Jordan Times
Thursday, May 26, 2005
G-8 representatives to
convene in Jordan
By Rami Abdelrahman
AMMAN — Representatives from G-8 countries will meet with regional government
officials next year in Jordan to follow up on political, economic and social
reforms, according to a senior government official.
The official, who preferred to remain anonymous, said Jordan would host the next
meeting of the “Forum for the Future” in the summer of 2006, a meeting dedicated
to supporting “efforts to advance freedom, democracy and prosperity in the
region.”
Foreign affairs and finance ministers from the G-8 countries will meet with
their Arab counterparts here, he added.
“The Forum for the Future is the centrepiece of the `Partnership for Progress
and a Common Future with the Region of the Broader Middle East and North Africa'
(BMENA) launched by US President George W. Bush and the other G-8 leaders at
their Sea Island Summit in June 2004,” according to a statement published last
September by the US State Department.
According to the statement, the forum will bring together regional and G-8
foreign, economy and other ministers, as well as civil society and business
leaders, for an ongoing dialogue on reforms to promote democracy, the rule of
law, human rights, and free market economic reforms.
The G-8 declaration, which committed these countries to pursue political,
economic and social reform in the `broader' MENA region, was later reaffirmed —
on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2004 — by
foreign ministers and representatives from 24 countries.
Two meetings bringing together G-8 and BMENA region officials were recently held
as complementary to the World Economic Forum.
The first meeting, held in Amman, included senior G-8 representatives on export
credit, investment and trade development, to discuss how to increase financing
to support trade, investment and economic development in the region.
The second meeting brought together education ministers of the G-8 and regional
countries to discuss building partnerships to identify success factors in
educational reform.