ECOSOC discusses 'enabling environment for developement.' (Economic and Social Council)

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) suspended its 1997 substantive work on 25 July, following a four-week session at Geneva, which gave particular attention to "fostering an enabling environment for development" and how that goal might be affected by changes in the world economic system and by United Nations reforms. On the last day of its session, the Council approved a set of agreed conclusions on its high-level discussion on fostering an enabling environment for development. It remarked, among other things, that democracy, respect for all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development, and effective participation by civil society were essential to the necessary foundations for the realization of social and people-centre sustainable development.

There also was a panel discussion--termed a "policy dialogue"--between Michel Camdessus, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund; Renata Regear, Director-General of the World Trade Organization; Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and Jean-Francois Rischard, Vice-President of Finance and Private-Sector Development of the World Bank.

Numerous country representatives decried a decline in core funding for United Nations development activities, and a similar drop in general resources given for official development assistance. An Indonesian delegate said it was at its lowest point in 10 years, "with bleak prospects for the future".

A resolution adopted towards the end of the session called for "the developed countries, in particular, those whose overall performance was not commensurate with their capacity to increase substantially their official development assistance, including contributions to the operational activities of the United Nations system". It also was claimed repeatedly by representatives of the world's poorer countries that without such aid their nations would be further marginalized, as better-off States charged ahead on the wave of the rapidly expanding global economy.

Also discussed at length were efforts by the United Nations and its specialized agencies to coordinate their activities and programmes related to development to avoid overlapping and ensure that the...