United Nations Radio

For the least developed countries, concessional development resources remain critical for the achievement of their development goals.

The view was expressed during a brainstorming session between UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and five eminent economists on the current global financial crisis. They - the participants- expressed strong hope that the firm commitments that have been made at various international summits, including the most recent MDG summits at the United Nations, would be fully honored.

In the context of global resource mobilization and fiscal expenditures, official development assistance remains a very modest and affordable effort.

And they say it would be unacceptable that the least developed countries and the most vulnerable populations were asked to pay for the consequences of a crisis the making of which was entirely outside of their control.

The participants noted that the spillover effects of the de-leveraging process taking place in the rich economies could become an obstacle in financial markets for emerging market economies. In many of these countries, despite strong macro-economic policies and good reserve positions, the financing needs of their private sector could pose major challenges affecting their stability. And they suggested that pro-active and coordinated stance at the global level on this issue was deemed to be desirable.

The economists were Nancy Birdsall, of the Center for Global Development, Dani Rodrik and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, and Jeffrey Sachs and Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University.

This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.

(duration: 1'19")