United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan Friday told the World Economic Forum in Davos that the spotlight had veered away from the problems of the worlds poor in the past two years.
“It is time,” Mr Annan told business and political leaders at the forum, “to rebalance the international agenda.”
For Mr Annan, the vehicle for kick-starting thinking about development will be the meeting the UN is planning in New York in June.
It is intended to broaden the Global Compact, a document signed by business leaders five years ago committing them to play a bigger role in fighting poverty and in issues such as the Aids pandemic and corruption.
“Business… has a powerful interest in helping to prevent the international security system from sliding back into brute competition based on the laws of the jungle,” he told the Davos forum.
He made clear that however justified the focus on security since 11 September 2001 had been for richer countries, they risked abdicating their responsibilities to their poorer neighbours.
The first purpose of the UN, he noted, is to take collective measures to ensure the security and wellbeing of all nations.
“We must show that the UN is capable of fulfilling that purpose, not just for the most privileged members who are justifiably concerned about security,” he told his audience in Davos.
“It must also defend millions of our fellow men and women from the more familiar threats of poverty, hunger and disease.”
Part of the problem, he said, was “dwindling investment in those parts of the world where it is most needed, and trade talks which have left in place “egregious biases against developing countries”.
Trade ministers are hoping to use the informality of the Davos forum to make progress on that front at least.
Negotiations in Mexico in September over a new trade treaty fell apart over the agricultural subsidies paid by developed countries to their farmers.
Story from BBC NEWS
