UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) – Fifteen of the world’s least developed countries (LDCs) on Wednesday, who were meeting at a high-level United Nations forum, called for a greater voice in international financial infrastructure.

At the end of the three-day meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh, ministers and senior officials said the LDCs must be allowed to benefit from opportunities arising from trade, investment and financial flows.

The High-level Asia-Pacific Policy Dialogue, sponsored by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) was held to develop a unified position prior to the global review next year in Turkey on progress made in implementing the Brussels Programme of Action of 2001 that seeks to slash extreme poverty and hunger in LDCs by 2015 and promote their sustainable development.

ESCAP Executive Secretary Noeleen Heyzer said the meeting’s outcome was a turning point in addressing the development issues and challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region.

Noting that climate change and the food, fuel, and financial crises exposed their vulnerabilities to external factors that could derail development, the officials called for LDC representation on the Financial Stability Board set up by the G20 group of developed and developing nations and for greater LDC presence on the international economic stage.

Stressing that the LDCs are on the frontlines of the effects of climate change, officials said that they should be given due priority in the provision of resources promised by last December’s UN climate summit at Copenhagen.

The participants of the forum were Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kiribati, Laos, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Yemen.