UNITED NATIONS, Oct 24 (APP): Pakistan, speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 (developing countries) and China, has called for developing a strategic consensus on the comprehensive reform of the international financial and monetary system that would accommodate the interests of developing countries.

“(We) support a comprehensive reform of the international financial architecture, including enhancement in the voting powers of developing countries, within a specific time frame,” Pakistani minister of state for economic affairs Hina Rabbani Khar told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

The 192-member assembly is hosting a High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development to lay the ground for a review of anti-poverty promises pledged by world leaders in the 2002 Monterrey Consensus in Mexico.

At the 2002 Monterrey conference in Mexico, developing countries took primary responsibility for their development, and for mobilizing domestic resources.  Developed countries, in turn, agreed to provide assistance and promote an enabling international environment for development.

In a her comprehensive statement on behalf of G77 and China, She said Monterrey Consensus suffered from a “serious implementation deficit”.  While some developing countries had exhibited dynamic economic performance, many countries remained mired in a vicious circle of poverty, far from achieving the Millennium Development Goals. 

Despite improved debt management strategies and intense international cooperation on debt relief, the total external debt of developing countries had increased and the conditions that led to the global debt crisis were still in existence, she said. In this regard, the state minister reiterated G77 stand that debt sustainability should be linked to a country’s capacity to achieve its national development goals, including global development targets. 

The low levels of Official Development Assistance (ODA), the current impasse in the Doha Round of trade negotiations, and the global economic slowdown were also bad signs, the state minister said.

Taken together, she said, they pointed to both a deficit of implementation of the Monterrey Consensus and the issues that Monterrey was unable to adequately address.

In the future, the G-77 chairperson said the international community should redouble its efforts to enhance ODA and to secure additional resources for developing countries.  Aid should be delivered more effectively and be more responsive to the needs of recipient nations. 

The United Nations, she said, should increase the ability of poor and vulnerable economies to attract private and multilateral investments and, overall, the Member States should do more to help solve the external debt problems of developing countries. 

Comprehensive reform of the international financial architecture was also necessary, though that alone would not resolve the fundamental problems of instability and unavailability of liquidity for developing countries.

A strategic consensus on the comprehensive reform of the international financial and monetary system was imperative, she added. Innovative and complex financial products developed and introduced in advanced countries should be regulated to temper their impact on developing countries. 

Hina Khar concluded with a call to break the current impasse in the Doha Round of trade negotiations and reiterated her commitment to its timely and positive completion.