IMPLEMENTING 2002 MONTERREY AGREEMENT ON DEVELOPMENT FINANCE

In Opening Address, Secretary-General Says World Community

On Threshold of Breakthrough in Pursuit of Development, Human Dignity

As the General Assembly met to assess progress in implementing a landmark agreement reached at a 2002 development summit in Monterrey, Mexico, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said many years of hard work had brought the international community to the threshold of a breakthrough in its pursuit of development and human dignity.

The Assembly’s High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development offered an opportunity for governments to consolidate or add to the development package that is being assembled internationally in support of the Millennium Development Goals -- the set of development targets endorsed by world leaders at the 2000 Millennium Summit. It takes place as the General Assembly proceedswith negotiation of the outcome document for the 2005 World Summit in September, and in the immediate run-up to the Group of 8 (G-8) meeting, where development finances head the agenda.

The two-day Dialogue brings together ministers of finance, foreign affairs and development cooperation, as well as leaders of the United Nations, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) -- the same combination that brokered a partnership against poverty in Monterrey in 2002.

Not long ago, stated the Secretary-General, many had feared that development in the world’s poorest countries could become a lost cause, with some stating that extreme poverty was a sad but inescapable aspect of the human condition. That view was now seen as intellectually indefensible and morally untenable, and it was