Mr President,

dear delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

first of all let me tell you all how grateful and honoured I am to be here with you to share some ideas on such a complex and important issue.

Second: it often happens to me that before participating to a meeting I duly prepare the written paper but many times, when the moment comes to have the floor, I suddenly realize how inadequate that paper is towards the audience and the context particularly because the secretary general's report is absolute exhaustive and complete.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it has happened again, so I will not read what I had prepared in the past days but I will try to go deeper only on few aspects of the problem:

first: multilateral aid versus bilateral aid.

On many occasions The Secretary general in his report-calls for coherence and cooperation, as prerequisites of effectiveness and he is absolutely right. But is also evident to everybody that bilateral and multilateral aid have been in many occasions alternative rather than cooperative and sometimes even competitive

4 main conceptions of bilateral cooperation can be distinguished:

a) as an instrument of security policy (the United States);

b) " " " foreign economic policy (japan);

c) " " " foreign policy aimed at consolidating former colonial ties with Least developped countries (france);

d) for humanitarian reasons without any utilitaristic ends for the donor (scandinavian countries).

These bilateral models are alternative (and sometimes competitive) rather than cooperative, and none hs managed to funcion as a frame of reference for all aid policies.

Moreover the fragmentation of bilateral ODA has not been counterbalanced by the action of international bodies mostly because they have managed only a third of total ODA.

But the new international situation has highlighted the limits of the various national policies all of them are in deep need of revision. In most case the scarce linkage of cooperation funds to the declared objective - development - has been proven: many examples can be cited of ODA being used, as tied aid, for export subsidies, or to support crisis-ridden sectors in the donor countries not to talk corruption, with little or no fall out in the recipient countries.

If ODA is to become the indispensable instrument for the development, a number of changes are in order and must be undertaken: first of all It should be freed of the goals of the donor country's foreign economic policy: such goals can be pursued by other more appropriate instrument (export credits, direct investment, non-concessional loans etc...).

This being the situation, shouldn't we ask donor countries what's the use, the effectiveness, the reason of bilateral cooperation in the year 2000? wouldn't be wiser and more usefull for development to ask them to move steadily towards a complete multilateral cooperation under the auspices and the control of the UN system?

As the Secretary General says in his report I quote "If enployed efficiently and confidently the United Nations system is the best available instrument for managing the world situation with a reasonable expectation of success" unquote.

I do really hope that, as difficult as it is, this suggestion could be taken into account during the debate.

Second: taking development assistance seriously.

In my opinion the big question for development remains the absolute level of resources presently going to ODA, not only per se, but as the concrete field which shows or does not show, Member States political will and commitment.

Here the international community is in desperate need of a system of rules and enforcement sanctions against unfulfilled commitments.

True enough this applies as well to other fields: but it cannot be any longer a justification.

Without a set of enforcement rules, in my opinion, ODA policies will keep showing a huge gap between their intentions and their results.

Who does still belive in the commitment coming from developed countries to devote to ODA 0.7% of their income? (UN res 2626 07 1970).

The point is rather that, no matter what the figure of choice may be (0.7%, 1%, or even 0.4%) it is vital to arrive at rules that make ODA pledges taken in international fora, binding.

The Secretary General is perfectly right when he says that all efforts have to be taken to reach consensus among member states... the problem arises whien consensus is there on paper and then is not implemented.

It goes without saying that as long as nation-state dominate world politics there is no way - short of war - to impose on them an external will. And we do not want war....!!!!!

States - however - do enter agreement that imply provision of resources. Think for example of the system of quotas to finance the UN. Countries can and do delay the payment of their dues: but they usually end up making good on their permises - the sanction, the enforcement rule, in this case the loss of face incurred by doing otherwise.

A similar system could be applied to ODA. The security council could and should come up with a resolution that mandates the fulfillment of donors' pledges (as to the absolute amount of aid, its environmental impact, its development orientation etc....) and of recipients' conditions (as to democracy, human rights, disarmament, etc...) together with a verification machinery to ensure implementation. Delinquent donors should be subject to sanctions, if ODA has to be taxen seriously.

Outside the UN, private institution, NGOs could do the same. Such groups as the Helsinki watch, did a great job in helping fighting human rights abuses in Europe and ultimately in defeating Soviet rule. Why not having an International Cooperation watch?

Donors and recipients could also come together immediately and form a club - let's call it International Cooperation Group - based on the voluntary acceptance of rules - those at both ends of the trade that I just mentioned: on the negative control side, the fourp could name names and ask delinquent members to explain why they did not follow the rules agreed upon. On the positive side the group could lobby the international community financial or otherwise to have higher - profile development cooperation policies.

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Third: political will

This element is mentioned many times in the report as the most important one. It's true, as it is true that nowadays that many member states, particularly donor countries, do not have this political will, or at least they do not have "adequate" political will to seriously attaq this complex and vital issue.

So the problem arises: how can we, or who can effectively mobilize political will? Let me tell you a brief story.

In 1979 Italy's ODA was 0.06 of gnp, when we the trasnational radical party started campaigning against the extermination by hunger and for development.

Five o 6 years of a wonderful and difficult campaign, in Italy, in the European parliament, brougt italy's ODA to 0.2% - 1981 - and to 0.4% in 1985. We were using all sort of nonviolent initiatives to attract public opinion, media, to create awareness among our colleagues parliamentarians and politicians: from hunger strikes, to marches, from parliamentary debates to serious international meeting with un agencies, from nonviolent occupation of national TV station which were not giving any information to development's issue to collecting thousands and thousands of signatures of citizens in the streets etc.... mutual interest for global human security.

But it was very difficult: most of the people for instance of my costituency and many of my parliamentarians colleagues kept asking me: why do you campaign for "foreign" development when we have so many domestic problems? Why are you asking to increase ODA when our national economy is facing crisis??? etc....

We kept campaigning but you know? when in 1983 we had to run elections we realize that they would have been a disaster for us.

Stubborn as we are we went on, and finally Italy reached 0.4%.

Public opinion understood that a state which does not care of millions of undernurished 300 miles away, in the same way will not care of his own Have nots.

We did not have sufficient financial and human resources to keep campaigning on development: Italy is now back to 0.2%. Foreign "issues" are unpopular and completely "neutral": in any case they do not bring a single vote thay do not take away a single vote.

And differently from most of you politicians in democratic countries from times to times run elections and have to try to be reelected. So we go back to the vicious circle: how can we, your friends, act in such a way that our nothern white and rich people beging thinking that what happens in your countries in "also" our business,is also "our responsability?" and that global human development and security is a vital interest for everybody white and blacks, men and women, noth and south?

I do not know the answer: this is why I welcome these hearings and the idea of an agenda for peace in the hope that this instrument can mobilize not only collective public opinion awareness, but public opinion's heart and love for our common future in this wonderful world. Apparently rationality, knowledge Reasons are not enough: we need passion, love, commitment, the feeling that our childs' future black and whites, yellow or red is in our hands.

Thank you mr. president for undertaking sich a risky and vital task and good luck for all of us.