Save the Date
The ITUC and the Ubuntu Forum invite you to the
Side-event
Innovative financing for the MDGs: A Precondition for Success
on the occasion of the
United Nations High-Level Plenary Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals
United Nations – New York, 20 -22 Sept. 2010
Tuesday, 21st September 2010
11:45am-1:15pm
Salvation Army Auditorium
221E, 52nd Street, between 2nd and 3rd ave.
New York
In collaboration with the Center of Concern, UN-NGLS and SOLIDAR
Interventions Of:
Sharan Burrow
Secretary General, ITUC
Manuel Manonelles
Director, Ubuntu Forum
Carlos Alberto M. Den Hartog
General-Coordinator for Innovative Mechanisms of Financing for Poverty and Hunger Eradication.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil
Aldo Caliari
Director, Rethinking Bretton Woods Project, Center of Concern
Conny Reuter
Secretary General, SOLIDAR
(Other Speakers to be confirmed)
This September 2010 the UN General Assembly will be reviewing the status of the implementation of the MDGs. With only five years to go before the 2015 deadline, it is clear now that the lack of resources to finance the MDGs will be a major determining factor in the non-fulfillment of these commitments. This conclusion strongly highlights the need to generate new funds, complementary and additional to ODA, in order to give a boost to the fulfillment of the MDGs. It is essential to place financing for development needs at the core of the international political agenda.
Among the various proposals on the table is that of raising revenue from taxation on a broad range of financial sector transactions or a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT). Among the existing options of financial taxes, the Currency Transaction Tax is receiving much attention, as it has been identified as the mechanism that would raise the resources needed to attain the MDGs in the most effective way. These taxes are gaining traction among key development and economic actors, and galvanizing the energies of civil society organizations advocating for social and redistributive justice.
This Panel will explore the political and practical agenda of FTT’s as an important and urgently needed revenue-raising mechanism for financing the MDGs, and explore strategies for moving this important debate forward.
RSVP: Respond by email to laia.bertran@ubuntu.upc.edu