International Financial System and Development

A/RES/67/197No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 18bInternational financial system and development, published in 2013.

What other versions does this mandate have?

24 versions · 2003–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/80/122

2025A/RES/80/122International financial system and developmentLatestCompare with previous version
2024A/RES/79/196International financial system and developmentCompare with previous version
2023A/RES/78/136International financial system and developmentCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/77/152International financial system and developmentCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/76/192International financial system and developmentCompare with previous version

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What subjects does this mandate have?

7 topics

Capital Movements Development Banks Economic Crisis Financial Crisis Financial Policy International Monetary System Special Drawing Rights

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2013.

2013A/68/221International financial system and development report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

27 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General;

Recognizes the need to continue and intensify efforts to enhance the coherence and consistency of the international monetary, financial and trading systems, and reiterates the importance of ensuring their openness, fairness and inclusiveness in order to complement national development efforts to ensure sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth and the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals;

Stresses the need to act decisively to tackle the challenges confronting the global economy in order to ensure balanced, sustainable, inclusive and equitable global growth with full and productive employment and quality jobs, and also stresses the need for significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources and the effective use of financing in order to promote full and productive employment and decent work for all;

Notes the important efforts undertaken nationally, regionally and internationally to respond to the challenges posed by the financial and economic crisis, and recognizes that more needs to be done in order to promote the economic recovery, to address turbulence in global financial and commodity markets, to tackle high unemployment and indebtedness in several countries, as well as widespread fiscal strains, to reinforce the banking sector, including by increasing its transparency and accountability, to address systemic fragilities and imbalances and to reform and strengthen the international financial system;

Also notes the initiative of the Government of Kazakhstan to host an international conference in Astana from 22 to 24 May 2013, entitled “World Anti-Crisis Conference: effective countermeasures to global uncertainty and economic downturns”;

Recognizes the need for continued and enhanced coordination of financial and economic policies at the international level to tackle pressing financial and economic challenges;

Notes that the United Nations, on the basis of its universal membership and legitimacy, provides a unique and key forum for discussing international economic issues and their impact on development, and reaffirms that the United Nations is well positioned to participate in various reform processes aimed at improving and strengthening the effective functioning of the international financial system and architecture, while recognizing that the United Nations and the international financial institutions have complementary mandates which make the coordination of their actions crucial;

Recalls, in this regard, the resolve to strengthen the coordination of the United Nations system and multilateral financial, trade and development institutions so as to support economic growth, poverty eradication, job creation and sustainable development worldwide, on the basis of a clear understanding of and respect for their mandates and governance structures;

Also recalls that countries must have the flexibility necessary to implement countercyclical measures and to pursue tailored and targeted responses to the crisis, and calls for conditionalities to be streamlined to ensure that they are timely, tailored and targeted and that they support developing countries in the face of financial, economic and development challenges;

Notes, in this regard, the increase in resources and the improvement of the lending framework of the International Monetary Fund through, inter alia, streamlined conditions and the creation of more flexible instruments, such as a precautionary and liquidity line, a flexible credit line and a rapid financing instrument, while also noting that new and ongoing programmes should not contain unwarranted procyclical conditionalities;

Urges, in this regard, the multilateral development banks to continue to move forward on flexible, concessional, fast-disbursing and front-loaded assistance that will substantially and quickly assist developing countries facing financing gaps in their efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, taking into consideration the individual absorptive capacities and debt sustainability of those countries;

Recognizes the role of private capital flows in mobilizing financing for development, stresses the challenges posed by excessive short-term capital inflows to many developing countries, notes that the design and implementation of capital flow management measures to address those challenges, such as macroeconomic policies, macroprudential measures and other forms of capital account regulations, need to take into account the specific circumstances of individual countries, and requests the Secretary-General to consider the benefits and disadvantages of these measures in preparing his report on the implementation of the present resolution;

Reaffirms the importance of broadening and strengthening the participation of developing countries in international economic decision-making and norm-setting, notes in this regard the important steps taken on the reform of the governance structures, quotas and voting rights of the Bretton Woods institutions, which go in the direction of better reflecting current realities and enhancing the voice, the participation and the voting rights of developing countries, and recognizes the importance of continuing such reform processes in an ambitious and expeditious manner in order to deliver more effective, credible, accountable and legitimate institutions;

Notes, in this regard, the decisions taken by the World Bank Group on voice and participation and further institutional reforms to meet new challenges, and the addition of the twenty-fifth Chair to the Boards of Executive Directors of the World Bank Group, and looks forward to progress in its institutional reforms;

Calls for the swift implementation of the 2010 quota and governance reform of the International Monetary Fund, and stresses the importance of the comprehensive review of the International Monetary Fund quota formula, to be completed by January 2013;

Recognizes the importance of an open, transparent and merit-based process for selecting the heads of the international financial institutions, including the Bretton Woods institutions;

Emphasizes the need for more effective government involvement in order to ensure an appropriate regulation of the market, which promotes the public interest, and recognizes in this regard the need to better regulate financial markets to promote economic stability and sustained, equitable and inclusive growth;

Recognizes the role of special drawing rights as an international reserve asset, acknowledges that special drawing rights allocations helped to supplement international reserves in response to the world financial and economic crisis, thus contributing to the stability of the international financial system and global economic resilience, also recognizes the need to continue regular reviews of the role of special drawing rights, including with reference to their potential role in the international reserve system, and requests the Secretary-General to take this into account while preparing his report on the implementation of the present resolution;

Reiterates that effective, inclusive multilateral surveillance should be at the centre of crisis prevention efforts, and stresses the need to continue strengthening surveillance of the financial policies of countries;

Stresses, in this regard, the need to strengthen intergovernmental and independent surveillance of national financial policies and their impact on international interest rates, exchange rates and capital flows;

Invites the international financial and banking institutions to continue to enhance the transparency of risk-rating mechanisms, noting that sovereign risk assessments made by the private sector should maximize the use of strict, objective and transparent parameters, which can be facilitated by high-quality data and analysis, and encourages relevant institutions, including the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, to continue their work on the issue, including its potential impact on the development prospects of developing countries;

Calls upon the multilateral, regional and subregional development banks and development funds to continue to play a vital role in serving the development needs of developing countries and countries with economies in transition, including through coordinated action, as appropriate, stresses that strengthened regional development banks and subregional financial institutions can add flexible financial support to national and regional development efforts, thus enhancing their ownership and overall efficiency, welcomes in this regard recent capital increases at multilateral and regional development banks, and, in addition, encourages efforts to ensure that subregional development banks are adequately funded;

Encourages enhanced regional and subregional cooperation, including through regional and subregional development banks, commercial and reserve currency arrangements and other regional and subregional initiatives;

Stresses the need to continuously improve standards of corporate and public sector governance, including those related to accounting, auditing and measures to ensure transparency, noting the disruptive effects of inadequate policies;

Decides to convene at its sixty-eighth session a separate meeting of the Second Committee under the item entitled “Macroeconomic policy questions” to discuss actions in response to the world financial and economic crisis and its impact on development and prospects for restoring confidence and economic growth, as a further contribution to the follow-up to the Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its sixty-eighth session a report on the implementation of the present resolution, to be prepared in cooperation with the Bretton Woods institutions and other relevant stakeholders;

Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its sixty-eighth session, under the item entitled “Macroeconomic policy questions”, the sub-item entitled “International financial system and development”.

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