INTERVIEW: José Antonio Ocampo

'Civil society needed at Development Financing Conference'

Satya Sivaraman

José Antonio Ocampo, Undersecretary General of the United Nations is here at the WSF with a message from the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Ocampo, who is also the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), is making a pitch for civil society participation in the upcoming Conference on Financing for Development at Monterrey, Mexico.

How does the United Nations relate to the WSF process?

The United Nations is involved in many of the negotiations going on in this world about issues that are being discussed at this Forum. The Secretary General's message emphasises three major processes. The process of financing for development, which will take place in Monterrey next month. The process of trade negotiations that was launched at Doha last year. And the third, which is the Johannesburg Conference on Sustainable Development. These are in essence the triangle of negotiations that are currently going on, which if properly used by governments, by civil society and also by the private sector, can help to fulfil the targets that the UN has established through several processes, particularly in the Millennium Declaration of 2000.

What is special about the Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey?

The Monterrey Conference is an opportunity, especially for developed countries to make commitments about how to support - through resources - the development of poor countries in particular. And to analyse the constraints the developing countries are facing due to the way world financial markets function. Issues like the role of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the role of regulation of financial capital markets, the role of multilateral development banks and, in relation to the poorest countries, the role of overseas development assistance - are the sort for which there will be strong commitment at the Monterrey Conference.

There is a great deal of frustration among many NGOs at the WSF over the way their views have been ignored in preparing the Monterrey Conference agenda. They are also saying that the World Bank and IMF should not have such a major role at the conference because they are part of the problem.

Well, the process of the Financing for Development Conference has involved many actors. There have been regional conferences, seminars in different regions. In New York there has been a constant process of discussion involving civil society representatives, who have delivered messages to the preparatory committee for conference. The private sector has also given its message to the conference. It is a global process which aims to incorporate all the actors and I think that the preparatory committee's statement has a good message for the Forum. It is important that this should be understood as the beginning of the process and not the end. The Monterrey Conference will hopefully take decisions on several issues and also continue discussing on other issues for which negotiations will take place in the immediate future.

Now in relation to the World Bank and the IMF, the position of the UN is that those organisations have to be part of the solution. They have been quite good in their role in the preparatory process in terms of their contributions. I must say that on some issues like the issue of capital flows the position of the World Bank has changed substantially in recent years, as has that of the IMF. Capital flows, which was a civil society issue, and which some of us - also from governments and international organisations - defended for many years- has come into the agenda. And there will be many other issues from the civil society agenda that will be taken up, like the reinvigoration of development assistance and the role of official capital flows in general towards developing countries. Of course the conference will not go into any very specific agenda because this is a negotiating process, everybody is participating and the solution will mix elements coming from different sides. But I think overall the Monterrey Conference will have very positive results and incorporate many views promoted by civil society.

The UN is seen as being too closely associated with official government positions and apparently is losing credibility with civil society organisations. How is the UN responding to this perception?

Let me say that there is no more democratic forum than the United Nations. Of course governments are the major actors. But it is very hard to say that there is any dominant position within the UN. It is a forum for views from many parts of the world. It is true that the major industrialised countries have a voice but so do developing countries. The Group of 77 that represents developing countries for example is a very active participant in UN processes.

We should never forget that the UN is, above everything else, a forum of governments, and the UN secretariat is the executive branch that executes decisions adopted by governments. Within that framework the UN has been very open to civil society and civil society has been very influential for the UN on many issues. Take the major UN conferences - civil society has been a major player at all of them. Many of the decisions adopted at these conferences, human rights, rights of women, rights of ethnic minorities and others have been highlighted only through the partnership between civil society and the UN.