UNITED NATIONS, June 27 (PNA/Xinhua) -- Governments have failed to provide developing countries with the resources they need to deal with the financial crisis, according to an umbrella group of trade unions, civil society and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which released a report card critical of the United Nations economic conference on the financial crisis here on Friday.
The Global Social Economy Group (GSEG) gave governments a total score of 11 out of 35 in a report card that graded the outcome document from the UN conference, which has been the subject of intense negotiations between rich and poorer countries over past few months.
Gemma Adaba, the International Trade Union Confederation representative to the UN, regretfully said that there was "nothing measurable" in the outcome document, which was originally billed as a way to help developing countries deal with the devastating impact of the financial crisis.
However, Barbados, Brazil, India and other developing countries hailed the high-level UN conference, which is to close on Friday, as an historic event and also an historic opportunity to make collective efforts to fight against the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Having observed the highly politicized negotiations, which led to the "disappointing" document, Adaba said she now had a clearer picture of the challenges imposed by current geopolitics.
For example, she said, during the negotiations when industrialized countries -- the United States, the European Union, Canada and Japan -- said they did not want new international financial institutions, it really meant that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) work well for them.
And, when the issue of reforming those institutions arose in discussions, developed countries said that the IMF and the Bank have already initiated reform themselves. In other words, said Adaba, the institutions don't need the United Nations to butt in.
Clearly, she said, developed countries were hoping that the crisis would soon be forgotten and they would be able to keep the same financial institutions, reinvigorated and recapitalized.
The issue of how much control the United Nations should have in reforming the international financial architecture has been of great debate during the three-day conference at the UN headquarters in New York, which began on Wednesday.
While many, including GSEG, recognized that the conference failed on many levels, they also shrugged their shoulders and offered an "at least" response, as in "at least there is discussion" or "at least there is an outcome document no matter how watered down."
As Adaba rhetorically asked, "what's the alternative?"
John Foster, a senior researcher of the North-South Institute of Canada, said despite overall disappointment, the United Nations is the right place to have these kinds of discussions.
He also said that while many developed countries originally hoped that the conference would act as "good therapy" in a one- time event for developing countries to vent, the outcome document "at least" establishes a follow-up mechanism.
The outcome document calls for an ad hoc open ended working group to report back to the General Assembly by September 2010 on commitments made at the conference. But as Adaba said, "the language is weak."
Of the many issues on the GSEG report card, the issue of global governance scored the lowest, a zero out of five. Developing countries had called for the establishment of a body within the UN system to oversee the global economy but such a council was not mentioned in the outcome document.
Also, the issue of conditionality on loans given to developing countries by the Bank and the IMF scored poorly with a one out of five. The outcome document does not call for an end to conditionality despite the fact that developing countries suffer from a financial crisis they did not create.
Magda Lanuza, of the Women's Working Group on Financing for Development and is from Nicaragua, said her country is in the process of cutting a deal with the World Bank, which is imposing the same conditions as in the 1990s. To get the loan, the Nicaraguan government must, among other things, refrain from investing in social programs and it must cut salaries in the public sector, she said.
The report card's highest score gave a three out of five on the issue of tax evasion by corporations. It is estimated that over 500 billion U.S. dollars in revenue is lost by developing countries, said the report card, adding that the outcome document does at least recognize the problem and requests the UN Economic and Social Council to look into strengthening international institutions.