–for series of economic development meetings

FINANCE Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh is currently in Washington DC attending a series of meetings aimed at addressing the main pressing economic and development issues currently confronting the global community.

Earlier in the day yesterday, the Minister participated in the Sixth Meeting of Finance Ministers of the Americas and the Caribbean, and subsequently in the 2014 Commonwealth Finance Ministers meeting.
At the meeting of Finance Ministers of the Americas and the Caribbean, Minister Singh and his colleagues considered an agenda that addressed the macro-economic challenges faced by the hemisphere, along with opportunities to be had through closer regional integration and greater inter-regional trade.
Following that meeting, Minister Singh indicated that he welcomed the discussion on regional integration, given the opportunities that closer ties offer to the smallest countries of the hemisphere in particular.
Resolving the impediments to closer integration, including infrastructural and financing gaps, is a priority worthy of the highest attention, Minister Singh emphasised.
At the Commonwealth meeting, Minister Singh and his colleagues considered the findings of a report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing, which explores options for mobilising resources to achieve sustainable development goals.
The Finance Ministers were also briefed on the Committee’s ideas for funding social and economic development.
Besides discussing proposals for reform that were designed to improve ways of mobilising, measuring, and monitoring the effectiveness of Official Development Assistance, the ministers also looked at key areas that require further work and political will for the successful hosting of the Third UN Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa in July 2015.
“It is imperative that countries like ours use the opportunity provided by these meetings to advocate our unique interests, and, in particular, to ensure that the peculiar circumstances faced by small states like ours are better understood, and are more effectively responded to by the international community,” Minister Singh said, adding:
“We will continue to call for the developed world to deliver on its pending obligations, including in such areas as the longstanding 0.7 per cent of GNI Official Development Assistance commitment which is still woefully under-met.”
He concluded: “Even as the international community considers refining ways to measure and monitor official development assistance, our predominant concern remains the timely and predictable delivery of committed levels of assistance by the developed world to the developing world.”
Dr Singh chaired the last Commonwealth Finance Ministers meeting, which was held here in Guyana in 2007.