United Nations, Oct 07: A Top United Nations official has appealed to the international community to help developing countries adopt measures that improve their abilities to play greater roles in world trade and to absorb new technologies. The Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Jose Antonio Ocampo, told the General Assembly's Economic and Social Committee that its session was beginning at a time when "world economic recovery was gaining traction." But significant global macroeconomic imbalances cast a shadow over medium-term prospects, "particularly the excessive reliance of world economic growth on one country," Ocampo said. To turn globalisation into a positive force, the international community, and the developing countries themselves, should aim to lessen the vulnerability to external shocks, he said and stressed on finding a better balance between large flows of capital and limited flows of migrant labour. About three per cent of the world's population currently lived outside of their country of birth and were sending home financial remittances whose total exceeded official development assistance. Migration, therefore, should be given greater prominence on the international agenda, Ocampo said.
Bureau Report