The mobilization of resources to finance development is a pressing challenge for a world in which 1.2 billion people are condemned to extreme poverty. And it is also key to achieving environmental sustainability of the planet.

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The connection between the two conferences is important, because in Johannesburg the world community will review the commitments made at the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. At that time, the governments issued a document known as Agenda 21, in which they detailed the costs of sustainable development: 600 billion dollars a year.

One of the goals was that industrialized countries would provide some 125 billion dollars a year in development aid, the equivalent of 0.7 percent of their gross domestic products (GDP). They did not achieve that target, however, and in 2000 such assistance averaged 0.22 percent GDP.

A High-Level Panel on Financing for Development, organized by the UN to draft a report prior to the Monterrey summit, warned that if concrete targets are not achieved, the goals established in the Millennium Declaration will not be met, such as halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by the year 2015.

Information available on the Internet exposes the challenges related to mobilizing resources for development, such as the willingness of poor countries to change their economic and financial policies to be more efficient.

One of the objectives for development must be to make the economic globalization process more equitable, say development activists and UN leaders