New Delhi, Sep 19 (ANI): President Pratibha Patil said on Saturday that the economic slow down has affected the efforts of developing countries to eradicate poverty and hunger.

Addressing the International Law Association’s (ILA) regional conference on “International Trade Law and Legal Aspects of Trans-Border Investment,” here Patil said: “The slowdown was accompanied by a phase of volatility in oil prices and high food prices. In the developing world, development efforts were negatively impacted and concerns about rising poverty and hunger levels were aggravated. This profiled the need for the international community to continue to focus on development issues, including food security.”

She added, ” No country in the globalised and increasingly integrated world was secure from the adverse fall-outs of the financial crisis.”

President Patil opined that the financial crisis showed the need for a global effort to fight a common cause.

“The financial crises brought to the fore the need for coordinated global action to take immediate steps to deal with the emergent situation and to formulate medium and long term policy measures as well as undertake structural changes to make the world economy more stable, more equitable and more responsible,” she said.

Though the different forums and groups of countries are co-ordinating each other but there is a requirement of more forceful actions, Patil felt.

“However, for a more robust financial system in the medium and long term, new thinking and actions are needed in many areas, in particular:- one, the design of the global financial structure; two, financial regulation and surveillance rules; three, a better way of assessing systemic risk; and four, looking at trade and investment from the development perspective,” she said.

Patil also felt that ” There is widespread recognition that reinvigorating world trade and investment is essential for restoring global growth.”

She opined that in the post recession scenario the world would require a new Financial Stability Board to regulate, oversight all financial institutions.

“In the interconnected world, the global rules and standards for financial regulation, banking operations, ratings of credit agencies and oversight, should be more clear and stringent. Harmonization and greater consistency of national policies on these issues, wherever necessary and possible, would require greater systematic cooperation and information sharing between countries. The new Financial Stability Board has been mandated to extend regulation and oversight to all systemically important financial institutions, instruments and markets,” Patil said.

She added that: ” This, however, must be accompanied with reform of the multilateral financial institutions to make them more representative of the diverse interests and more reflective of contemporary realities, so that these institutions are more effective.”

Even as the globe address the complexities of improved financial governance, reducing poverty and hunger as well as attaining the Millennium Development Goals, should remain the essential objectives of the world, Patil said.

She also stressed the need for pushing ahead the Doha Round of trade talks with focus on development dimension.

President Patil also asked the developing countries to manage and balance their trade and development policies with a concern about the welfare of their people.(ANI)