Tuesday, June 28 2005 11:57 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

United Nations: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has made an impassioned plea to developed nations to provide funding and developing nations to affect necessary reforms to clinch the global deal to advance the cause of development, as well as the security and human rights agendas.

After many years of hard work and compromise, the world is now on the threshold of a breakthrough in the pursuit of development and human dignity, he said opening the General Assembly's segment on Dialogue for Financing for Development and asked the world leaders not to let the opportunity slip by.

The Ministers are discussing the implementation of landmark Monterrey Consensus, an agreement adopted by world leaders at their summit in Mexico in 2002.

Annan, who is vigorously pursuing his reforms agenda, said the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have become a rallying point of unparalleled scope- globally accepted benchmarks by which policies should be fashioned and the progress judged.

The goals aim at substantially reducing or eliminating several economic and social ills worldwide by 2015.

"The question now, just days before the G8 summit, and less than 12 weeks before the 2005 World Summit here at the United Nations, is whether we can close the deal," said the Secretary-General referring to the three-day meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized countries beginning on July 6 and the Assembly's upcoming September summit to review the MDGs and make decisions on UN renewal.