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The Eighth Session of the Working Group on the Right to Development met from February 26 through March 2 to review the report of the high-level task force on the RTD, and to create a document of Conclusions and Recommendations. The week of discussions focused on the assignment of the task-force, which was to develop criteria for a periodic evaluation to improve partnerships in support of the Millenium Development Goal 8 (MDG 8). The objective was to mainstream the RTD, to bring it to the center of discussion on national and international levels, in government policy and the policy of financial institutions alike. Three partnerships in particular were assessed: the African Peer Review Mechanism, ECA/OECD-DAC “Mutual Review of Development Effectiveness in the context of NEPAD,” and the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
There was a heated debate rooted in the level of commitment States were willing to put towards mobilizing the RTD mechanisms. In drafting the Conclusions and Recommendations, there was controversy over paragragh 5; there were extremely different opinions regarding the possible outcomes of RTD evaluation. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) urged the for the specific mention of a “legally binding instrument” (which would infer the eventual creation of a convention); while the E.U., Australia, Switzerland, and Canada prefered the more vague terminology “various forms, including guidelines on the implementation of the right to development, and evolve into a basis for consideration of an international legal standard of a binding nature, through a collaborative process of engagement.” Despite NAM’s drawing on the authority of the majority of UN States, one hundred and sixteen nations to be exact, the assertions of latter group of delegations won favor, and the text remained ambiguous and not directed towards the creation of a convention.
Other sources of disagreement were over paragragh 7 of the Conclusions and Recommendations, which discussed the process of analysis and implementation of RTD. The document initially called for the outcome of the evaluation to “outline a proposal for a follow-up mechanism to guide the implementation of these criteria,” but was softened to “outline suggestions for further work.” This change was made according to the request of the EU, despite NAM’s emphasis on the importance of this specificity.
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