobilising International Resources for Development - Foreign Direct Investment and other private flows, and trade. Mariama Williams, NGO Hearing, 5-9 November 2000.

Information about the FfD process is available on a number of other websites, including:
WEDO, which has a section on FfD as one of the Program areas with a collection of informaton and documents.
UNIFEM
Danish UN Association, which has a collection of more than 200 documents from NGOs.
United Nations FfD section