Past Conferences, Meetings and Events > Report of the High-level Panel on Financing for Development
Report of the High-level Panel on Financing for Development (2001)
The 2001 Report of the High-level Panel on Financing for Development was designed to help build political momentum for the then-upcoming 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development, where the 2002 Monterrey Consensus was adopted.In the photo above, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is shown addressing the 2008 Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to Review Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus (in Doha, Qatar). UN Photo/ Eskinder Debebe
In December 2000, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a panel to advise him on measures he could recommend to fulfill the finance needs of the world’s developing countries. He wanted the Panel to recommend achievable actions that could be carried out by governments, business, civil society and international institutions in the areas of trade, aid, debt relief, investment, domestic resource mobilization and global decision making on financial matters, and on new ways to mobilize funds for development.
The formation of the panel was a response to the UN Millennium Declaration, which had just been approved by world leaders in New York in September of 2000. Development and poverty eradication goals were accorded high priority in the Declaration.
On 26 June 2001, the High-Level Panel on Financing for Development completed and released its report on how to fulfill the finance needs of the world's developing countries.
After receiving the report, Secretary-General Annan said the Panel’s recommendations were meant to help build political momentum for a major upcoming intergovernmental meeting on Financing for Development, so that it could become a turning point in the fortunes of poor countries, and of poor people all over the world.
The Financing for Development meeting, which took place in Monterrey, Mexico, 18-22 March 2002, was mandated by the UN General Assembly to involve the active collaboration of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, as well as representatives of civil society and the private sector. It was endorsed in the Millennium Declaration, as were the poverty-fighting goals of the Special Session of the General Assembly on Social Development, which took place in Geneva in May of 2000.
In September 2000, world leaders at the UN Millennium Assembly had voiced their concern about “the obstacles developing countries face in mobilizing resources needed to finance their sustained development”.
The Panel report said that primary responsibility for securing economic growth and equity lies with national governments. The panel urged developing countries to undertake balanced fiscal policies, macroeconomic discipline, fair and effective governance, secure tax bases, support for human capital and installation or strengthening of pension plans.
The Panel welcomes current mechanisms to reduce the debt burden of the poorest countries, but warned that debt relief by itself would not be sufficient to move countries forward. Among other proposals, they urged a renewed push toward the target of devoting 0.7 per cent of donor country GNP to official development assistance, and advocated various mechanisms by which resources could be targeted more effectively towards the poorest sectors of the population.
The Report:
Report of the High-level Panel on Financing for Development
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Members of the High-level Panel on Financing for Development
Ernesto Zedillo, Mexico (Chairman)
Abdulatif Al-Hammad, Kuwait
David Bryer, United Kingdom
Mary Chinery-Hesse, Ghana
Jacques Delors, France
Rebeca Grynspan, Costa Rica;
Alexander Y. Livshits, Russian Federation
Majid Osman, Mozambique
Robert Rubin, United States
Manmohan Singh, India
Masayoshi Son, Japan