STRASBOURG, France (AFP) — Officials from EU and developing nations on Monday hailed the results of a crisis summit of world leaders while expressing concern at the impact of the economic strife on the world's poorest.
Development ministers from some of the G20 nations, which met in Washington on Saturday, as well as other African and South American officials and African Union head Jean Ping published a statement welcoming the summit.
A statement released after a meeting in Strasbourg hosted by French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet, expressed their determination to contribute to the protection of international financial security.
The statement said they support the goal "of advancing work on the response to the financial crisis" in time for the next such summit in April in London.
The G20 members from the EU and developing nations called for "concrete measures" to ensure that "development is taken more into account," said Joyandet.
While the G20 summit stressed the importance of development work, and the input of developing countries in decision-making, that did not ease concerns in Strasbourg where the meeting took place on the sidelines of a "European Development Days" three-day event which ended Monday.
"We express our deep concern over the impact of the current crisis on developing countries, in particular the most vulnerable ones, and over the achievement of the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals)," which would see poverty halved by 2015, the statement state.
"In this context, development assistance is an essential component of the response and the respect of commitments in this field is even more important," said the officials from Benin, Bolivia, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Yemen and elsewhere, as well as participating EU nations.
The G20 leaders agreed in Washington on proposals aimed at restoring global growth and preventing future financial upheaval, while promising new spending plans and a set of reforms.
The final G20 statement, issued after one of the biggest international economic gatherings in years, pledged responses on a number of fronts, with another meeting scheduled for April in London to flesh out policies.
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