How do we get money to people in need? That is the question debated throughout the first session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The formal topic in this session of the ECOSOC was mobilizing financial resources. And in this first session, we saw the rise of three polarizing stances throughout the session.
“First world countries in an open collaborative environment share technology, funding, and resources to help countries develop in a more sustainable manner with a more hands on approach instead of simply directing them to be more sustainable,” said the delegation of Honduras.
This means the delegate of Honduras believes that instead of only focusing on the future, these underdeveloped countries need immediate help from developed countries to get them back on their feet, and that once they are back on their feet, they can focus on sustainability.
This stance is concisely stated by the Delegate of Honduras when he said, “Our main focus is to get energy in the first place, renewability comes second.” This stance was also taken up by the delegates of Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nicaragua, and Iran.
The next stance was taken by the Delegate of Croatia, who stated, “We are building long lasting infrastructure, such as hospitals, rather than just funding healthcare systems.” This means that Croatia does want more developed countries to fund the development of long-term, sustainable development plans rather than just giving money to help out a developing country for a short amount of time.
The Delegate of Croatia and his bloc also highly stresses the use of Non Governmental Organizations to complete the sustainable development goals by 2030, but negating this point, the Delegate of Honduras and his bloc say that “the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 is not feasible”, and says that “Our bloc is focus on ensuring that third world countries want to develop in a sustainable way, but their prime concern is to make ends meet first.”
In the midst of this debate, another opinion shines through. The delegates of Argentina and Colombia focused on the international and security aspect of the topic. These two delegates said that they wanted to “create a better flow of investment from developed to undeveloped nations while being wary of the developing nations depending on the developed nations” and “control the flow of monetary aid in order to make sure that it is properly appropriated.” Their main focus was to make sure that money does get to the developing nations in the first place and to ensure that these smaller nations don’t get sucked into the hegemony of these larger nations.
In order to prevent these developing nations from depending on these developed nations, the delegates of Argentina and Colombia wanted to encourage “south-to-south development.” The idea of south-to-south development is that the countries of the southern hemisphere work together in order to develop without depending too much on the developed nations. But, this idea also entails the fact that developing nations in general should work together to develop, with the help of developed nations, but without getting too dependent on those nations.
In summation, the debate regarding the topic “The Mobilization of Financial Resources” gave rise to three main stances. The first stance focused on the “now”, saying that developing nations first need to get on their feet before any sustainability can be achieved. The next stance utilized help of NGOs to promote sustainability rather than just giving money to these developing nations. This stance says that countries will get back on their feet via sustainability efforts. The final stance suggested a more international, cooperative effort regarding finances. They believe that first-world countries should fund these developing nations, but these developing nations should also work amongst themselves to make sure that they are not getting dependent on these first world nations.