Press Release No. 05/6

Press Release: IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato Welcomes UN Millennium Project's Report on Achieving Millennium Development Goals

January 17, 2005

Mr. Rodrigo de Rato, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), welcomed today the UN Millennium Project's report "Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals," as an important contribution to the international community's efforts to halve global poverty by 2015.

"This report shows the enormous challenges facing poor countries attempting to escape from poverty and provides a broad strategy on how the Millennium Development Goals might be attained by 2015," Mr. de Rato stated. "It deserves close reading and appropriate attention by all members of the international community."

Mr. de Rato noted that the report is an important contribution to the partnership for development agreed in 2002 at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico. Under the Monterrey Consensus, donors and developing countries agreed that greater efforts on the part of poor countries, particularly to ensure good governance and a better investment climate, must be matched by more comprehensive support from the industrialized countries.

"UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan commissioned this report two years ago," Mr. de Rato added, "to advocate poverty reduction and create a broad road map for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. In the spirit of the Monterrey Consensus, the IMF is committed to a strong and coordinated worldwide effort to reduce poverty. I hope we are able to work effectively with the international community to achieve these aims."

The IMF was consulted and participated in discussions with the UN Millennium Project.

See related documents:

The IMF and the Millennium Development Goals, A Factsheet - September 2004.

Remarks by Rodrigo de Rato, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, at the Summit of World Leaders for Action Against Hunger and Poverty, New York, September 20, 2004.

IMF/World Bank Report Calls for Urgent Action on Poverty Reduction by All Countries (Press Release No. 04/85).