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Sweden stated that national environmental funds need a national strategy and institutional capacity to be able to distribute the monies within a fund. The US added that national sustainable development strategies could provide the framework for these strategies. Canada pointed out that the IUCN General Assembly established a programme to investigate national environmental funds. The Chair said that he had received a letter from Marius Enthoven, Chairman of the Intersessional Working Group on Technology, regarding financial arrangements and technology partnership. This letter recognized that the issue of technology also depends on the availability of financial resources and it is essential that new mechanisms and means for technology financing have to be explored and concrete and feasible mechanisms considered. Bolivia reiterated the need for swapping debt for environmentally sound technology transfer. China stressed non-marginalization of ODA. France worried that a number of countries are using "green" as protectionism, but supported eco-labelling at the international level for commodities. UNCTAD, supported by Norway, said that a good deal of work had been done on tradeable permits. UNCTAD and UNDP had also done work on international commodity-related environmental agreements (ICREAs). The Earth Council said that political support for ODA is needed if there is to be specific agreements for specific projects. World Citizens' Assembly said that political will could be mobilized.
The Chair urged that the growing list of possible financial mechanisms be applied to the relevant sectors before the CSD. The Netherlands, supported by Sweden, made a concrete recommendation to forward the sectoral papers to other meetings before the CSD's meeting in May, including the Netherlands conference on freshwater in March, the toxic chemicals meeting in Sweden in April, and the Habitat PrepCom in April. Egypt said that the CSD needs to know about the adequacy of financial resources, what is available, what is missing, how to go about getting these resources, and the options available. Colombia said the problem is not that there are no funds, but that donors lose control in a multilateral system, unlike in a bilateral agreement. She agreed with Brazil on the need for a more serious study of subsidies in financing. Brazil, and Uganda stressed the importance of ODA as an essential catalyst. UNDP agreed with Under-Secretary-General Desai on the need to narrow the range of options. The representative of the National Wildlife Foundation associated herself with the remarks of The Third World Network, that three issues are too large to leave out: structural adjustment, debt relief and terms of trade. The Cousteau Society stressed consideration of disarmament as investment. [Return to start of article]