Global financial integration: a new priority": Poverty Eradication Decade proclaimed.

• Position: General Assembly response to its Second Committee's reports on socio-economic problems: includes a related article on the Poverty Eradiation Year

Meeting head-on a new challenge in the international arena--achieving global financial integration following the conclusion in 1994 of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations--the fiftieth General Assembly asked the International Monetary Fund to play a stronger and central role "in surveillance of all countries" for potential sources of destabilization of capital markets, with the aim of promoting transparency and stability in those markets and promoting growth. That surveillance would include the regular, timely provision of economic and financial data.

Echoing the growing concern expressed by many political and financial experts that a significant number of developing countries had become "more vulnerable, in the course of liberalizing their external economic and financial regimes, to the volatile fluctuations of private capital flows in international financial markets", the Assembly, in resolution 50/91, underscored the need to encourage the flow of private capital, patricularly to developing countries, while reducing the risks of such volatility. "In a globalized world", it stressed, "sound fiscal and monetary policy in each country is among the elements essential in preventing crises relating to capital flows."

During the session, the Assembly adopted over 40 resolutions recommended by its Second Committee (Economic and Financial), which included issues such as trade, development assistance, debt relief, support for democratization, the environment, population, women, human settlements, Africa, Central America and the Chernobyl disaster. All but two--on assistance to the Palestinian people and on coercive economic measures--were adopted without a vote.

Trade, UNCTAD

The perils and promises of financial and trade globalization were a priority focus of the fiftieth Assembly. To generate sustained economic growth and sustainable development, it stressed (50/95) the need to continue trade liberalization, eliminate discriminatory and protectionist trade practices, and improve access to the markets of all countries, in particular those of the developed countries. Also stressed was the need for full integration into the world economy of the so-called "economies in transition", which include the countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Reaffirming the role of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as the UN's focal point for the integrated treatment of development and inter-related issues in trade, finance, technology, investment, services and sustainable development, the Assembly asked UNCTAD's ninth session to consider the future role of the Conference, including its relationship with other international institutions, to make it more effective in promoting development. There should be constructive and effective cooperation between UNCTAD and the World Trade Organization, "based on the complementarity of their functions", it added. The Assembly also decided (50/98) to convene UNCTAD IX in Midrand, Gauteng Province, South Africa, from 27 April to 11 May 1996.

Out of concern that the use of unilateral coercive economic measures...