Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
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February 12-16, 2001 - Global Policy Forum - Email 'Listserv' News
GPF List-Serv
February 12-16, 2001Greetings from GPF!
We have a new team beginning this week, so have a very full office. Thus there will be many additions and enhancements to our site in the coming months! To learn more about GPF and support our work, see About GPF
This week, the second Prep Com for Financing for Development has been in process. On Monday, we will re-launch our FfD pages to guide you through the issues, in the meantime see: http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/ffd/indxmain.htm.
Most notably, the Global Compact is being discussed. GPF has written a paper on this issue, by Jim Paul and Jason Garred http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/ffd/2000papr.htm. This brings us to some sad news, that we farewell Jason today as he departs GPF, we wish him well. Also, as part of this FfD series, GPF is cosponsoring a Roundtable on Global Taxes to be held in late May. Stay tuned for details, we'll announce it in What's New.In other news, "dollarization" is a strange phenomena which continues to grow - Ecuador being the latest to adopt the US dollar as its currency. Interestingly, Ecuador has secured an extension of a loan agreement with the IMF since dollarization.
Also this week, we have found and posted some interesting theoretical papers. Notably an essay by Alejandro Bendaña who argues that what the "south" owes in debt is what the "north" stole from it: http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/imf/2001/ecuador.htm and pieces by Anthony Giddens and Mario Vargas Llosa in our Globalization section: http://www.globalpolicy.org/visitctr/whatnew.htm#glob 010212"
On the financial front, the US announced an agreement to release some $500 million in arrears to the UN, that's from a total of $1.3 billion that the US still owed. Thankfully, some peacekeeping troop contributors will now be paid….
NGOs are continuing to push for greater recognition and access. See the initiative for NGO consultative status to the UN General Assembly and more here: http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/index.htm
Finally, news from the Security Council… The Security Council accepted the ECOWAS proposal to delay sanctions on Liberia for two months to give a last chance to African countries to negotiate with Liberian President Charles Taylor. In Sierra Leone, rebel forces returned UN equipment taken from UNAMSIL - a recourse to peace dialogue?? Perhaps, but due to the fragility of the nation, the elections have been postponed for 6 months.
Last week, the new President of the DRC Joseph Kabila (Laurent Kabila's son) briefed the Council in an open meeting and speaks of "extending his hand" in peace. There is talk of a return to the Lusaka agreement, however, the leaders of Rwanda and Uganda were absent at the recent opening of peace talks. The UN is actually reducing the number of troops to be sent to the DRC, but is pushing to send them sooner to targeted areas.
Valentine's Day saw the launch of even stronger NGO initiatives to call for implementation of an international system of certification of diamonds to cease the illicit trade that continues to fuel civil conflicts in West Africa. There is also an international forum on diamonds opening in Nigeria.
In Kosovo, violence has broken out again in retaliation to an attack on a UN convoy escorting Serbian civilians. A cycle of revenge seems to be perpetuating.
East Timor may press for a UN war crimes tribunal if Indonesia doesn't come through with prosecutions of militias from the 1999 violence.
On Tuesday, Iraq announced that it wants to implement the Rome statute to condemn Americans for war crimes for Baghdad bombings in 1991. Strangely, today the US bombed Baghdad….we'll let you make your own conclusions. GPF has also posted some interesting articles on W. Bush's US foreign policy.
Finally on the positive front, Ethiopia began withdrawal of troops from Eritrea on Monday.
Now the new links for this week…..
