By Kul C. Gautam
UNICEF Deputy Executive Director
“Financing and investment for sustainable development in Latin
America and the Caribbean:
Regional perspectives on the fulfillment of the Monterrey Consensus
and the Plan of Implementation for Johannesburg”
Johannesburg, Tuesday 3 September 2003
Thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts on behalf of UNICEF at this important event. For this is what the success of
Johannesburg hinges upon — immediate, serious follow-up, including
critical allocation of necessary resources to finance development.
? For Latin America and the Caribbean, if the 1980s were a lost decadefor development, and the 1990s were a decade of recovery, this new
decade must be decade of acceleration of progress towards meeting
the millennium development goals.
? The outcome of the Monterrey conference augurs well for LatinAmerica and the Caribbean, as it does for the rest of the world. The
outcome of the Johannesburg Summit must give us an added impetus
for redoubling our commitment to implement the MDGs plus all other
goals and targets agreed to in all major recent UN conferences and
Summits.
? Let us recall that the road to Johannesburg from Monterrey passedthrough the Special Session on Children in New York in May 2002.
Many of the leaders here today – including yourself, President Fox,
attended that landmark conference and committed yourselves to a set
of goals aimed at creating a world fit for children.
? I am happy to note that there is a long tradition of forging agreementsfocused on children and development at the regional level-including
at the Ministerial Conferences of the Americas, and the Ibero-American
Summits of Heads of States.
? This region made some remarkable progress for children in the lastdecade. And because there is such deep understanding and
commitment to children’s rights and broad-based support for children
at all levels of society, the region is ahead of most others in