Annan calls for greater development cooperation among poor countries

A global development partnership is needed to meet the ambitious anti-poverty goals set by the United Nations, but deeper cooperation among the world's poorer nations is crucial to this effort, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.

In a message to the High-Level Conference on South-South Cooperation in Marrakech, he noted that in developing countries "the most important challenges of our time are most acute."

For those countries, "the goals that have emerged from United Nations Conferences and Summits - including the Millennium Development Goals - matter most," he added, referring to a series of targets set at a UN summit in 2000 ranging from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS to providing universal primary education, all by 2015.

While pointing out that the developed countries must play their role by providing aid, trade and debt relief, he stressed that deeper South-South cooperation remains vital.

Large countries of the South which are poised to surpass many developed world economies in the decades to come should lead the effort, he said, pledging UN assistance in this endeavour.

The meeting comes 25 years after countries of the South met in Buenos Aires to adopt a Plan of Action on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries. The Secretary-General said today those goals are "more urgent than ever."