United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today challenged the General Assembly to face the stark fact that, "even taking all subtlety and nuance into account," developing countries made the sixth consecutive and largest ever transfer of funds to "other countries" in 2002, a sum totalling "almost $200 billion."

The global financial system must be reformed to give fair exits from sovereign debt crises, such as Argentina's emergency in 2001, and better tax coordination worldwide to reduce tax dodging and illicit cross-border financial flows, according to a report by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to a ministerial debate on financing for development which opened today in the General Assembly.

The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) held a special high-level meeting today with representatives of international financial and trade institutions for the first follow-up review of the agreements reached at last year's global conference on financing development projects.

As a key United Nations forum on development moved into its second day, the head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) today said the debate over official development assistance (ODA) should focus on what concrete goals spending would achieve instead of what should be spent.