Senior UN officials gather to discuss global financial crisis

Senior UN officials gather to discuss global financial crisis

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- Senior officials of the United Nations gathered here Friday to discuss decisive, drastic, collective response to the spiraling financial crisis gripping the world.

"All recognized the need to reinvent the international institutions of yesteryear," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the meeting of UN Chief Executive Board. "The times demand a new multilateralism."

The UN chief said he would attend both a G-20 conference scheduled for Nov. 15 in Washington and an expanded G-8 summit before the end of this year, pledging to "do all we can" to support efforts to address the financial crisis.

Friday's meeting came one day after Ban's informal meeting with Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz and several other leading economists to discuss many aspects of the financial meltdown.

"All agreed that the next shoe to drop is likely to be the emerging markets," Ban said, warning of the danger of "a succession of cascading financial crises."

The UN chief urged the International Monetary Fund and the world's major central banks to set up "substantial stand-by lines of credit for proactive intervention" so that banks in developing countries also have adequate funds to draw on in emergency.

"Too often, in recent weeks, financial leaders have been criticized for being too slow to recognize problems, for doing too little too late," Ban said. "Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past."

He warned that the financial crisis could potentially "undo the UN's good work," compounding the food crisis, the energy crisis and the crisis of development in Africa.

"It could be the final blow that many of the poorest of the world's poor simply cannot survive," Ban said. "It is our job, at the UN, to see that this does not happen."

"It is our job to defend the defenseless, to give voice to the voiceless."

Participants at Friday's gathering included Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the IMF, Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, Juan Somavia, director-general of the International Labor Organization, and Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organization.