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(TALKZIMBABWE) Zim needs urgent external support: VP Mujuru

Zim needs urgent external support: VP Mujuru
Samantha Chidzero
Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:41:00 +0000

VICE President Joice Mujuru says the lack of external support for Zimbabwe threatens the country efforts at repairing the economy.

Speaking at the United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development in the US, VP Mujuru called on the international community to provide Zimbabwe with a financial stimulus package "to help us to mitigate and offset the economic and financial crisis".

Such packages should be designed to fit the priorities of recipient countries, VP Mujuru said, adding: "As an honest broker, the U.N. system should be the first to take a stand against conditional aid."

She told the meeting: "We believe that issues that affect developing countries do not get the full attention they deserve at the G20."

"The United Nations is the most appropriate body which can come up with global solutions to this crisis," she added.

UN member states launched the three-day debate Wednesday on how to help poor countries weather the global economic crisis amid growing calls for revamping multilateral financial institutions.

"The world institutions created generations ago must be made more accountable, more representative and more effective," UN chief Ban Ki-moon told the gathering. "We need to work together to reform global rules and institutions."

He said the world was "still struggling to overcome the worst ever global financial and economic crisis since the founding of the United Nations more than 60 years ago."

Nearly 120 member states are represented at the parley, with such attendees as Vice President Joice Mujuru, the prime ministers of Bosnia, Serbia, Togo and several Caribbean nations and Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim. The presidents of Ecuador and Bolivia were due to join Thursday.

But in an apparent sign of lack of interest, key developed countries sent low-level delegations.

Several participants insisted that the Bretton Woods international financial system that created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in 1944 must be drastically overhauled.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi stressed the need to "continue to improve the governing structure of the IMF and the World Bank, genuinely increase the representation and voice of developing countries."

"The IMF should be fair, just and balanced in supervising the macroeconomic policies of its members," he added. "The practice of focusing only on developing countries while forgetting or overlooking the major reserve-issuing economies must be changed."

South Africa's new foreign minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, called "for fundamental and far-reaching governance reforms at Bretton Woods institutions, by increasing the voice and participation in the decision-making and norm-setting process for developing countries."

But Britain's minister for Africa, Asia and the UN Mark Malloch Brown defended the Bretton Woods institutions, saying they "have never been so necessary" and "overall have responded quickly, flexibly and in a transparent way to the demands we have placed on them."

He told the meeting in the UN General Assembly hall that tackling the crisis required restoring "global growth through coordinated stimulus and strengthened regulation that restores confidence in the financial system."

US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice chimed in that the focus should be "on finding practical ways to mitigate the development consequences of the current crisis and to see the UN perform its crucial development roles with new urgency."

She said the United States remained committed to substantially increasing development assistance and would support "new and meaningful investments in food security."

Developing countries, which make up the vast majority of the 192-member assembly, argue that they are paying the price for a crisis that was created by the developed world.

Ban noted that leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) developed and emerging nations pledged at a London summit in April a total package of more than one trillion dollars to help struggling countries through the turmoil over the next five years.

Organizers say a revised outcome document due to be adopted Friday at the end of the three-day meeting has been finalized.

The document is based on recommendations submitted by a panel of economic and financial experts on immediate and longer-term measures as well as practical steps for reforming the international financial architecture.

These include external financing to make up the estimated one to two trillion dollars shortfall in income from reduced exports by developing countries and the outflow of capital caused by the crisis.

The funding would come from new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), an international reserve asset, which could be issued by the International Monetary Fund and would be provided on the basis of need.

Other proposals focused on substantial debt relief for poor countries hobbled by the crisis and the need for donors to fulfill their existing bilateral and multilateral commitments for official development aid

Labels: DONORS, JOICE MUJURU, UN

posted by MrK @ 7:28 PM