Prime Minister Bruce Golding addresses the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations headquarters yesterday. - APUNITED NATIONS, CMC:
Jamaica on Friday appealed for better access to world markets as developing countries seek to come to grips with the global crisis that has plunged many countries into recession or economic chaos.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding delivering his first-ever address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), said that despite increasing production and expanding trade, globalisation has been uneven in the spread of its benefits, and, for many countries, marginal in its impact.
"Indeed, it has widened the gap between rich and poor within and among countries," he said, noting that the global economy now appears to be headed for a severe downturn.
"Developments in the global financial system, the painful increase in oil and commodity prices and the escalating food crisis threaten to plunge vast sections of the world's population deeper into poverty. Fiscal challenges and the crippling burden of debt render many countries incapable of responding to this crisis."
He said the international financial system designed more than 60 years ago has undergone very little change in its governance structure and practices and that Jamaica was supporting the call for reform of the existing financial infrastructure to reflect the new global realities and make it more proactive and responsive to the needs of the entire world community.
development-driven
"But it must involve more than merely expanding the membership of an exclusive club. It must be development-driven, recognising that poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity elsewhere. It must include mechanisms to detect signs of global crises and must be able to institute preventive measures.
"The crisis currently rocking the world's financial markets reflects the inadequacy of the regulatory structures that are essential to the effective functioning of any market. But it is more than that. It represents the failure on the part of the international financial system to facilitate the flow of resources into areas where they can produce real wealth - not paper wealth.
"The world is not short of capital. What it lacks are the mechanisms to ensure the efficient utilisation of that capital," he said.
The prime minister told the UNGA that another urgent task is the creation of a viable and equitable international-trading regime.
"Jamaica is deeply disappointed that the Doha Development Round has failed to deliver on the promise of an open, fair and predictable multilateral trading system. We urge all parties to resolve the outstanding differences, particularly on the removal of trade-distorting agri-cultural subsidies, as well as the need for special safeguard mechan-isms for economically challenged countries."
He said countries like his were being called upon to use their limited resources to protect the gains they had made, but that "our hopes for survival will require huge investments, improved productivity, better access to the world's markets and human capacity building.
"Developing countries cannot be left to find their own solutions. The situation requires a collaborative, coordinated, global response. This is not mere altruism. It is an indisputable truth that if developed countries assist developing countries to improve their economies, their productive capacity and the purchasing power of their people, they will expand the markets for their own goods and services.
"It is the interdependency which we share and which is manifested in so many other areas, from climate change to global epidemics, organised crime and human trafficking," Golding told the 63rd session of the UNGA.
sincere and sustained effort
He told the world forum that solving the problem of developing countries required more than mere liberalisation of trade, privatisation and the free flow of capital.
"It requires a sincere and sustained effort that focuses on the limitations that bedevil developing countries. Global development, not just global markets, must be at the centre of our priorities. Poverty and wealth should not have to co-exist. Poverty can be eradicated.
"The tools of development exist and are capable of transforming the world, empowering the poor and enabling them to rise from their poverty. We must commit ourselves to creating a world in which not everyone may be rich, but no one has to be poor," Golding said.
The Jamaican prime minister said that his country is committed to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
"We are now at the halfway mark and we are behind schedule. It is time to take stock to see where we are falling behind, who is falling behind and what must be done to make up lost ground," he said, noting that a critical success factor must be the partnership between developed and developing countries as defined in the 2002 Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development, integrating aid, debt relief, market access, good governance and foreign direct investment.
"These initiatives were carefully calibrated. Proceeding with some elements without the others will not achieve the goals we have set. Indeed, it might make it worse. We must all pull up our socks if we are to reverse the slippage we have suffered. Developing countries must ensure that their priorities are properly structured."
Golding said that the developed countries must live up to their commitment to devote 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product to official development assistance, adding "this is a modest amount, yet only five countries have to date done so".
strategic programmes
Golding said he was urging the international community to devise strategic programmes to address the peculiar needs of middle-income countries with deep pockets of poverty.
"Because of these factors and our exposure to frequent natural disasters, Jamaica and its CARICOM (Caribbean Com-munity) partners are proposing the international recognition of CARICOM states as a special category of Small Vulnerable and Highly Indebted Middle-Income countries."
He said the devastation wrought on Haiti by recent hurricanes has aggravated the already harsh conditions under which the Haitian people are forced to live.
"Much more needs to be done, not only in providing emergency relief, but in addressing the long-term social, economic and development needs of that country, as a sustainable solution to the fragile humanitarian situation that exists there. Haiti needs and deserves the support of the entire international community."
climate change
Golding urged the international community to do much more in dealing with climate change, appealing to countries that are the major pollutants to bear the major share of the responsibility for corrective action.
They must make binding commitments to fulfil that responsibility. The purchase of carbon credits must not exculpate them from that responsibility. Jamaica calls for a fair, equitable and balanced long-term scheme to bind emission caps within a new international framework beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.
"The impact of climate change on agricultural output and the frequency and intensity of natural disasters to which countries like Jamaica are particularly vulnerable, point to the need for a global environment management structure that establishes clear standards and enforces compliance," he added.
