ZAMBIAN AMBASSADOR ADDRESSES DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE MEETING IN DC

President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)and Permanent Representative of Zambia to the United Nations, Ambassador Lazarous Kapambwe has appealed to the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to find necessary and appropriate solutions to the continuing financial and economic crisis which has dogged the USA and Europe.

Addressing the Development Committee at the 2011 IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings, Ambassador Kapambwe said the continuing crisis had an adverse impact on the economic recovery of developing countries.

This, he said, had led to a reduction in fiscal resources that shielded populations from rising food prices.

 “We are meeting in the midst of a stubborn and continuing financial and economic crisis across the globe. This meeting is therefore not only timely, but is being looked to with great hope and anticipation by the peoples of the world,” he said.

Ambassador Kapambwe also noted that women especially in the Third World countries were the worst affected by the global financial and economic crisis.

He noted that women’s empowerment and poverty eradication were necessary if all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were to be achieved.

Ambassador Kapambwe also expressed happiness that in July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN WOMEN, whose role among others would be to hold the UN system accountable to its commitment to Gender equality, including regular monitoring of system-wide progress.

Earlier, in his address to the same gathering, World Bank President Mr. Robert Zoellick  stated that the continued uncertainties in the global economy posed a great threat to continued growth in emerging and developing countries.

IMF Managing Director, Mme Christine Lagarde noted that in the event that the downside risks of the slowing economy materialized, the IMF was ready to respond rapidly to new financing requests by drawing on the enhanced mechanisms put in place at the start of the crisis.

And Coordinating Minister for Economy and Minister of Finance of Nigeria, Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iwaela welcomed the publication and distribution of the 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development.

She noted that while real advances in gender equality have occurred over the years, the remains an immense gap between the promises of equality and everyday reality for women in many parts of the world..

Other speakers included Swedish Minister of Finance, Mr. Anders Borg, who cautioned that if another economic and financial crisis was to unfold, the International bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) risked being mere “spectators” based on their current funding trends.

This is a contained in a press statement released by First Secretary for press at the Zambian in USA Ben Kangwa