United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon has called for "deep and systemic" reforms based on inclusive multilateralism for a global financial system that can better meet the challenges of the 21st century. The ad hoc manner in which the governments have responded to the management of current crisis, Ban said, is reflective of serious lacunae in the existing world financial system.
Voicing deep concern over impact of the current crisis on the developing countries, he described the steps taken by the major economies so far as "laudable" but called for more global action to ensure the poor States are not impacted adversely.
"More coordinated approaches, including direct intervention by governments of the major economies, are necessary to recapitalise the banking system and guarantee the savings of ordinary people," he said in a statement.
The initiatives by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to provide new emergency liquidity provisioning to poor countries, Ban said, could help them counteract some of the consequences of this crisis. "But more needs to be done," he added, calling for urgent reform of the global financial system.
Ban's call for reform of the international financial institutions followed similar calls over the weekend by UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang, who told several meetings in Washington that the crisis was clear proof of the urgent need to reform the international monetary and financial system set up during three weeks of talks in Bretton Woods in New Hampshire in the US in July 1944.