DEV/2273
PI/1316

FORMER PRESIDENT OF MEXICO TO HEAD HIGH-LEVEL PANEL ON WORLD DEVELOPMENT FINANCING NEEDS

Secretary-General Kofi Annan today appointed Ernesto Zedillo, the former President of Mexico, to head a panel that will advise the Secretary-General on measures he can recommend to fulfil the finance needs of the world�s developing countries. .The Secretary-General and Dr. Zedillo met at United Nations Headquarters this morning to discuss the panel�s upcoming programme of work.

Also appointed to the High-Level Panel on Financing for Development are Abdulatif Al-Hammad, President, Arab Fund for Economic Development, Kuwait; David Bryer, Director of OXFAM, United Kingdom; Mary Chinery-Hess, former Deputy Director-General of the International Labour Organization, Ghana; Jacques Delors, former Finance Minister of France and President of the European Commission; Rebeca Grynspan, former Vice-President, Costa Rica; Majid Osman, former Finance Minister of Mozambique, who now heads a commercial bank; Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury, United States; and Manmohan Singh, former Minister of Finance, India. Additional panel members may be appointed.

The High-Level Panel will recommend to the Secretary-General achievable actions that can be carried out by governments, business, civil society and international institutions in the areas of trade, aid, debt relief, investment, domestic resource mobilization and global decision-making on financial matters, and on new ways to mobilize funds for development.

The formation of the panel responds to the United Nations Millennium Declaration, approved by world leaders in New York in September. Development and poverty eradication goals are accorded high priority in the Declaration.

�The pnel�s recommendations will help build political momentum for a major upcoming intergovernmental meeting on financing for development, so that it can become a turning point in the fortunes of poor countries, and of poor people all over the world�, said Secretary-General Kofi Annan after his meeting with Dr. Zedillo.

The financing for development meeting, to take place early in 2002, is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to involve the active collaboration of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as representatives of civil society and the private sector. It is endorsed in the Millennium Declaration, as are the poverty-fighting goals of the special session of the General Assembly on Social Development, which took place in Geneva in May of this year.

- 2 - Press Release DEV/2273 PI/1316 15 December 2000

At today�s meeting, Secretary-General Annan and Dr. Zedillo agreed that the panel should make every effort to complete its recommendations by late April or early May 2001.

For more information, please contact Tim Wall of the United Nations Department of Public Information, tel. (212) 963-5851; cell phone (917) 445-9056 or e-mail .

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