NGO recommendations ahead of Doha

On August 30, civil society organisations monitoring the review process of the
Financing for Development (FfD) published a document, Key Recommendations for the Doha Draft Outcome Document which calls for “a package of new, concrete, monitorable measures, coupled with a strong and explicit political commitment to implement them”. The FfD conference is scheduled to take place on 29 November-2 December 2008 in Doha. The recommendations, which have 60 signatories including Eurostep, Action Aid and Oxfam International, include binding timetables to reach the UN target of 0.7% of GNI to ODA by 2015 at the latest, making use of the proceeds from emissions trading for international measures to combat global warming, expanded debt cancellation and the removal of aid conditionalities.

The document highlights that “it has now become clear that agriculture, food security and food sovereignty need to be put back on to the development agenda”. It also stresses the need to address the challenge of financing climate adaptation and mitigation, to allow “democratic and equitable participation of all countries in global and national-level policy-making” and to recognise gender concerns and women’s participation as integral to effective policy-making.