Ecobreves – MERCOSUR: Municipalities Make Voice Heard

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MONTEVIDEO, Aug 25 2002 (IPS) - The local governments of Mercosur (Southern Common Market), Bolivia and Chile are at the Rio+10 Summit in Johannesburg voicing demands for the renegotiation of foreign debt of poor countries, the elimination of tax havens and a tax on international financial flows in order to create a global anti-poverty fund. The Merco-Cities Network, representing 70 urban centers in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay home to 70 million people, will demand that municipal delegates be seated with the official delegations at the World Summit on Sustainable development, instead of relegating them to the backseat as “interest groups”.

“The vast majority of our population lives in cities, and the serious environmental and development problems are found in the cities,” said Sao Paulo's environment secretary Estela Goldenstein in her presentation of the Network's declaration.

The declaration was drawn up during a conference organized by the city of Montevideo, in collaboration with SEMA (Secretariat of Environmental Management for Latin America and the Caribbean).