We spent yesterday in the United Nations headquarters in New York for the UN Conference on the global economic crisis and watched the opening plenary session live on a big screen in a designated room with our NGO colleagues.

Mr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, the President of the General Assembly, stated at the outset of his speech that we are meeting because “we are going through the most singular moment in human history when our common future is at stake.” He said we must acknowledge that the current economic and financial crisis is the result of “an egotistical and irresponsible way of living, producing, consuming and establishing relationships among ourselves and with nature that involved systematic aggression against Earth and its ecosystems,” which masked social imbalance and global social injustice. He called for “a sustainable way of life,” which stems from a shared vision of the values and principles that promote the well-being of present and future generations, and a creation of a new global ethic to share our common global good that is the “Mother Earth.” This should be extended in dealing with the concerns of environment as well as humanitarian issues including poverty, which is a “time bomb” against humanities of all societies. He concluded his moving speech with a plea that that we “arm ourselves with solidarity and cooperation in order to make a qualitative leap forward to a future of peace and well-being.” You can read a transcript of his speech here.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon also raised concerns that the world is “still struggling to overcome the worst ever global financial and economic crisis since the founding of the United Nations more than 60 years ago.” He called the international community to take three urgent actions. First, he stated the need for real time data on the vulnerability of the crisis to the poor. In this regard, he informed us that the UN is leading the construction of a global crisis alert mechanism. Second, the international community must keep their commitments on their development targets including the 2005 Gleneagles commitments made by the G8 leaders. Third, he called for the international community to work together to reform the world institutions. “The world institutions created generations ago must be made more accountable, more representative and more effective.” Ban Ki-Moon also said he had just sent a letter to leaders of the G8 urging “concrete commitments and specific action to renew our resolve.”

Yesterday afternoon, we attended a dialogue between the civil society participants and the Commission of Experts on the Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial Systems, convened by the President of the General Assembly. Professor Joseph Stiglitz, the chair of the commission, gave an overview of the recommendations that was released ahead of the Conference and answered questions from the civil society participants. He called for a package of strong, coordinated and effective actions to stimulate the global economy and a number of systemic reforms of the current financial systems, including the creation of a new global reserve system to better deal with risks, and better surveillance systems. He criticized the recent G20’s attempt in tackling the financial crisis, as follows– grants should be provided to the poor rather than debt-incurring loans, their agreements on regulation were more cosmetic than real, and too much of the new resources to the poor will be provided by the IMF, who has been criticized for imposing harmful conditions in return for IMF funding. In his closing remarks, Stiglitz reminded us that the financial crisis is an opportunity for us to change the current skewed global financial and economic system, but that there is a real danger that real reforms will be blocked by a number of governments who do not want to make those changes. Encouragingly, the Commission added that continuous pressure by civil society on governments to make the necessary reforms will be vital in preventing this from happening. The Commission’s report can be found here.

Check back for more updates from the UN!

-Mikiko Imai