UN chief Ban Ki-moon expressed alarm on Monday about the impact of the global financial crisis on poor nations and called for urgent multilateral action in support of the UN’s anti-poverty agenda.
“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.”
On Sunday, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said the financial crisis, the worst since the 1929 market crash, underscored the need for coordinated action to build a better multilateral system.
Zoellick announced that the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private sector lending arm, was exploring the possibility of a fund to help recapitalize banks in the developing world.
Experts say poorer countries could be hit twice by the crisis — finding it more difficult to get access to funding and as their exports fall because the crisis undercuts demand.
With donor aid programs under pressure during the financial crisis, the World Bank estimates that up to 100 million people are at risk of falling into poverty because of higher food and energy prices.
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.
Last month, a UN summit on how to reduce global poverty ended with pledges from donors of roughly US$16 billion. But the financial turmoil has raised fears that the promises may not be kept.
Ban noted that the finance for development conference scheduled for next month in Doha “provides us an important opportunity to review developments and to ensure that the current financial difficulties do not undermine commitments already undertaken to provide more aid and other financial resources for the achievement” of the MDGs.
The Doha Round of trade liberalization talks, orchestrated by the WTO, was launched in the Qatari capital seven years ago but has been deadlocked because of disputes between the rich developed world and poorer developing nations on trade in farm and industrial products.
The MDGs include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating diseases such as HIV/AIDS, ensuring environmental sustainability and creating global partnerships for development.
WAKE-UP CALL: Firms in the private sector were not taking basic precautions, despite the cyberthreats from China and Russia, a US cybersecurity official said A ninth US telecom firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and telephone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said on Friday. Officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden this month said that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. US Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger on Friday told reporters that a ninth victim
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
MISSING: Prosecutors urged the company to move workers out of poor living conditions to hotels, but residents said many workers had already left the town Brazil has stopped issuing temporary work visas for BYD, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, in the wake of accusations that some workers at a site owned by the Chinese electric vehicle producer had been victims of human trafficking. The announcement came days after labor authorities said they found 163 Chinese workers who had been brought to Brazil irregularly in “slavery-like” conditions at the BYD factory construction site in the northeastern state of Bahia. The workers were employed by contractor Jinjiang Group, which has denied any wrongdoing. Later, the authorities also said the workers were victims of human trafficking,
RSS