by William M. Reilly

    UNITED NATIONS, June 26, (Xinhua) -- The high-level UN conference on the global economic and financial crisis on Friday formally called on the United Nations to increase its role with international financial institutions in international economy and sought a review of those organizations' mandates and accords.

    In a 16-page "outcome document" approved Friday, the conference asked the UN General Assembly to make the crisis the main theme at the 64th annual session, beginning in September, and for the body to establish a follow-up working group on the topic.

    Many developing countries during three days of speeches sought continued if not increased financial aid to developing countries from developed nations.

    About 120 of the 192 UN member states, mainly developing countries, participated in The UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development. It was scheduled to wind up Friday, but was extended until Monday because of the backlog of speakers.

    Speakers at the conclave were interrupted Friday afternoon and formally adopted the document then continued with the speeches, expecting to conclude Monday.

    Unusually for such a conference billed as a summit, only one head of state showed up, President Rafael Correa Delgado of Ecuador. Less than a dozen heads of government attended.

    There had been criticism the conference was redundant after the G7 and G20 meetings on the crisis in April and in 2008, but critics were told developing countries didn't have a chance at those sessions to speak out.

    There was an overwhelming argument the United Nations as the only universal body representing all sovereign states must play a stronger role in responding to the current crisis.

    However, many developing countries, such as Barbados, Brazil, India and Sri Lanka, hailed the high-level meeting as a "very timely" and "historic" event in response to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

    In that vein delegates said through the document they needed to address representation of developing countries in the major standard-setting bodies and welcomed expansion of membership in the Financial Stability Board and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. They encouraged such bodies to review their membership with a view to enhancing representation of developing countries.

    The conference said heads and senior leadership of the international financial institutions, particularly the Bretton Woods institutions, should be appointed through open, transparent and merit-based selection processes, respecting gender equality and geographical and regional representation.

    The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are known as the Bretton Woods Institutions for where they were formed in 1944 in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. They are allied with the United Nations.

    Delegates encouraged "continued and increasing cooperation, coordination and coherence" in exchanges between the United Nations and the institutions, the document said.

    Pointing "The way forward", the document said delegates wanted to "combine our short-term responses to meet the immediate impact of the financial and economic crisis, particularly on the most vulnerable countries, with medium- and long-term responses that necessarily involve the pursuit of development and the review of the global economic system."

    The course of action proposed was to:

    -- Strengthen capacity, effectiveness and efficiency of the United Nations; enhance the coherence and coordination of policies and actions between the world organization, international financial institutions and relevant regional organizations;

    -- Further the UN development system's crisis response in support of national development strategies through a coordinated approach by UN funds and programs, specialized agencies and the international financial institutions at country level. "The response must continue to be led by program countries and ... address vulnerabilities caused or exacerbated by the crisis and further strengthen national ownership."

    -- Explore ways to strengthen international cooperation in the area of international migration and development, in order to address the challenges of the current economic and financial crisis on migration.

    The document asked the General Assembly to establish "an ad hoc open-ended working group" to follow up on the outcome document and to submit a report on the progress of its work before the end of the 64th session in September 2010 and encouraged the incoming president of that body, Ali Abdessalam Treki, "to make the world financial and economic crisis and its impact on development a main theme of the general debate of the 64th session."

    It also asked the UN Economic and Social Council to "consider the promotion and enhancement of a coordinated response of the UN development system and specialized agencies" and make recommendations to the General Assembly.

    Additionally, the document asked UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon report to the council "on a regular basis on the work of the High-level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis," invited the UN's International Labor Organization to present the "Global Jobs Pact" recently adopted by the council in July and encouraged the Inter-Parliamentary Union "to continue to contribute to the development of global responses to the crisis."

Special Report:  Global Financial Crisis