Arab-African ministerial conference discusses financing and governance
Regional, Politics, 5/23/2001

The conference of Arab and African finance ministers --convening in Marrakesh May 21-23 to prepare for the World Child Summit, due next September 19-21 at the United Nations headquarters in New York- devoted its second plenary session to financing and governance.

Representatives of several international financial institutions and international organizations (World Bank, African Development Bank, Arab fund for economic and social development, international monetary fund, UNICEF.) stressed the importance of good governance and sound management funds allocated to social sectors, mainly those related to children protection.

Participants called for transparency in social sectors management on the part of governments, non-governmental organizations or the civil society and stressed the need to integrate human resources promotion in sustained development plans and to see to the rational use of budgets allocated to social sectors.

Addressing the session, Moroccan minister of economy, finance, privatization and tourism, Fathallah Oualalou, called for greater international solidarity to center economic and social development centered on the human being and especially on the child and guaranteeing a fairer sharing of wealth.

He also called for the mobilization of additional financial resources to enhance basic social sectors and for the conversion of debts into productive investments or their cancellation for least developed countries and warned against the negative impact of globalization on the vulnerable layers of the society, mainly women and children.

Oualalou said at a news conference on the sidelines of the conference that 47 percent of Morocco's state budget is allocated to social sectors. He added that Morocco has scored tremendous progress in the educational sector, announcing that 94 percent of children at schooling age will go to school next year.

World Bank vice-president for the Middle East and North Africa, Jean-Louis Sarbib, told the session that half the world population lives on less than $2 a day and that gaps between the haves and the have nots are very wide.

He added that 650 million children are living in extreme poverty and that according to the International Labor Organization, child labor affects nearly 250 million children aged between 5 and 14 in developing countries, and that 40 percent of these children are living in Africa.

He also underscored the key role of ngos in improving services extended to children.

The role of NGOs was also underlined at the forum of NGOs featured by the conference to identity institutional difficulties and financial constraints hampering the action of NGOs.

Participants in the forum called for defining the role of the civil society and for energizing associative action to improve children's living conditions. They stressed the need to endow NGOs with the necessary financial and professional means to enable them fulfil their task, especially in struggle against poverty and illiteracy and in taking up the globalization challenge.

Moroccan NGOs active in childhood protection held an exhibition to highlight their activities. These include the Mohammed V solidarity foundation, the National observatory for children's rights, the Moroccan league for childhood protection (set up in 1957), the Bayti association, the Rita Zniber Foundation and the Atfale association.

The conference, held under the topic "resources and financing of the child's cause," is attended by several Arab and African finance ministers and senior officials from several international organizations and specialized agencies active in child protection and promotion.

During the conference opening session that was chaired by King Mohammed VI, Princess Lalla Meryem, chairwoman of the National Observatory for Children's Rights, delivered an address, wherein she called for the mobilization of additional financial resources to meet the pressing needs of children and improve their status in Arab and African countries. These financial resources are so necessary, she said, to protect children from the ills of illiteracy, ignorance, violence, exclusion, neglect, deviation and all forms of discrimination and exploitation.

Previous Stories:
  Arab chambers of commerce decide to boycott Euro-Med meeting   (5/22/2001)
  UN conference adopts action plan to help world's least developed countries   (5/22/2001)
  Arab-African ministerial conference holds first plenary session   (5/22/2001)

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