A/HRC/12/28 page 5 initiatives her Government had implemented through international cooperation and assistance in order to address the challenges of climate change and to contribute to greater food security, greater access to health care, and access to water and sanitation. The United States supported the approach of the task force, which recognized the indivisibility of human rights, equality, transparency, participation, democracy, rule of law and good governance and placed them at the centre of development. 12. The representative of Pakistan shared the concern that more than 22 years after the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development and 16 years after the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, there had been little progress towards the realization of the right to development. The Working Group’s session was taking place against a backdrop of ongoing financial and economic crisis, which had exposed the vulnerabilities of developing countries in overcoming such challenges. The present crisis had once again proven the need for policy space for developing countries to exercise the right to development when such challenges occurred. Pakistan welcomed the efforts of the task force in developing the criteria with a view to finalizing it next year. 13. The representative of Brazil highlighted the heavy burden that the current financial and economic crisis was putting on developing countries, especially the poor. Trade distortions impacted negatively on the social and economic sectors in developing countries and the assistance provided by many developed countries did not match the vast needs of the developing countries; in any case, the developed countries had yet to live up to the commitment of devoting 0.7 per cent of GDP to official development assistance. In that regard the criteria relating to the enabling environment should be couched in terms that reflected the need to break the cycle of dependency. 14. The observers for the Indian Council of South America, the Indigenous Peoples and Nations Coalition and the International Council for Human Rights drew the attention of the Working Group to the situation of indigenous peoples and expressed the hope that the interests of indigenous peoples would be considered in the work of the task force. They suggested that the task force should draw on specialized expertise from relevant non-governmental and international organizations and agencies such as Transparency International and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the revision of the criteria and development of the sub-criteria. B. Review of progress in the implementation of the right to development: consideration of the report of the high-level task force 15. Stephen Marks, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the high-level task force, presented the report on the fifth session of the task force (A/HRC/12/WG.2/TF/2). The report contained a review of the implementation of the workplan of the task force for the period 2008-2010, including continued dialogue with the selected global partnerships reviewed at its previous sessions and assessment of additional global partnerships in the areas of access to essential medicines, debt relief and transfer of technology, as well as dialogue with the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR). He also presented the interim draft version of the right-to-development criteria, as work in progress.