Tuesday, October 14, 2008

UN Secretary General on the Credit Crisis

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon issued a statement Monday, expressing alarm that the poor nations will be neglected in the global credit crisis.

Our snippet of Ki-Moon's statement comes from a story in the Teipei Times

“I am deeply concerned about the impact of this crisis on the developing world, particularly on the poorest of the poor and the serious setback this is likely to have on efforts to meet major goals,” he said in a statement.

Ban added that while initiatives by the World Bank and the IMF to provide new emergency liquidity provisioning to poor nations could help them counteract some of the effects of the crisis, “more needs to be done.”

In his statement on Monday, the UN secretary general also stressed the need “to consider urgent multilateral action to alleviate the impact of recent events on the development agenda of the organization.”

He singled out the implementation of anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by a 2015 deadline, the food and energy crises as well as the challenges of climate change.


The next big meeting for the international community comes next month. A "finance for development" conference will give leaders a chance to take up this subject. Hopefully, they will have time for that world trade pact as well.

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