Finance summit ill-timed - Robinson

FORMER PRESIDENT Mary Robinson has warned that the upcoming summit in Washington to design a new financial order is ill-timed and unlikely to produce any concrete results.

She said hosting the summit without US president-elect Barack Obama would be a mistake and warned that the G20 meeting risked diverting attention away from an important UN conference in Doha on eradicating poverty in the developing world this month.

"It will be difficult to get the type of radical change that I think Obama understands is necessary until he is in power," said Ms Robinson at a meeting in Brussels. "I can't see how you could really have a very credible summit because of the circumstances." It is still unclear whether Mr Obama will attend the summit or whether he will send a team of advisers as observers. President George Bush will host the two-day summit and represent US interests.

Ms Robinson, who since standing down as president of Ireland has championed human rights, said she feared the high-profile financial summit would overshadow the November 29th Doha conference. "It seems to me that this summit is not well timed because it is taking attention away from the commitment that should be there for the financing of development even at the time of fiscal difficulty."

Financing for development is about how domestic and international resources contribute - or not - to ensuring all countries will be able to meet the Millennium Development Goals and eradicate poverty. It encompasses aid, trade, debt relief, international and national finance, domestic budgeting and global governance.

There are growing fears that the current financial crisis would be used as an excuse by rich member states to shirk development commitments they have already signed up to.

"I would prefer that the member states met to discuss how they intend to meet their commitments to Doha and planned a summit when Obama is present on the Bretton woods architecture," said Ms Robinson, who will attend the Doha conference.