Plea At Davos: Don't Forget World's Poor
Political and corporate leaders at the World Economic Forum heard fervent appeals Friday not to forget the bottom billion, the poorest of the world's poor, in the rush to rescue the global financial systems.
"To be sure the economic crisis reduces our resources," U.N. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon told a news conference. "It threatens to deflect attention from other global problems: climate change, issues of water and the environment and economic development."
Repairing the world's shattered financial system with taxpayer-funded bailouts should not be allowed to derail those efforts, he said at the annual gathering of 2,500 elite business and political figures in Davos, Switzerland.
"Now more than ever is the time to deliver. Wealthy countries are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in economic stimulus packages. ... Now more than ever the world's poor need your help. Do not overlook them."
Ban's concerns were echoed by two of the world's most famous philanthropists, Bill and Melinda Gates, who said investment to improve health and development in poor countries must be kept up - especially during the global financial crisis.
"During these economic times, the people that get hit the hardest are the poor," Melinda Gates told The Associated Press. "We need to make sure that people in the U.S. or in the U.K. and the European countries understand that the aid money they are giving is working and we need to keep up those levels."
Initiatives to fight AIDS and other lethal diseases were saving millions of lives in the developing world, she said.
Speaking with the U.N. secretary-general, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the developing world must not be ignored even though nations like Britain, Russia, Germany and the United States are struggling financially.
Brown repeated warnings of protectionism heard throughout the forum, noting that lending to emerging countries was dropping from $1 trillion two years ago to $150 billion next year.
"This financial mercantilism has foreign banks retreating to their home base," Brown said, warning if it continues the result would be "de-globalization, the reduction of trade, and would be followed quickly by the trade protectionism of the past."
Brown will host a meeting of the Group of 20 richest nations in London in April which will aim to find broad agreement on mechanisms to confront the current crisis and deflect future ones. Brown and other leaders believe an international early alert system of some sort might have prevented the rapid spread of contagion in the world financial markets.
"We cannot continue with a situation when we have global financial markets and no form of global supervision," Brown said.
Brown said the solutions to the crisis are to support banks, get real help to businesses and families, and resume lending.
Participants on Friday were also looking at the consequences of rising seas, expanding deserts and disappearing forests - effects of global warming. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was set to make an appearance with forum founder Klaus Schwab.
The former U.S. vice president was referring to frustration in many countries at the refusal by the Bush administration to sign international pacts on reducing emissions of carbon blamed for global warming.
U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer and oil and insurance executives discussed the fate of a U.N. meeting in Copenhagen in December aiming for a global agreement on reducing emissions.
"The new administration is very serious about this," Gore he said. "We need an agreement this year, not next year or some other time."
Later, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan leads talks on how to make any such deal fairer to poor countries.
Annan also meets several African heads of state to discuss how to ensure the crisis-challenged rich world keeps its promises on aid to Africa.
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