The United Nations kicked off a high-level meeting on June 24 to discuss the current global financial and economic crisis and its impact on development.
The three-day high-level meeting came as the first conference in the history of the United Nations to discuss the issue of the international financial and economic crisis. The meeting was held after the April summit of the Group of 20 (G20) largest economies in the world and before the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations and the G20 conference in Pittesburgh, the United States, in September.
The United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development is held at the UN headquarters in New York, the U.S., June 24, 2009. The United Nations kicked off a three-day high-level meeting on Wednesday to assess the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression.
As high-level delegates from around the globe gathered at the UN Headquarters in New York to discuss how to address the economic meltdown while taking the interests of all nations into account, top United Nations officials issued urgent calls for action to ease the burden on the world's poorest.
"At this critical moment, we must all join our efforts to prevent the global crisis, with its myriad faces, from turning into a social, environmental and humanitarian tragedy," General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto said at the start of the high-level meeting, officially known as the Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development.
