IATP's Steve Suppan is blogging from the U.N. Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis in New York.
At a certain point, the big numbers numb you. And at the U.N. summit on the financial crisis and development, the numbers are all big. The estimated total net capital loss from developing countries in the past year ($1 trillion according to the World Bank or $2 trillion according to the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development); the job loss projected by the International Labor organization (40-50 million this year; perhaps 100 million by 2010); the amount of money pledged by the G-20 countries to the International Monetary Fund ($750 billion) for loans to stabilize government finances. And this is to say nothing of the huge numbers that register social devastation to education, health, social welfare and environmental programs, particularly those in developing countries.
But what focuses the mind despite the blizzard of numbers are the consequences of business as usual. In the Civil Society Forum Statement to the conference, there is a firm commitment not to allow intergovernmental institutions and governments to return to business as usual. Rather than allow all global economic planning and governance to be handed down by a few governments, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO Financial Services Agreement, the civil society organizations at the U.N. summit have proposed a governance role for the United Nations. The Commission of Experts advising the President of the General Assembly have likewise proposed ways to prevent a repeat of the financial deregulation that has triggered the economic crisis and humanitarian crisis we will live in globally for the next few years. In the brutal U.N. negotiating process, in which the G-20 opposed any substantive U.N. economic governance role, little has survived from these proposals except the possibility of discussing them further in a U.N. General Assembly Working Group. According to the Outcome Document to be presented today for formal approval by government delegates, a panel of experts is to advise the General Assembly on next steps.
Between now and mid-September when the General Assembly meets again, there will be hard negotiating about the mandate of the Working Group and whether civil society organizations may advise the panel of experts. This outcome is, of course, a very small victory, but not an insignificant one. Furthermore, IATP believes that within the terms of the outcome document there lies the possibility for the General Assembly to authorize the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development to take a much more active role in proposing ways to prevent the excessive speculation in commodity markets that have devastated trade revenues in commodity export-dependent developing countries. Today, IATP will discuss proposals to reform commodity futures markets with government delegates in a side event organized by the government of Tanzania.
When the General Assembly meets in September, the G-20 will also be meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa.,, to plan a different economic future than what we hope will be discussed in the Working Group. There will likely be more civil society organizations in Pittsburgh protesting the Wall Street bailouts than there will be in the fight for a U.N. Working Group on global economic governance. But that fight could well be more important than naming and shaming the beneficiaries of financial deregulation and their government allies.
