INTRODUCTION


This document forms part of UNITAR's debt and financial management training programme which aims at meeting the needs of debt, economic, and financial managers in the legal aspects of financial management as identified by a high-level expert meeting held in Geneva as early as April 1987.

Since the on-set of this programme in 1987, training activities have been undertaken both in East, West, and Southern Africa on the one hand and in the Middle East, South and Central Asia (including Azerbaijan) on the other.

A wide range of sub-regional and national seminars and national follow-up workshops have already taken place with a view to sensitizing and/or training senior officers, middle-level managers, law professors, lawyers, and economists. UNITAR has developed an expertise in conducting training needs assessments, high-level awareness seminars/conferences, sub-regional seminars, follow-up in-depth workshops, "a la carte" training programmes, training of trainers workshops, and distance learning training packages in the field of debt and financial management. To date, 39 training activities have been conducted benefitting over 1400 participants from different sub-regions.

The UNITAR programme on the legal aspects of debt and financial management is predicated upon a modern vision of the lawyer as an advisor rather than as an advocate called upon to resolve problems or controversies only after they have occurred. The lawyer as an advisor must, in fact, be prepared and capable to assist his client in all phases of a transaction - strategic planning, choice of sources of financing, negotiation, implementation, management - helping him to formulate his position in clear terms, weigh alternatives and assess the implications, rights and obligations flowing from a particular provision, and of course deal with legal clauses such as those relating to constitutionality, legality and authority. More often than not, a lawyer must operate as a member of a team.

While many factors have led to the current debt burden of many developing countries, the underestimation and neglect of sound debt and financial management practices and the legal aspects thereof are among the most important. In the countries surveyed by UNITAR, a lack of awareness of legal procedures in debt and financial management prevails which has negative effects on their ability to repay their debts.

It is UNITAR's firm belief that considering the specific qualities that lawyers can contribute to international financial negotiations and the important role they must play at all stages of the procurement/ borrowing process, it is highly desirable to bring them in at a very early stage in a government's preparation for a particular loan operation - and keep them involved throughout as full members of the team. We hope that this document will point towards the centrality and importance of the legal aspects and of the role of the lawyer in external debt management.


Marcel A. Boisard
Acting Executive Director

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• The Fallacies
• The Usefulness of Lawyers
• Some Advice for the Lawyers
• Conclusion
  
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