DEVELOPMENT FINANCING CONFERENCE: THE INEQUALITY-POVERTY NEXUS

From 29 November to 2 December 2008 in Doha, Qatar, the Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development will be reviewed. It should be an opportunity to establish the foundation for a more inclusive and democratic international financial system, write Cecilia Alemany, manager at the Association for Women\'s Rights in Development (AWID) and Anne Schoenstein, a consultant with the Association for Women\'s Rights in Development (AWID). In this article, the author writes that at the Qatar conference there will not be a Declaration of Consensus, only an Outcome document, because among other actors the US has been blocking any substantive commitment or binding obligation on development. Even with the more progressive new US president, the underlying mechanisms of the \"development industry\" or the \"development business\" are still based on a set of hypothesis and principles that undermine the right to development and to self-determination. Changing them will require true political will. For women\'s rights groups and advocates, the Monterrey Consensus did not go far enough, and we may experience the same disappointment with the Doha Review Conference if there is no reference to clear gender equality commitments. We need a new kind of leadership from those groups that were historically marginalised, including women. The new political landscape in the US is an opportunity and an optimistic sign in this sense. Inclusiveness is not just \"politically correct\"; now it is realpolitik.