'Development must remain top priority of United Nations,' agrees UN - Bretton Woods meeting.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for closer cooperation between the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions at the first ever high-level meeting between the organizations, which focused on the theme: "Global financial integration and development and recent issues".

Stressing that closer cooperation between the organizations was imperative, the Secretary-General said the Asian financial crisis and its ensuing economic, social, developmental and political consequences served as reminders of the interrelationships between the responsibilities and the work of the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The international ramifications of the Asian crisis, he said, were vivid proof of the risks that come with the benefits of globalization and also the stark evidence of the need for more integrated discussions and approaches to development issues.

The special meeting of the Economic and Social Council, convened on 18 April, was mandated by a 1996 decision of the General Assembly, which called for improved communication and cooperation at the intergovernmental level between the Council and the international financial and trade institutions, at the ministerial level. The Council was invited to periodically schedule a high-level meeting close to the semiannual meetings of the Bretton Woods institutions, to take advantage of the ministerial participation and that of senior officials of financial and trade institutions and other relevant organizations, to promote dialogue among them in order to give impetus to the new development agenda emerging from the world conferences.

Addressing the meeting, the IMF Managing Director, Michel Camdessus, said past coordination with the United Nations should be built upon to improve and expand cooperation between them. Referring to the appeal for a new architecture of international financial systems, he said it was an ambitious undertaking, and the IMF was still taking stock. The Fund must implement most forcefully its surveillance role of the economies of countries with systemic problems, and the conclusions resulting from such surveillance must be heeded. Countries showed their problems when it was too late to avert the crisis, he said, adding that the IMF was at the service of any country or group of countries which needed help to overcome their economic problems.

The Managing Director of the World Bank, Sven Standstrom, said he had no doubt that the Asian miracle...