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Los desafíos de Monterrey
En la Conferencia Internacional de Naciones Unidas sobre Financiación para el Desarrollo, puede consolidarse una pequeña apertura fundamental para transformar el orden internacional, o puede pasar exactamente lo contrario.
by Areli Carreón | March 14, 2002
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This Monday, the world’s leaders and others will gather in Monterrey, Mexico, for the UN-sponsored International Conference on Financing for Development. Many NGO observers are criticizing the conference as only so much window-dressing, saying that additions to the development agenda which they and others outside traditional corridors of power have suggested have gone ignored.
Still, despite these shortcomings, the upcoming meeting does adhere to
the emerging trend at the UN of involving a broader range of actors in
such international deliberations; representatives of global civil society,
as well as the private sector, WTO, World Bank, and IMF will be taking
part in the Monterrey talks.
In anticipation of this, beginning today and lasting through the 16th,
NGOs, activists and others are coming together in Monterrey at the "NGO
Global Forum" to discuss issues and plan strategies for the main
event.
Many challenges face these social actors, writes activist Areli Carreón
in this Americas Program commentary, both within the context of the UN
conference itself and in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of the
global justice movement and the NGO community. What’s more, the Mexican
government’s crackdown on global justice protestors at last year’s regional
meeting of the World Economic Forum in Cancún, coupled with a strong
tradition of social conservatism in Monterrey, presents the possibility
that authorities will brook little dissent, even if peaceful, from activists.
Still, she notes, the conferences offers civil society a chance to leverage
a small opening in discussions regarding global economic policy, as well
as the possibility of ongoing democratization of such debates. By meeting
at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil at the beginning of
this year and now again in Monterrey at the NGO Global Forum, civil society
has shown itself capable of coming up with proposals and as willing to
engage with policymakers. Now the ball is in the court of the world’s
economic powers.
Published by the Americas
Program at the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC). ©2002. All
rights reserved.
Recommended citation:
Areli Carreón, "Los desafíos de Monterrey", un
comentario del Programa de las Américas (Silver City, NM: Interhemispheric
Resource Center, 14 marzo, 2002).
Web location:
http://www.americaspolicy.org/commentary/2002/sp_0203monterrey.html
