LAST week, the Third International Conference on Financing was held in Addis Ababa under the theme: “Financing sustainable development and developing sustainable finance”, at which Jamaica was represented by Finance Minister Dr Peter Phillips.

The overarching focus was the alignment of development finance with supporting sustainable development and the attendees included high-level political representatives, such as Heads of State and Government, ministers of finance, foreign affairs and development cooperation, as well as all relevant institutional stakeholders, non-governmental organisations and business sector entities.

The conference formulated the Addis Ababa Action Agenda which enjoined governments to commit to (a) a new social compact to provide social protection and essential public services for all especially the poor; (b) an ‘LDC package’ to support the poorest countries; (c) a global infrastructure forum to bridge the infrastructure gap; (d) a Technology Facilitation Mechanism; (e) enhanced international tax cooperation to assist in raising resources domestically and (f) mainstreaming women’s empowerment into financing for development.

Basically, the conference was another of the exchanges between the usual supplicants from the developing countries and the developing country donors worried about explaining to their electorates why they give aid to other countries. Developed countries recommit an aid target of 0.7 per cent of their gross national income (GNI) and to reverse the 16 per cent decline in aid to the least developed countries.

Money saved is sometimes as important as money raised and so the Action Agenda calls on the international community to offer support to countries whose debt sustainability is threatened by shocks and natural disasters. It encourages consideration of further debt relief measures.

These noble aspirations and grand goals that developed countries agree to, in an orgy of euphoria, have to be financed and there’s the rub. The record of the rich, industrialised, developed countries is one of failing to meet their announced pledges, Haiti being a graphic example. There is good reason based on the pattern of history to doubt that the pledges will be met. The conference was more farce than reality.

It was not about financing sustainable development, but rather about sustaining development financing. This is the crux of the matter and it has happened before. Karl Marx was wrong on many things but he is correct when he said: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.”