Henrietta Fore, director of U.S. foreign assistance, briefs reporters at the International Conference on Financing for Development.

Washington — International donors of aid to help the poor in developing countries need to monitor the world economy so that they can provide assistance rapidly to where it is most needed, said the top U.S. official for foreign aid.

Speaking at the recent global conference in Doha, Qatar, on ensuring financial flows for international development, Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance Henrietta Fore said that the “troubling dislocations we see in today's global financial markets” call for stronger international coordination toward shared goals.

She also said donor countries should fully understand important links between public and private sectors.

Fore said the United States is pleased that the more than 160 countries represented at the conference in Doha adopted a statement that reaffirms that reducing poverty depends on foreign aid, expanded trade and private investment.

The four-day meeting ended December 2 with a call for a high-level meeting under United Nations auspices to examine the effects of global economic uncertainty on development and to review the international financial and monetary systems that can prevent future financial crises from occurring.

No date for the follow-up meeting was announced, but U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann said such a meeting is a priority, according to an end-of-conference press release.

Fore said that getting through “the next difficult years” will require that more entities be involved in coordinating economic policy, citing the G20 economies, whose leaders met in Washington in November. (See “Large World Economies Agree to Boost Growth, Tackle Crisis.”)

The G20 is a forum that promotes discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability.

Fore said that in recent years, when many developing countries were experiencing economic growth and poverty rates were declining, the development community seemed more concerned with the human development outcomes of their programs. Now, she said, “we no longer have the luxury to take economic growth for granted.

“If 2008 can become the year we rediscover economic growth as a fundamental component of our development tool kit, we will see our efforts translate into a future world that is more food-secure and whose vulnerable populations will rise out of poverty.”

She said donor countries need to stand ready to assist any countries that seek support to help financial systems “adjust to an evolving global economy.”