STATEMENT BY

DR MOSE P. TJITENDERO, MP SPEAKER OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF NAMIBIA

AND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE INTER PARLIAMENTARY UNION

AT THE 3R° UN CONFERENCE ON LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

Brussels, Tuesday 15 May 2001- PM Session

(Check Against Delivery)

Mr. President, Distinguished delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am pleased to address this United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries on behalf of the Inter Parliamentary Union. The presence of the IPU at this Conference reflects the importance of a growing involvement of parliaments in international cooperation in today's globalized world.

Indeed, at the parliamentary Summit convened by the IPU at United Nations Headquarters in New York last August, some 150 Speakers from around the world expressed support for international cooperation and committed their parliaments to work much closer with the United Nations system. We should now use the targets set by the Millennium Declaration to help us take concrete steps to advance the development agenda.

As part of this work, the IPU seeks to mobilize political support for action in favor of least developed countries. Last month, IPU's governing Council adopted in Havana a Parliamentary Message to the Third Conference on the Least Developed Countries, which I have the privilege to place before you today and which is being circulated as document A/CONF.191/8.

In this message, the IPU repeats its call for improvement and reform in the international development system, especially in the areas of trade, finance, food security and good governance. The IPU strongly believes that this Conference offers a significant opportunity in the fight against poverty to bring a fresh impetus for improvement in this system and for the progressive integration of LDCs into the world economy.

However, to achieve these objectives will require balance and fairness between poor and rich countries.

LDCs must be the owners of their policies. International development targets are basic objectives that cannot be attained through a rigid, mechanical approach. They must be converted into individual country targets and highly focused national plans, prepared by each LDC with the full participation of its people and - when needed - with the support of donors and international organizations.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The IPU was also pleased to be associated with the High-Level Parliamentary Round Table that took place yesterday as an official parallel event of this Conference. I had the honor of presiding over this event and I would like to take the few minutes at my disposal here to highlight some of the salient elements of the discussion, which then took place.

The first subject on the agenda was Commodities, with particular focus on agriculture. The commodities and agricultural sectors are at the centre of the economies of the least developed countries, yet their access to foreign markets is severely restricted. Declining prices and environmental pressure on agricultural lands, as well as other natural and ecological resources, have continued to reinforce the severe problems faced by the LDCs. Support in the form of economic and technical measures are urgently required by these sectors of the economy of the LDCs.

The participants made a strong call for the need to ensure duty free and quota free access of LDC products to the markets of industrialized countries. Parliamentarians can play an active role to promote public/private partnerships, which aim at setting up reliable structures in the commodities sector and at improving market access for products from the LDCs. Such partnership could be essential in creating opportunities for improving the economic standing of women, who continue to be the backbone of the agricultural sector in many least developed countries.

On the second item of our agenda - Capacity-building and new technologies for development - participants made the point that it is possible to achieve sustainable development through technological capacity building in today's knowledge based global economy, but that this requires strategic initiatives and means for implementation.

However, the gap between industrialized countries and LDCs is likely to increase further if LDCs cannot become actively involved in the development and application of knowledge and technology. Education, which many perceived as being in a crisis in the LDCs, and capacity-building efforts lie at the heart of the matter and the participants made a number of concrete suggestions for action to narrow the technological gap. A particular effort should also be made to make women part of these efforts as "knowledge" societies require "gender openness" in order to ensure the use of all skills and resources for meeting the development aspirations of all.

The question of Financing for development, debt relief and capital flows was the subject of the third item of the agenda, but was in fact a recurrent theme throughout our discussions. Clearly, high levels of debt and debt servicing continue to drain the limited resources of the LDCs, which lack adequate development finance. Being short both of foreign direct investment and with little capacity to borrow on international markets, LDCs remain heavily dependent on overseas development assistance.

The decline in aid is totally unacceptable and needs urgently to be reversed. We need to create partnerships to make sure that this takes place. The suggestion was also made to look for innovative sources of funding of ODA, for example, by instituting some form of taxation on short-term speculative financial flows.

There is also a need for deeper, faster and broader debt relief. Debt relief should not be used by donor countries as a pretext for reducing development aid. The most effective way out of the "debt trap" is through an effective development policy, agreed upon jointly by the respective development partners. The economic empowerment of women through improving their access to credits and other measures need to be also being a focus of such initiatives.

As many of you have understood, the crucial role of women and the need for them to be full partners in the development process was a cross cutting theme throughout the debate.

Another such subject was the role of parliament. Many interventions highlighted the crucial role that parliaments must play to ensure that national policies respond to the aspirations of the people. Parliament must not only legislate in a narrow sense, but must oversee the government - act as the constitutional watchdog that it is. This also involves scrutinizing the budget and holding government to account for how they go about implementing it.

The point was however also made that parliaments in many LDCs need assistance to help them perform this function. That is why we welcome the initiative to establish a Global Trust Fund on Democratic Governance, which could also be used to improve parliamentary systems and processes. I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the IPU, to declare our readiness to work with LDCs and the donor community to mobilize worldwide parliamentary support in the South and in the North for such activities.

This Third United Nations Conference on the LDCs offers an opportunity to make a real and substantive change for the better in the situation of the least developed countries: The success of this effort, however, will decisively depend on the political willingness of the international community, including governments, parliaments and civil society to implement the Plan of Action and to monitor its application at national and international levels.

In other words, if this is to happen there has to be real follow-up action. Let me therefore conclude my statement by placing on record IPU's determination to work with the United Nations and governments to promote effective follow-up of this Conference at the parliamentary level. In this manner, we hope to provide a parliamentary dimension to international cooperation and a meaningful contribution to the fight against poverty.

Thank you

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