The United Nations is cur­rently hold­ing an “emer­gency” sum­mit on the global eco­nomic reces­sion. Big top­ics like reform of the IMF and World Bank, and stim­u­lat­ing the economies of the under-developed world were to be dis­cussed. How­ever, only 14 heads of states have shown up to the summit.

The first day fea­tured heavy crit­i­cism of the US for not hav­ing enough reg­u­la­tions in place to pre­vent what caused the reces­sion. From CBS News, for­eign affairs reporter Pamela Falk gave this any­la­sis.

On the first day, the mes­sage was clear: devel­op­ing coun­tries are the vic­tims of the finan­cial cri­sis and they need money. U.N. Sec­re­tary Gen­eral Ban Ki-moon said, “surely, if the world can mobi­lize more than $18 tril­lion to keep the finan­cial sec­tor afloat, it can find more than $18 bil­lion to keep com­mit­ments in Africa.“

Secu­rity ahead of the “United Nations Con­fer­ence on the World Finan­cial and Eco­nomic Cri­sis and Its Impact on Devel­op­ment” was tight. New York City Police blocked the perime­ter of the U.N., and plans were read­ied for the red car­pet treat­ment of pres­i­dents arriv­ing at the Gen­eral Assembly.

The prob­lem was, almost no one showed up. Of the 140 nations par­tic­i­pat­ing, only a dozen pres­i­dents and prime min­is­ters are attend­ing, and it was post­poned from early June because the “out­come doc­u­ment” – a set of pro­pos­als for the reform of the world finan­cial sys­tem – had no con­sen­sus.
…

The draft out­come doc­u­ment pro­poses debt relief and increased aid to poor coun­tries, “fast-tracked” reform of the Bret­ton Woods insti­tu­tions (in par­tic­u­lar the IMF), and it calls for expan­sion of the reg­u­la­tion of credit rat­ing agen­cies and hedge funds.

Much of the brain­power for the final doc­u­ment came from Joseph Stiglitz, win­ner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Eco­nom­ics, who headed a Com­mis­sion of Experts on Finan­cial and Mon­e­tary Reform, who warned of “another debt cri­sis fur­ther along” if indus­tri­al­ized nations do not help poor nations, but his com­ments were muted com­pared to his pro­posal a few months ear­lier, when he called for a dras­tic over­haul of the inter­na­tional finan­cial sys­tem. (See: “U.N. Rec­om­men­da­tion On World Econ­omy: Replace The Dollar”)

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