'Global partnership' for development pursued.

• Position: General Assembly 52 - Includes related article on sustainable development

The spirit of consensus usually seen in the work of the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) took a momentary misstep in 1997 when disagreement surfaced over the concept of development, particularly of sustainable development, and over the question of development financing.

In the penultimate meeting of the Committee, the United States requested recorded votes on six draft resolutions - on industrial development; human resources development; women in development; renewal of the dialogue for development through partnership; external debt problem of developing countries, and global financial flows and their impact on developing countries - stating that it could not accept the equation of "sustained economic growth" and "sustainable development". The representative of the United Republic of Tanzania, speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 developing countries and China, said most countries felt the United States' approach to sustainable development was restrictive.

Following extensive consultations, those texts were adopted without a vote after being orally amended, so that the phrase "sustained economic growth and sustainable development" was followed by "in accordance with relevant General Assembly resolutions and recent United Nations conferences", a phrase taken from provisions of Assembly resolution 51/219, adopted during the previous session.

The debate on development issues continued to focus on trade, investment and the external debt problem. The need to find a durable solution to the debt problem of developing countries, particularly those in Africa, was stressed by several delegations. The discussion on the external debt crisis also focused on the implementation of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Initiative and the declining trend in the official development assistance.

The Assembly, recognizing that effective, equitable, development-oriented and durable solutions to the external debt and debt-servicing problems of developing countries could contribute substantially to the strengthening of the global economy and to the efforts of those countries to achieve sustained economic growth and sustainable development, called on the international community and the private sector to implement agreements and decisions on external debt taken at major UN development conferences and summits. It stressed the importance of implementing the eligibility criteria of the HIPC Debt Initiative in a flexible and transparent manner and...