UNCTAD is organizing two events at the International Conference on Financing for Development (Monterrey, Mexico, 18-22 March): E-finance for Development, on 19 March, and The role of FDI in implementing the New Partnership for Africa´s Development (NEPAD), on 20 March.
UNCTAD Secretary-General Rubens Ricupero will address the Ministerial segment of the Conference on Monday morning, 18 March. His keynote address that afternoon to the International Business Forum will deal with the linkages between trade and finance. On Tuesday morning, 19 March, Mr. Ricupero will open UNCTAD´s E-finance for development event; in the afternoon, he will take part in the panel discussion on Making trade work for development: proposals to bring gender and poverty eradication into the equation. On Wednesday morning, 20 March, Mr. Ricupero and Jan Kavan, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic, will chair a round table on Coherence in development. This is a key issue for UNCTAD, whose mandate revolves around the linkages between development and trade, finance, investment and technology. That afternoon, Mr. Ricupero will address the round table on The role of FDI in implementing the New Partnership for Africa´s Development. Mr. Ricupero will also participate with other heads of development and finance agencies in a discussion on the outcome of the conference organized by President Vicente Fox of Mexico.
Also on Wednesday, 20 March, Mr. Ricupero will take part in a press conference on Business and governments working together in Africa, along with Maria Livanos Cattaui, Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), senior African government leaders and business executives. The press conference will be held in the Cintermex Complex Press Conference Room at 5 pm.
Habib Ouane, Officer-in-Charge of the UNCTAD Office of the Special Coordinator for Least Developed Countries (LDCs), will serve as UNCTAD spokesperson.
E-finance for development
Internet-based financial services, also known as e-finance, are rapidly reshaping the global financial landscape due to their higher speed, lower costs and networking effects. In developed countries e-finance is expected to account for 80% and 50%, respectively, of e-brokerage and e-banking transaction volumes by 2005. However, much remains to be done in developing countries in order to bridge the digital gap, particularly in the area of e-finance.
The E-finance for development meeting will discuss how e-finance can become a new opportunity to access finance at a reasonable cost for developing country enterprises. Participants will suggest ways to develop enabling e-commerce and e-finance policies and legal and institutional frameworks in developing countries. They will also look at how to provide reliable and verifiable information on enterprise performance and financial statements to Internet-compatible local, regional and global credit information databases.
On Monday morning, 18 March, Panel 1, on Global trends and experiences, will be moderated by John Hawkins, Senior Economist at the Bank of International Settlements; in the afternoon, Panel 2, on National practices and prospects for the future, will be moderated by Rouben Indjikian, Head of E-finance at UNCTAD (see list of panellists).
The role of FDI in implementing the New Partnership for Africa´s Development
In recent years foreign direct investment (FDI) has increasingly complemented official development assistance to the LDCs. The meeting on The role of FDI in implementing NEPAD aims at helping countries in Africa, which accounts for 34 of the 49 LDCs, to address the challenges of attracting and benefiting from FDI by promoting a constructive dialogue between senior business executives and government officials and creating business opportunities, particularly in the area of infrastructure.
This event is organized by the UNCTAD/International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Investment Advisory Council in association with the UN Global Compact and the NEPAD steering committee. It will be co-chaired by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan; Mr. Ricupero; and Ms Maria Livanos Cattaui. Heads of State and Government and ministers from African countries, including African LDCs, ministers from OECD member States, and representatives of the business community will participate in the meeting (see list of participants).
Established by ministers from the LDCs and business executives at the Third UN Conference on the LDCs (Brussels, May 2001), the UNCTAD/ICC Investment Advisory Council provides business and government officials with an informal framework to discuss ways of attracting and optimizing FDI.
NEPAD, an integrated programme for the socioeconomic development of Africa, was established by the Organization of African Unity in July 2001. It is the result of the merger of the Millennium Partnership for Africa´s Recovery Programme, initiated by Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, Olesegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and the Omega Plan of President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal.
G-8 member States have contacted the UNCTAD secretariat with a view to their possible support for the implementation of NEPAD, which will be discussed at the next G-8 summit (Kananaskis, Canada, 26-27 June). UNCTAD has been asked by the NEPAD secretariat to assist African countries in the areas of the transfer of resources, debt reduction, private capital flows and market access. In its 2000 and 2001 reports on the economic development of Africa, UNCTAD had called for doubling the current amount of aid to African countries, an initiative that could end their aid dependence within a decade. It had also recommended that developed countries cancel the unpayable debt of African countries, lower their domestic agricultural support measures, and grant more market access and special and differentiated treatment to African products until African countries can become competitive (see press releases TAD/INF/2850 and TAD/INF/PR20).
UNCTAD and ICC have jointly published investment guides to five LDCs (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique and Uganda). These guides help governments to create conditions conducive to greater FDI flows and also provide potential investors with information about investment opportunities. More investment guides will be published this year.
