http://www.mmdnewswire.com/economic-...old-31248.html
To Read the rest of the article follow Link Above.

As World Economy Slowly Rebounds, New International Development Architecture Needed to Build Momentum, Avoid Setbacks, Economic and Social Council Told
Council Opens Two-Day Meeting with World Bank, IMF, Other Key Bodies On Theme 'Coherence, Coordination and Cooperation on Financing for Development'

March 11, 2011 (MMD Newswire) -- In the aftermath of the global economic slump, a new era in development was dawning and a new international development architecture would make the difference in reversing setbacks and injecting needed momentum to the world economy's fragile and uneven recovery, the Economic and Social Council heard today as it convened its annual special high-level meeting with the international financial institutions.

"We must respond to these challenges by charting a course of truly sustainable and equitable development," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon toldtop officials from the Bretton Woods Institutions, the World Trade Organization and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in his address to the two-day gathering.

In that context, he called for strengthening the global development partnership -- particularly to achieve the Millennium Development Goals -- stressing that it was about more than aid and included debt relief, access to essential medicines and technology, and an open trading system. More investment was also needed in job creation, food security, health, clean energy, infrastructure creation and climate adaptation. At the same time, the United Nations system must become more efficient, effective and representative.

The theme of the special high-level meeting -- "Coherence, coordination and cooperation on Financing for Development" - similarly highlighted the need to retool the global partnership for development established at the 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey, Mexico, and its follow-up conference, held in Doha, Qatar, in 2008.

During two thematic debates on, respectively, financial support for the least developed countries and middle-income countries, the 54-member Council focused on strategies to address the specific challenges thwarting efforts in those two categories of countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals and other goals.

The interactive dialogues, which featured presentations by speakers from a number of United Nations specialized agencies and bodies, focused on innovative mechanisms, Aid for Trade and debt relief in the case of the least developed countries, and development cooperation, trade, capital flows, policy space and reserve systems for middle-income countries.

Kicking off the morning's discussion on the least developed countries, Council President Lazarous Kapambwe said the recent economic crisis had exposed flaws in global economic governance and, as the world's only universal forum, the United Nations must seek more engagement with other key economic players like the Group of 20. Further, all countries should meet the development financing commitments made in Monterrey and Doha, including those relating to aid, trade and external debt.

In contrast to the "too big to fail" syndrome that emerged as part of the reaction to the global economic crisis, the global approach to the least developed countries was characterized by a "too small to matter" mindset that assumed certain countries were so inconsequential they could be allowed to slip through the cracks in the world's development architecture, said Charles Gore, Head of the Policy Analysis and Research Branch in UNCTAD's Division for Least Developed Countries, Africa and Special Programmes.

That was the wrong tack to take towards a group of countries that, while often regarded as small and systemically irrelevant, would be home to 1 billion people by 2017, he said. A broad solution must instead seek to get the least developed countries on the development ladder in conjunction with efforts to move the middle-income countries farther up the same ladder. That holistic approach, encompassing trade, technology, commodities and climate change, would add up to a new international development architecture. To build out new architecture, innovative sources of finance must also be sought and aid effectiveness improved through an emphasis on country ownership.

During the afternoon session on middle-income countries, the discussion highlighted the growth challenges of those nations -- including questions on whether domestic demand could be enough to generate growth -- as well as their particular role in international cooperation for development. These countries were, according to one delegate, stuck in the "twilight zone" between developed and developing countries, with millions of their citizens mired in poverty.

Higher capital accumulation was important, if not essential, for industrial development, one panellist said. Synergies with activities on least developed countries were also noted during the spirited debate, while emphasis was given on better defining the scope of South-South cooperation to make it more effective for development. South-South cooperation could also be leveraged between middle-income countries to enhance regional trade and promote regional industrialization, several speakers said.

The afternoon session also included a briefing on the upcoming 2011 report of the Millennium Development Goals Gap Task Force from Robert Vos, Director of Development Policy and Analysis Division for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Detlef Kotte, Head of the Macroeconomic and Development Policies Branch for UNCTAD's Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, provided an overview on lessons learned from the recent economic crisis for reform of the international financial system.