NORTH-SOUTH RELATIONS

The world economy can only grow on a sustained and equitable basis if developing countries share in that growth. Progress has been made. The industrial countries have maintained an open market system despite a deep recession. They have increased aid flows, especially to poorer nations. Some $8 billion will be available from the IDA [International Development Association] for these nations over the next three years, as we join others in fulfilling pledges to its fifth replenishment. The IMF has made available to developing countries, under its compensatory financing facility, nearly an additional $2 billion last year. An International Fund for Agricultural Development has been created, based on common efforts by the developed OPEC and other developing nations.

The progress and the spirit of cooperation that have emerged can serve as an excellent base for further steps. The next step will be the successful conclusion of the Conference on International Economic Cooperation and we agreed to do all in our power to achieve this. We shall work:

(i) To increase the flow of aid and other real resources from the industrial to developing countries, particularly to the 800 million people who now live in absolute poverty; and to improve the effectiveness of aid;

(ii) To facilitate developing countries' access to sources of international finance;

(iii) To support such multilateral lending institutions as the World Bank, whose lending capacity, we believe, will have to be increased in the years ahead to permit its lending to increase in real terms and widen in scope;

(iv) To promote the secure investment needed to foster world economic development;

(v) To secure productive results from negotiations about the stabilization of commodity prices and the creation of a Common Fund for individual buffer stock agreements and to consider problems of the stabilization of export earnings of developing countries; and

(vi) To continue to improve access in a nondisruptive way to the markets of industrial countries for the products of developing nations.

It is desirable that these actions by developed and developing countries be assessed and concerted in relation to each other and to the larger goals that our countries share. We hope that the World Bank, together with the IMF, will consult with other developed and developing countries in exploring how this could best be done.

The wellbeing of the developed and developing nations are bound up together. The developing countries' growing prosperity benefits industrial countries, as the latter's growth benefits developing nations. Both developed and developing nations have a mutual interest in maintaining a climate conducive to stable growth worldwide.

	This Information System is provided by the University of Toronto Library and the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto.
	Please send comments to: g8@utoronto.ca Revised: February 09, 2007.

All contents copyright © 1995. University of Toronto unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved.