ABSTRACT
People would in general not associate the United Nations with economic diplomacy. The Financing for Development process has also made an attempt to change the nature of the negotiations. The key development issues that have been debated and negotiated at the United Nations are poverty, aid, commodities and international trade, debt, transnational corporations, and the environment. In the 1950s and 1960s, debates at the United Nations were dominated by a focus on growth, with industrialization as its main driving force. Two major events in recent years have significantly changed the nature of economic diplomacy at the United Nations. The first was the Millennium Summit, and the second was the International Conference on Financing for Development. The Millennium Declaration contains a development chapter with a number of concrete numerical targets with deadlines, foremost among them the goal to halve poverty by 2015. These goals became known as the Millennium Development Goals. Change at the United Nations mostly occurs incrementally.
