United Nations: India has demanded "full and effective" participation of the developing countries in the global economic decision-making institutions and asked them to provide a "coherent" and collective response to meet the challenge of globalisation.

The greater access to products and commodities of the developing countries in the developed markets is also essential for their developmental needs, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said addressing a high-level meeting of the G-77 developing nations in United Nations.

The global slowdown and slower than expected recovery, Sinha said, have increased difficulties of the developing nations by limiting their trade opportunities.

Investment inflows have decreased, reducing economic growth rates and thereby their capacity to address the numerous development challenges that confront them.

"We have to ensure that our concerns are fully taken into account by international community," he told the meeting attended by several foreign ministers.

To maximise the development gains from negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Sinha said, "We need not only unity of purpose but also expert knowledge."

In this context, the developing nations have to "harness the professional expertise of institutions such as UNCTAD in support of this objective", he said.

Sinha said the outcomes of the Monterrey conference and Johannesburg Summit, though encouraging in many ways, were "modest and did not come up to the expectations of the developing countries".

"Perhaps, these reflect the developed countries' lack of political commitment to sincerely and speedily address the legitimate development aspirations of the developing countries," Sinha said and stressed the need to focus on implementation of the outcomes of Doha, Monterrey and Johannesburg conferences.

The developing nations, he said, have to ensure that developed states live up to their commitments on financial, technical and other support.

While emphasising the importance of South-South co-operation, Sinha underlined that it is not a substitute for North-South co-operation.

"As all developing countries have resource constraints, developed countries would remain our main developmental partners. Therefore, we must persist with our efforts to maintain an active dialogue with the developed countries and push the concerns of developing countries to the forefront of international economic and trade agenda," he said.

Reiterating India's commitment to share its experience with other developing nations, he said over the last 55 years, New Delhi has contributed $ 3 million through co-operation programmes.

"We have co-operated with more than 100 developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America in partnership in which we have shared our developmental experience in areas of interest and relevance to other developing nations," he added.

PTI