External Debt - issues of sustainability and legitimacy.

Often political interest of the bipolar world has driven loan
decisions, and their productivity has correspondingly been low. A
broad range of states, which have undergone fragile democratisation
processes, are facing these old liabilities that tend to
destabilise the new order, while creditors often turn their backs
on them. Critiques of such behaviour have long argued that these
debts are odious and should not be repaid. In the past,
Czechoslovakia and the East Germany played important roles in
broadening the Eastern Bloc's influence in the South, and as a
result these countries now have a responsibility to these questions
today. How can odious debts be identified, and be dealt with?
Related questions dealt with at the workshop included the role of
post-communist countries in the international financial
institutions.

Global Public Goods: Ambitious approach or impossible ideal

The Global Public Goods (GPG) are goods, services or conditions
that benefit people anywhere in the world. They include issues,
which range as broadly as peace and security, biodiversity,
alleviation of HIV/AIDS pandemics, and financial stability. In
2001, the Prague Declaration adopted by the participants of the
Forum 2000 conferences stated that 'The challenge of global
democracy is one of "finding instruments and institutions that
will equally protect globally shared values and local
differences."' The GPG also stands for a concept of global
governance, or as it were, managing globalisation. To guarantee
provision and financing of GPG, global policies need to be created
that would effectively frame and regulate globalisation - through
coordination of national policies, inter- and national treaties
organisations, or global taxation and market creation. The
participants of the workshop examined common notions like that
of "public" and "private" and then discussed the pros and cons of
institutional arrangements, operational policies and financing
mechanisms for the provision of global public goods. The workshop
brought together delegates from multilateral institutions, civil
society movements and governments.