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Global Financial and Economic Crisis

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Since the unfolding of the global financial and economic crisis in 2008, CEB has taken special measures to promote a rapid United Nations system response. Starting in October 2008, the Board and the High-level Committee on Programmes initiated a review and analysis of the impact of the crisis and identified the major challenges facing the international community in meeting the needs of the world’s most vulnerable.

At its 16th session held on 30 September and 1 October 2008 in Rome, HLCP initiated a review of the implications of the financial markets crisis, when it was clear that the crisis had begun to take on serious global dimensions and to impact real economies and livelihoods.

At its 17th Session (Geneva, 26-27 February 2009), HLCP reviewed proposals on the global financial crisis and its impact on the work of the UN system by its Chairman, the Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO), drafted on the basis of written contributions from Committee members. HLCP’s considerations grouped several dimensions of the crisis and their impact in key policy areas, highlighting the connections within and across them.

At the CEB spring session retreat held in Paris on 5 April 2009, Executive Heads adopted a Communiqué emphasizing the need to assist countries and the global community to confront the crisis, accelerate recovery, and build a fair and inclusive system of globalization based on sustainable, economic, social and environmental development for all, while facing the future in a spirit of conviction of the need for transformational change. The Board endorsed nine joint initiatives, elaborated upon by HLCP. Each of these nine initiatives is led by one or more CEB member organizations with the relevant competence, with the voluntary participation of others who are contributing from their various perspectives.

A CEB issue paper, describing the nine initiatives, was circulated to all Permanent Missions in New York on 18 June 2009, to assist Member States with their preparations for the Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development, held from 24 to 26 June 2009.