 Experts are meeting at a gathering of the United Nations agency promoting commerce to fight poverty to find ways to help developing countries improve so-called infrastructure service sectors (ISS), which serve key functions including banking, energy and transportation.
ISS, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), is essential to supporting agriculture, manufacturing and service industries markets in poorer nations and "forms the backbone of national economies."
Regulation to correct market failures and achieve universal access to essential services, while widely recognized as fundamental, has posed challenges for governments. Ever-changing economic, social, technological and environmental realities require countries to adapt regulations to new conditions, and they need sufficient institutional capacities to guide, negotiate, regulate and monitor ISS, UNCTAD said.
A recent survey carried out of nearly 90 regulatory agencies found that the challenges the face are similar, but that least developed countries (LDCs) face special constraints, being short of appropriate personnel, financial resources and equipment.
Some one dozen academics, government officials and representatives of international organizations are participating in the three-day meeting, which kicked off in Geneva today, to examine what kinds of regulatory and institutional frameworks are best suited for individual countries.
UNCTAD said in an information note that this event comes at a "critical moment, as the full impact of the economic and financial crisis on infrastructure services in developing countries is unfolding and recovery measures and regulatory overhauls are still being implemented."
Source: UN News
Global 
-
-
-
U.S. President Barack Obama's top Russia adviser has said that diplomats from Washington and Moscow will likely meet in the coming weeks to work on a new UN Security Council draft resolution targeting the Syrian government over its bloody crackdown on antigovernment protesters. more
-
More than 500 protesters have gathered in Moscow's Pushkin Square to demand more government funding for science and scientists in Russia. more
-
Anders Hjemdahl of the Stockholm-based Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism talked to RFE/RL about why Western Europeans seem to know so little about the communist past. more
-
The Paris prosecutor's office has dropped an investigation into a French writer's claim that former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her. more
-
A prominent member of a Russian anarchist street-art collective who faced jail for overturning a police car has had the charges against him lifted. more
-
The Slovak parliament has approved expanding the powers of the European Union's bailout fund. more
-
A Prague court has ruled that former Belarusian presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevich should not be extradited to Belarus. more
Comments
|
Popular Right Now
Popular Commentary
New Reports
New World News
Singer Whitney Houston, dead at 48Sundered by drug abuse and a slumping career, the talented and once beautiful Whitney Houston has passed away.
- Pakistan: Short stories in Punjabi, to promote Christian values and common good
Fr. Mukhtar Alam has published a volume of stories of his mother. Stories that give "light" to those who are in the "dark" and teach the common good. At presentation, near the cathedral of Faisalabad, intellectuals, writers and leaders of the Church of Pakistan Muslim.
- Hong Kong: Hong Kong, jobs emergency: workers shortage by 2018
One government study confirms need for 14 thousand workers by 2018 to maintain economic growth at current levels. Behind this there are restrictive policies on birth control imposed by Beijing and the decision not to give citizenship to those born in the Territory.
- Myanmar: Monk Gambira, leader of the Saffron Revolution, free again
The authorities had yesterday detained him "for questioning". First released only a month ago, Gambira has spent the past three years in prison for leading protests by monks against the Burmese government.
- India: Karnataka: Jesuits and schools targeted by Hindu nationalists
Three attacks since 2011 at St. Joseph's PU College, Anekal. The religious are accused of not having displayed the national flag on Republic Day, but the president has always denied this. Silence of police and authorities. Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC): ...
|