30 November 2008
Doha — Mozambican Prime Minister Luisa Diogo on Saturday appealed to leaders of the rich countries not to use the international financial crisis as a justification for reducing aid to the developing world.
Speaking in Doha, at the plenary session of the United Nations Conference on Development Finance, Diogo insisted that official development aid should not fall victim to the financial crisis.
She noted that, over the past two years, there had already been an overall decline in the money spent on foreign aid by the developing nations. If this decline continued, she warned, a lack of resources would make it impossible for poor countries to maintain the economic growth rates they have achieved to date.
Diogo urged the United Nations to lead the international community in adopting appropriate measures to alleviate the consequences imposed by the crisis, particularly in non-oil producing countries.
Referring to the Monterey Consensus on development aid, adopted in Mexico in 2002, Diogo recognized the efforts that had been made since then to mobilize resources for development, to promote international trade as an engine of development, to reduce foreign debt, and to find solutions to the problems inherent to the international financial system.
But six years after the Monterey consensus, assessment of its implementation showed uneven progress. Diogo pointed out that Africa has fallen increasingly behind in the targets agreed at Monterey. On top of this failure came the added costs of the energy, food and financial crises, and the challenges posed by climate change.
Diogo stressed that, despite these adversities, Mozambique had been able to improve its business environment, create incentives for local and international investors, and sustain an economic growth rate of around seven per cent a year.
Diogo challenged the rich countries to show the political will to meet the UN target of allocating sums equivalent to at least 0.7 per cent of their GDP to official development aid. To date only five donor countries have reached or surpassed this target - Sweden, Luxemburg, Norway, Holland and Denmark.
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