by William M. Reilly and Gu Zhenqiu

    UNITED NATIONS, April 15 (Xinhua) -- In about six weeks, the UN General Assembly (GA) will kick off a summit meeting, which the president of the 192-member body has called "the most important in the history of the United Nations."

    Perhaps that remains to be seen, but the summit, slated for June 1-3, is on perhaps the biggest single issue to grip the world in decades, the world financial and economic crisis and its impact on development.

    President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann of the General Assembly told reporters here on Tuesday that the economic crisis, "worse than the Great Depression" of 1929, "is affecting the entire world and was brought about mainly as a result of social irresponsibility, greed -- insatiable greed -- on the part of a few countries" while "the vast majority that had nothing to do with that were paying the heaviest price."

    The world body, designed to safeguard world peace and promote global development under the UN Charter, is seeking a greater role in helping the international community, especially the underdeveloped countries to tackle the current global financial crisis, a topic used to be dealt with by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

    "In the past, financial responsibility roles were matters to be considered by Bretton Woods institutions, but now after 64 years, for the first time, we are looking at a new financial monetary trade architecture."

    The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were founded, the U.S. dollar established as the international reserve and the gold standard set at 35 U.S. dollars an ounce at Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, in the U.S. state of New Hampshire, in 1944 with an eye to recovery following the end of World War II.

    Now, d'Escoto says it is the General Assembly's turn to take the lead.

    "We have to make sure we have a more stable world economy," he said. "That was one of the fundamental purposes when the United Nations was founded."

    The summit is inclusive. The upcoming summit on the financial and economic crises that have swept the globe seeks to give a voice to nations not responsible for the turmoil but most impacted by it, D'Escoto said, adding that the so-called Group of 8 (G8) and Group of 20 (G20) industrialized nations represent only a fraction of the world's countries.

    "We are working towards democratization of our world, of our organization, and we want an inclusive system where 172 countries that don't participate in any decision-making process" are able to play a role, he said.

    The president has been tasked with organizing the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development, which was called for by participants at a financing for development meeting held in Qatar in late 2008.

    The former Nicaraguan foreign minister said preparations for the June summit, approved last week by the assembly, were going ahead despite attempts by certain unnamed nations to lower the scope and profile of the sessions.

    "First world countries, the countries that are accustomed to ruling the world and threaten human beings who don't want to give up power, should we continue to allow them to force the rest of us to invest in the biggest chaos the world has known in 60 years?" he said. "Just because you are rich and developed does not mean you have the monopoly on financial knowledge."

    In order to better understand the nature of the financial crisis and propose effective solutions, the General Assembly president set up a panel of 18 economic and financial experts from various countries last year. The panel, with their initial proposals submitted to the 63rd session of the General Assembly some three weeks ago, offers a series of proposals and suggestions, including restructuring the current international financial and monetary systems, which can serve as the basis for discussions and debates during the upcoming summit.

    The GA president pointed out that while the UN charter seeks the end of the scourge of war it also seeks guaranteed peace and security by strengthening the economy of the world.

    Considering the urgency of the crisis, the United Nations wants immediate actions on it first, and work to reform the current international financial structures in coming years.

    The June meeting will deal with topics requiring immediate action while other discussions will involve "laying foundations for the economic and financial architecture" of the future, he said.

    "We must, all of us, I believe, collectively assume responsibility," he said. "I don't want to waste time finger pointing. We are all, in one degree or another, responsible and we must all work together in good faith to try to restructure."

    The future architecture is expected to include consideration of a move away from the U.S. dollar as the currency of choice for international reserves.

    "Many, many countries trusted the dollar because they (the United States and allies) preached economic restructuring and fiscal responsibility but now we find out they had the least of that, our dear host country (the United States)," d'Escoto said, adding, "it allowed the United States to go ahead and print" money.

    Given the complexity of the issue, the coming summit is just the beginning of a process of the UN efforts to stabilize the world economy.

    "It should be clear this is not one meeting," he said. "This is the beginning of a process that will take longer, take many more meetings, but unlike other meetings that say we will follow up in six years, and so on, we can not afford that luxury. This is an emergency situation. The world will be looking at us."

    Traditionally major UN meetings have follow-up sessions to assess the effectiveness of initial confabs.

    D'Escoto said the facilitators for the June meeting, ambassadors Camillo Gonsalves of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Frank Majoor of the Netherlands, were allowing member states to lead the sessions to a mutually agreed outcome.

    The GA president said he was about to begin a series of visits to Latin America, Asia and Europe to further promote the meeting.

    D'Escoto said since particulars of the meeting translated into all six official UN languages only went out Tuesday, it was too early to get a reading on the numbers or names of heads of state planning to attend.