MANILA - Philippine Foreign Affairs
Secretary Blas Ople has led poor nations in calling on
developed countries to agree to a foreign debt swap for
anti-poverty programs.
In a recent United
Nations General Assembly roundtable discussion in New
York City, Ople asked for a consideration of his
proposal as a means for poor countries to realize the UN
Millennium goal of cutting the incidence of poverty in
half by 2015.
Ople noted that all of the
international financial institutions, including the
World Bank and Asian Development Bank, have been
committed to fighting poverty using the debt for
anti-poverty program scheme.
Under the scheme,
developed countries would agree to grant debt relief in
exchange for the implementation of anti-poverty
programs, including micro-financing for small and medium
enterprises, particularly those in the countryside.
"The Philippines is taking a more jugular
approach, namely, a debt swap against poverty," Ople
said.
Ople chaired the roundtable discussion
among 24 countries from Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin
America to review the regional dimensions of the
implementation of the commitments made in the
International Conference on Financing for Development
also called the Monetary Consensus held last year in
Mexico.
"Under the consensus, the developing
countries agreed to take responsibility for domestic
resources mobilization to be augmented by financial
assistance from the rich countries and regional
self-help schemes," Ople said.
The Philippines
was recently voted into the US Security Council as a
non-permanent member. The term for the Philippines will
start on January 1, 2004 and terminate on December 31,
2005.
On Thursday Ople attended the first
High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development of the
UN General Assembly.
The high-level dialogue
will serve as the primary intergovernmental follow-up to
the monetary summit in Mexico last year. Participation
in the dialogue is of special significance to the
Philippines primarily because the country, through the
Mission to the UN in New York, served as the prime mover
in launching the discussions on financing for
development.
Ople will serve as a co-chair in
one of the round tables of the dialogue that will focus
on the regional dimensions of the implementation of the
results of the monetary summit.
During the
dialogue, Ople is expected to call on the international
community to exert efforts to reverse the declining
levels of official development assistance, implement
debt swap for poverty programs for indebted developing
countries and to develop a mechanism to provide
micro-finance support for micro-small-and medium scale
enterprises.
(Asia Pulse/PNA)
Nov 1, 2003
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