Kathmandu, April 15:Foreign Minister Chakra Prasad Bastola has stressed the need for developing countries to stop always looking to the North for inspiration to find solutions to their problems.
Foreign Minister and leader of the Nepalese delegation Bastola was addressing the South Summit at Havana, the capital city of Cuba on April 14.
“It is our interest to enhance our development capacities, preserve our cultures and maintain our identities into the next century,” he said. “It is a challenge we can meet only through our collective efforts.”
Common problems demand collective solutions, he said, adding developing countries must try to coordinate their activities politically as well as economically to strike an optimal balance conducive to promoting their overall welfare and benefit.
Stating that developing countries have so far been deprived of the opportunity they deserve to sit in decision making bodies of international financial organisations and the United Nations bodies, Minister Bastola said the time has come to move beyond rhetoric bringing about democratic and functional reforms of the United Nations and change the world financial architecture to reflect the present day global realities.
“We need a stronger and more effective United Nations to address the emergency challenges and opportunities of the 21st century,” he said, adding the world body should be able to ensure greater peace and security and to promote economic and social development in the years to come.
The U.N. should have the resources and mandate it requires to carry out its responsibilities, he said and welcomed the millennium summit of the United Nations.
Nepal believes that there has to be greater North-South cooperation and South-South cooperation to achieve the goal, he said, stressing the need for advanced countries to abide by their oda commitments of 0.7 percent of gdp to the developing countries and 0.15 percent to the least developed ones.
“While we welcome the flexibility of the expanded initiative in favour of highly indebted countries, Nepal hopes that the coverage of the initiative is expanded to all indebted developing countries in order for them to be able to release resources from debt servicing and repayment and devote them to development,” he said.
Stressing the need for countries in the South to strive to forge greater cooperation and be able to set an example for North-South cooperation, he said there should be increasing focus on trade and investment as future interactions between the North and South as well as among the countries of the South.
That will be the way for future prosperity in the long-run, and access to technology and level playing field for trade would be crucial in this respect, Mr Bastola observed.
Stating that least developed countries are encumbered by additional disadvantages of geography and underdevelopment, the Foreign Minister said most of them are also at the lower end of foreign investment destinations.
Both countries from the North and economically better off countries from the South should come forth with additional measures to help them tide over their problems, he observed.
Similarly Foreign Minister Chakra Prasad Bastola has said that in view of the very little achievements made so far the least developed countries (ldcs) have lost precious time in their development efforts.
Minister Bastola said this at a special meeting of the ministers of the least developed countries held during the South Summit in Havana today.
He urged the ldcs to speed up necessary preparations for the third United Nations conference on ldcs in 2001.
In view of the diverse needs and problems of different ldcs he called for country specific and time-bound response.
Meanwhile, Minister Bastola met Foreign Minister of Senegal Cheikh Tidiane Gadio on April 13 and exchanged views on matters of mutual interest.