From Benjamin Mensah, GNA Special Correspondent, New York

New York, Sept. 24, GNA - President John Evans Atta Mills on Thursday stated that Ghana's cut in all low priority public spending and the shift from recurrent expenditure to infrastructure investment was to reduce the impact of the global financial crisis. Delivering in his maiden address at the UN General Assembly in New York, he said there was the need for fiscal restraint in the face of the crisis that threatened to erode the gains of decades of modest growth and thereby made the Millennium Development Goals unattainable in any meaningful way.

President Mills reiterated Ghana's commitment to the ideals of the UN and said she would continue to live up to its charter obligations and together with member states assist the organisation in maintaining global peace and security.

The Session is on the theme, "Effective Responses to Global Crises, Strengthening Multilateralism and Dialogue among Civilizations for International Peace, Security and Development." The session was preceded by the Summit on Climate Change, with other meetings on the challenges of malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and conflict and disarmament making the headlines.

President Mills noted that despite expanded and accelerated economic inter-dependence among states through globalisation, the benefits to be derived had been negligible to the majority of developing countries adding that their economies had not transformed in any significant manner.

He said most of the countries remained susceptible to various shocks that continued to pose threats to their growth and only a few had been able to reduce the proportion of their populations living on less than one dollar a day.

President Mills reminded rich countries to make more efforts to meet existing commitments on aid, debt reduction and accelerate disbursements and improve access to existing financial facilities. The International Monetary Fund should also put in place a new facility with relaxed conditions to support African economies during the crisis period and increase capital for the African Development Fund to enable it to scale up its interventions in support of African development.

It should also sell its gold reserves to release additional resources to help developing countries deal with the financial crisis and issue new special drawing rights. President Mills, who has held discussions with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and is scheduled later to meet the Ghanaian community in Washington, said international trade had the potential to reduce poverty but the current global trading regime discriminated against the earning opportunities of farmers and rural communities in poor countries. He said commitment to the Doha Trade Roundtable was important, especially on low skill and labour intensive sectors such as garment manufacturing where most African exports came from. President Mills reminded the Assembly that liberalization must be accompanied by predictable access to markets, eliminating abuse of anti-dumping measures and the reduction of tariff and non-tariff barriers.

President Mills stressed commitment to good governance as basis to sustainable social and economic development and condemned the activities of a few leaders that threatened the gains of the continent of the last decade.

The President spoke of the threats of climate change and global security, and renewed Ghana's support for the reform process which, he said, had so far yielded fruitful dividends, but called for further improvements to achieve the ultimate goal. President Mills expressed regret that conflicts in the developing world had robbed it of the opportunity to improve the circumstances of its people, and that sustainable development could only be achieved in an environment characterised by peace and security. He paid glowing tribute to the first president of Ghana; Dr Kwame Nkrumah, under whose leadership Ghana became a member of the United Nations, and said the view of Dr Nkrumah that the United Nations was the only organisation that held out any hope for the future of mankind was still relevant after 40 years of that declaration. 24 Sept. 09