Blame game to start as DOHA Conference ends

The Doha Conference on Finance for Development on aid to developing nations could be set for a "total failure".

DESA's top managers are running up and down to try to save the "dead" and show some kind of "achievements" in front of Ban Ki-moon and his entourage. Negotiations have begun to recognize the need for urgent action to help finance the battle against global poverty. U.N. officials are running like "mad cow" to try to save in the last minute and introduce a draft document that hopefully could win the backing of EU, otherwise the conference could result in another major failure for DESA and its management.

DESA's reputation seem to have scared away many important players, like G20, G8 and World Bank and IMF leadership. At its last hours, there seem to be still a long way to go, however, and there is every danger that the current version of document will be considerably watered down by non-E.U. members of the G8.

Many believe that the draft document proposed from DESA/U.N. under discussion at the conference remains fundamentally weak, in particular on aid issues where it fails to explicitly reconfirm the commitment made at the Group of Eight leading nations summit in Gleneagles in 2005 to increase annual aid to $130 billion by 2010.

So far, the conference is falling well short of UN and civil society expectations. A failure to address key issues, such as falling aid and the huge problem of tax evasion, will mean that it will not provide the concrete and decisive outcome that poor countries had been promised.

National delegates in Doha are seeking to update the 2002 Monterrey Consensus on aid and to decide how best to shelter developing countries from the global financial crisis. They are scheduled to agree their final conclusions Tuesday (tomorrow) when the conference ends.

In the corridors of the luxury hotels TEAM BAN was reportedly screaming about the "unexpected low attendance" of the conference and demanded explanation from the "organizers" as to who confirmed those attendees and who dealt with the conference administration from its conception. It seem that the blame game will continue in New York. As always those on TOP will be looking for someone to take a fall on DOHA. Will see !!