UN leader urges world economies to meet pledges to the poor

UN leader urges world economies to meet pledges to the poor New York - The world is reeling from the "earthquake on Wall Street" but the United Nations remains confident that governments will keep their promises to assist the earth's poorest, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

At the UN General Assembly in September, nations pledged 16 billion dollars toward programmes to fight poverty and disease. With the world economy tumbling in the past weeks, there have been doubts whether donors will deliver what they promised.

But Ban remained confident and said there is a mechanism to monitor the implementation of the pledges.

"Banks may be falling," he told a news conference. "But the world's bottom billion can bank on us.

"The global financial crisis may have overshadowed our work, but it did not dominate it," he said. "Despite the market turmoil, we raised 16 billion dollars. The generosity of these commitments is most encouraging, given the economic climate."

The UN has set priorities for ending poverty and hunger by 2015. As defined by the World Bank, people living in extreme poverty have the purchasing power of under 1.25 dollars a day.

Ban said he supported a proposal by World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who on Monday called for doubling the membership of the G- 7, the group of the world's seven leading industrialized nations.

"The G-7 is not working," Zoellick said in relation to the current financial crisis gripping the largest economies in the world. "We need a better group for a different time."

The G-7 currently comprises the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada. Zoellick said other nations that should join the group are India, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.

Finance ministers and central bankers from around the world are in Washington this week for annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Also meeting this week are the finance ministers of the G-7. (dpa)

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