The Leading Group on Solidarity Levies to Fund Development held its first plenary meeting. It built on momentum for innovative financing mechanisms launched at the Paris Ministerial Conference on Innovative Financing Mechanisms for Development some months before.
Over 200 people attended, representing most of the 44 members of the Leading Group, many international organisations and NGOs.
Opened by Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim, and by Luis Soares Dulci, Minister of the General Secretariat of the Brazilian Presidency, the Leading Group’s work was divided in three parts:
A plenary session;
Simultaneous round tables on the Group’s full range of options:
- taxing financial transactions and combating tax avoidance,
- issuing special drawing rights,
- facilitating migrant remittances,
- the International Finance Facility for Immunization (IFFIm),
- encouraging voluntary levies (with a presentation of the Global Digital Solidarity Fund and the humanitarian lottery project of the World Food Programme);
- UNITAID with remarks by representatives from France, Brazil, Chile, Norway and the United Kingdom.
One of the major topics of the meeting was the currency transaction tax (CTT) which has emerged as the most promising avenue to explore. In addition, Brazil stressed the importance of the close involvement of NGOs in the Group’s work.
As a result, only four months after the Paris Conference, the Brasilia Conference showed that innovative financing mechanisms continue to mobilize an increasing number of countries, international organisations and NGOs.
27 February 2009