The International Financial Architecture and Free Trade Agreements

About the Book

Developing countries’ efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of development and anti-poverty targets adopted by the international community, are confronted with a host of challenges, not least those posed by an unfavourable international economic setting.

This book puts together two Third World Network papers which look at how the global financial and trade systems may impede realization of the MDGs. The first paper considers how key elements in the international financial architecture – IMF loan conditionalities, the debt burden and capital account liberalization – can hinder the implementation of national MDG strategies. The second paper examines the potential adverse impacts of trade liberalization and other provisions in international trade treaties on developing-country prospects for achieving the MDGs.

The analysis in these papers underlines the urgent need to address the financial the financial and trade constraints on progress towards attaining the MDGs in the developing world.


Contents

Achieving the Millennium Development Goals requires fundamental reforms

National development strategies are critical for achieving the MDGs

MDG Goal 8: To develop a global partnership for development

Three key areas in the international financial architecture impeding the MDGs

Macroeconomic policy framework

Debt sustainability and debt resolution mechanism

Financial liberalization

Innovative financing mechanisms: Special Drawing Rights and financial transactions taxes

The role of the United Nations in global economic governance

Endnotes

Preliminary analysis: Some ways in which MDGs are affected by North-South free trade agreements (FTAs) and the WTO

What about the benefits of trade liberalization?

How trade agreements can impede attainment of the MDGs

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