G-15 calls for prompt action to rectify aspects of inequality

Leaders of the G-15 member states Thursday called upon the world community to take prompt action to rectify aspects of inequality, marring the world economy in order to enable the developing countries finance their development strategies.

In a final communique released at the end of their 11th summit, the leaders warned of what they described as grave consequences of delay in rectifying the present international financial system.

The communique underlined the importance of forging partnership and constructive and fair cooperation between the developed and the developing nations with a view to rectify the international financial system in a way that guarantees the interests of all the developing countries.

We recongise that information and communications technologies (ICT) are central to the emergence of the knowledge-based economy. We are however deeply concerned that the huge potential of ICT for advancing development is largely eluding most developing countries resulting in a growing digital divide. With a view to contributing to, and benefiting from ongoing international initiatives, as well as evolving a framework of cooperation among our countries, we have adopted the Jakarta Declaration on ICT.

We note with concern that 1.2 billion of the world's population still live in conditions of abject poverty and deprivations, and the international community must therefore demonstrate greater commitment to national, regional and international endeavours to fight poverty. To this end, our countries must be at the forefront of efforts to galvanize concrete international actions to attain the goals of the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action of the World Summit for Social Development as well as the results of other UN global conferences of the 1990s that addressed poverty eradication in developing countries.

We stress the urgent need for international measures to address pandemic and endemic diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that seriously accentuate poverty, as well as the need for financial resources and appropriate international rules to help developing countries to ensure the implementation of the necessary immunization programme against communicable diseases.

We welcome the adoption of a Plan of Action at the third United Nations Conference on Least Developing Countries (LDCs) held in Brussels in May, 2001, and call on the international community, particulary the developing countries and relevent international institutions, to fulfil their commitments in the implementation of the Plan of Action.

In light of our commitment to the early accession of developing countries in the WTO, we reiterate the need for a transparent, non-discriminatory, streamlined and accelerated accession process that is keeping with WTO rules and disciplines. They should be offered terms that neither exceed nor are unrelated to the commitments of developing countries and LDC members of WTO.

We further express our concern on the deterioration of preferential schemes, especially the imposition of additional conditionalities on developing countries under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).

We emphasize the important role of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in assisting developing countries in capacity building and in preparing them for future trade negotiations as well as ensuring that the development dimension is fully taken into account.