Let me start by reading paragraph 44 of the draft communiquÿ from the Monterrey conference: "We recognize the value of exploring innovative sources of finance provided that those sources do not unduly burden developing countries. In that regard, we agree to study, in the appropriate forums, the results of the analysis requested from the Secretary-General on possible innovative sources of finance, noting the proposal to use special drawing rights allocations for development purposes. We consider that any assessment of special drawing rights allocations must respect the International Monetary Fund's Articles of Agreement and the established rules of procedure of the Fund, which requires taking into account the global need for liquidity at the international level." Behind this rather obscure language lies a concrete proposal to use SDRs for the provision of public goods on a global scale. Developing countries would add their SDR allocations to their monetary reserves; developed countries would donate them for international assistance.

GEORGE SOROS
Soros Fund Management, LLC
Remarks at the Roundtable on
"New Proposals on Financing for Development"
February 20, 2002

Available at:
http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/soros0202.htm

Los bienes públicos, como la salud y el ambiente, no pueden promoverse imponiendo sanciones a las naciones cuando no cumplen con los estándares internacionales, porque a muchas les faltan los recursos necesarios para alcanzarlos. En cambio, debe brindarse asistencia internacional para estimular el cumplimiento voluntario y para permitir que los países pobres eleven sus prácticas al nivel de los estándares internacionales.

GEORGE SOROS
Hoy, "Bienes públicos globales: el componente ausente"

Available at:
http://www.chile-hoy.de/internaciona

For Monterrey, therefore, the Commission is suggesting five concrete proposals (see background note for circulation) for increasing the quality and quantity of Official Development Assistance (ODA).

POUL NIELSON
European Commissioner for Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid
"Towards a global partnership for sustainable development" - "Report on the preparations of the International Conference on Financing for Development (Monterrey)" - "Responses to the challenges of globalisation : a study on the international monetary and financial system and on financing development" Press Conference
Brussels
13 February 2002

Available at:
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=

In this context it is disappointing to see that Monterrey seems to remain silent on the issue of Global Public Goods. It was and still is my view that we should use to platform of this conference to launch a "Global Public Goods Agenda". The idea of global public goods is not new in the international co-operation debate, but it has recently found renewed interest.

POUL NIELSON
European Commissioner for Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid
"Speaking at the International Peace Academy: Doha, Monterrey, Johannesburg and beyond: Milestones on a Road leading to Global Sustainability "
New York
8 February 2002

Available at:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/nielson/speech/20020208_en.htm

Action is needed on the volume of Official Development Assistance (ODA) : we have to agree on concrete steps to double ODA flows within the next five years, in order to be able to achieve the Millennium development goals. ODA must also be more efficient: we have to complete the work on untying of aid in time for the Conference. All themes will stay on the agenda whether they are the subject of a consensus or not in Monterrey. This goes particularly for global public goods.

POUL NIELSON
European Commissioner for Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid
"Statement at Plenary Session of the European Parliament "
Strasbourg

6 February 2002

Available at:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/nielson/speech/20020208_en.htm

We live in a world characterized by global markets, but political arrangements remain firmly rooted in the sovereignty of states. Some international institutions do sustain global markets, but they are far from perfect. International institutions dedicated to the provision of public goods, such as preserving peace, protecting the environment, alleviating poverty, and improving health, labor conditions, and human rights, are even less effective and less well-endowed.

GEORGE SOROS
Project Syndicate, "Global Public Goods: The Missing Component"
October 2001

Available at:
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentaries/commentary_text.php4?id=689&lang=1

I will, therefore, make three brief points. First, we are entering a new global health world; isolationism in health is gone forever. To be effective, national health strategies must adopt global mindsets and transnational strategies. Such strategies must produce more and better "public health goods" and the control the damages of "public health ads."

Second, fresh strategies and new institutional arrangements will be needed. This US-Mexico Commission can be at the cutting edge of these new cooperative initiatives for mutual learning and benefit. Third, transnational health strategies, while striving for global health solidarity with equity, perform best with a specific action agenda that is mission-oriented and outcome-driven, demonstrating concrete advances for the people's health. All too many committees manage to say the right things but do preciously little.

LINCLON C. CHEN, MD
Executive Vice-President for Strategy
The Rockefeller Foundation
"At the Frontline in a New Health World"
US-Mexico Border Health Commission
El Paso, Texas,
15 October 2001.

Available at:
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/gei/Text/Chen_Pubs/LCC_At_The_Frontline10.2001.pdf

Civil society players from the South have important contributions to make not only to the construction of their own societies but also in bringing forward important perspectives to the debate about global public goods. They remind us of the need to take seriously the calls for a more just world order and the need for level playing fields in social and economic orders.

ERKKI TUOMIOJA
Foreign Minister
"Opening address at the seminar:The New Social Movements in the South" Helsinki
14 September 2001

Available at:
http://formin.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID

During the cold war, the United States and its allies provided the global public good of containment, investing trillions of dollars to stop the spread of communism. The task now is vastly more complicated. The principal goal of foreign policy is now almost containment's opposite: helping to ensure that all parts of the world, including the poorest, are integrated into global economic and ecological networks in mutually beneficial ways.

JEFFREY SACHS
The Economist, "What's good for the poor is good for America".
14 July 2001

Beyond these economic reforms, the developed world must also make greater efforts to promote global public goods, such as research in agriculture and communicable diseases that affect the developing world. Access for those most in need of the results of this research must also become assured. Other actions include focusing aid on poverty reduction; stemming armed conflict; and encouraging the constructive participation of poorer countries and poorer people in the decisions that are shaping the globalization process.

Nora Lustig
Senior Advisor and Chief of the Poverty and Inequality Unit of the Inter-American Development Bank and co-director of the World Development Report 2000/1 "Attacking Poverty"
Project Syndicate, "Sharing Globalization's Benefits"
June 2001

Available at:
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentaries/commentary_text.php4?id=602&lang=1

With the critical role of industry in development and the need for government policy to support industrialization, there is also a need for a publicly funded, intergovernmental body like UNIDO to provide international public goods that promote industrial development. I should like to draw your attention to the fact that there is no other international institution that specializes in the provision of such goods for industry.

CARLOS MAGARINOS
Director-General of UNIDO
"UNIDO's Current and Future Opportunities"
UNIDO Forum
Tokyo, 23 May 2001

Available at:
http://www.unido.org/userfiles/timminsk/05-23-2001dgtokyoforum.pdf

The Programme sets out, in my view, our best possible response to combine different approaches which target the impact of existing interventions, the affordability of medicines and the need for research and development of global public goods such as AIDS and malaria vaccines. Prevention remains at the forefront of our efforts, we clearly recognise that we must find ways to increase access to effective treatments. However we should not lose sight of the fact that, in the case of AIDS, even if anti-retroviral drugs were to be provided free, there remain significant obstacles to overcome in getting effective care to those in need. The discussions of economics and priorities in health policy must be based on the reality of economics and priorities in the developing countries. There is a big risk of this whole discussion being hijacked by media and PR-politics in the rich countries.

POUL NIELSON
European Commissioner for Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid
"Speech to the Thematic Session on Enhancing Productive Capacity, 3rd UN Conference on Least Developed Countries"
Brussels
16 May 2001

Available at:
http://www.europaworld.org/DEVPOLAWAR/En

On the subject of development assistance, Mr. Sinha said developed nations must agree to increase their level of overseas development assistance (ODA) flows which had decreased to around 0.24 per cent of the GNP in the 1990s, well below the 0.33 per cent maintained in the 1970s and 1980s. International institutions and the donor community could jointly support the creation of a fund to support the provision of global public goods, especially in the areas of public health and technology transfer.

YASHWANT SINHA
Finance Minister, India
The Hindu (India), "Joint effort needed to achieve goals"
1 May 2001

International donors and private foundations have provided increased funding to such international public goods as health, environment, knowledge and safeguarding of peace. Our estimates, the first such comprehensive attempt, show that the official donor community and private foundations provide about US$5 billion toward the financing of global and regional public goods with an additional US$11 billion toward complementary country-based programs that help the effective domestic absorption of these international public goods.

PETER COSTELLO
Treasurer of Australia
Development Committee
30 April 2001

Available at:
http://www.imf.org/external/spri

The government has contributed to creating new types of financial mechanisms to address these concerns: World Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to which the Prime Minister has announced that France will contribute EUR 150 million over three years; a substantial increase, by 2005, of our contribution to the World Environment Fund; an unprecedented effort to write off the debts of the poorest countries (HIPC initiative) which in 2000 the government decided was to be in addition to the aid already allocated. So France is going to make the highest contribution (EUR 10 billion for cancellation of eligible countries' debts) to help combat poverty, far more than the effort required at multilateral level. But we must go beyond that. Realization of the need to ensure the existence of these world public goods calls for a proactive and innovatory response. The terrorist attacks of 11 September haven't reduced the legitimacy of the criticisms of globalization. On the contrary, they have strengthened our duty to address them.

CHARLES JOSSELIN
Minister Delegate for Cooperation and Francophony
"Published in Le Monde"
12 April 2001

Available at:
http://www.un.int/france/documents_anglais/011

The IMF is adapting to the lessons of experience and changes in the global environment. We have learned that program countries cannot solve everything at the same time. We are streamlining the IMF's conditionality, to help pave the way for greater national ownership and sustained implementation. And the IMF has to refocus. This means that it should concentrate on macro economic stability and on the financial sector, which are essential for sustained growth. The IMF will help countries to build sound financial systems and to promote international financial stability as a global public good. And it must help countries to take advantage of the opportunities of global markets.

HORST KÖHLER
"Remarks at the Conference on Child Poverty, Education, and Health: Breaking the Cycle of World Poverty"
London
26 February 2001

Available at:
http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2001/022601.htm

The issue of GPGs deserves particular attention — both because of its link with ODA and because its importance in the context of globalization. It is one of the main issues on the current agenda for the Development Committee and being discussed in many other for a. Managing global issues well now will make the difference between broader and richer life choices for children — or the opposite.

There is increasing recognition that some of the most pressing development issues need to be addressed through internationally coordinated efforts and resource transfers. Controlling communicable disease, HIV/AIDS in particular; liming climate change; mitigating environmental damage; managing the global commons; containing financial instability; and of course building peace in a comprehensive fashion are examples of issues that go beyond national borders. Solutions to them provide benefits to citizens of many, if not all, countries — hence the "global public goods" (GPG) label.

Some GPGs (such as reducing carbon emissions) require coordination of actions by individual governments and communities. Others (such as mobilization of resources for the development of vaccines) require more specific coalitions and localized action. The demand for international public goods has grown apace with globalization but the supply of international public goods remains restricted because households, businesses, and governments, acting in isolation, typically do not take into consideration the shared benefits and costs of their actions. Further complicating matters, the shared benefits and costs are valued differently by citizens in different countries. Even though many of the benefits from international action on GPGs are not confined to developing countries, there has been a tendency to fund GPG activities out of aid budgets. But these aid budgets are shrinking and need to be expanded — not be subjected to pressure from additional demands. GPG initiatives launched in the international community must, therefore, face the dual challenges of being complementary to national efforts and well-integrated into them, while being funded additionally, rather than siphoning away scarce resources form domestic priorities for poverty reduction. There is a need, as well as a tremendous opportunity, to forge partnerships between governments, international organizations, private-for-profit entities and civil society.

MATS KARLSSON
Vice President, External Affairs and United Nations Affairs, The World Bank
12 February 2001

Available at:
http://www.un.org/eas/ffd

It is true that globalization has led to the increase in the volume and pace of trade and finance and expansion of communications, but these are not the only results. There are a wide range of goods and services which have traditionally been considered within the purview of national domain and now have become global public goods and services, and which can no longer be provided through domestic policy alone. Therefore, a strong and genuine international partnership and cooperation is necessary to ensure the stable and continued provision of such goods and services. I doubt that there could be a dispute on the proposition that the provision of global and regional public goods and services requires international cooperation.

I should, however, raise a related concern, a serious one, that these new global public goods and services seem to be drawing away much of the attention and resources sorely needed for the conventional official development assistance programmes. The remedy, in our view, lies in the mobilization of new and additional resources to address the GPG concerns. Various options, including new and innovative sources of financing, should be explored to ensure providing the necessary resources for global public goods.

To this end, the Group of 77 and China will be ready and willing to support any joint initiative of the multilateral development banks, the UN Funds and Programmes and other relevant UN institutions, and most certainly, with the assistance of ECOSOC, and participation of all stakeholder from developed and developing countries, to review the financing and institutional arrangements to support the provision of global public goods, including through innovative sources of financing. That said, to close the statement, I deem it necessary to underscore the urgent need for a substantial increase in the resources for conventional official development assistance programmes.

MOHAMMAD ALI ZARIE ZARE
Islamic Republic of Iran
"Speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 and China"
15 February 2001

Available at:

http://www.un.org/eas/ffd

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