United Nations Radio

World leaders begin meeting in Doha, Qatar Saturday to ensure there's sufficient money available for development.

The 4-day meeting is a follow-up to the International Conference on Financing for Development that took place in 2002 in Monterrey, Mexico.

UN Radio's Donn Bobb is in Doha and filed this report ahead of the opening.

World leaders begin meeting here in Doha, Qoatar to ensure there is sufficient money available for development. The UN's follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development will make recommendations on inputs required to fuel development- inputs such as trade, aid, investment, the alleviation of debt, the mobilization of national resources and effective international financial architecture.

But the task has become more urgent and perhaps more complex as a result of the uncertainty in world financial markets and a sharp deceleration in economic growth.

The head of the UN Development Programme, Kemal Dervis, says the Doha meeting is happening at an incredibly difficult time.

"The Doha meeting in this context takes on added significance. It is clear that we are heading towards a very difficult 2009 year for the world economy. Projections for growth worldwide are being revised downwards every two weeks or so by the various institutions that make these projections. But what we are seeing is that the rich countries, the advanced countries, will have negative growth anywhere between minus one half and one -- these are the various estimates at this stage."

The Doha conference will assess progress made on the 2002 Monterrey Consensus - a landmark North-South agreement on development principles adopted in Mexico.

This meeting also expects to steer the Monterrey agenda on challenges that have taken on a higher profile since then - challenges such as climate change and food and agriculture.

This is Donn Bobb reporting for UN Radio, Doha.

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