of important contributions that will be presented and discussed at this event. overall, banco de mexico is very happy to continue to be part of this effort to bring together some of the best international economics researchers, and glad that this event can again be held in a face - to - face format. moreover, we would like to thank specially to mark wynn from the dallas fed and to kei - mu yi from the university of houston for their ongoing effort in this endeavor. we welcome you all to these two days of intense and fruitful intellectual exchange. thank you and welcome again. 4 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches

the millennium development goals ( mdgs ). these failures would not only be limited to some under - performing low income countries ; even countries which have made rapid strides in sustained economic growth over the past decade, would not be able to meet critical goals. the level of development assistance currently available and even the additional commitments made at monterrey, and subsequently, would not be sufficient to meet the minimum financing needs. developing countries have huge unmet financing needs relative to mdg targets and even with their best efforts, they would not be able to make up the deficiency. there is a very strong case for substantially stepping up the quantum and improving the quality of development assistance. there are two aspects to this which we would like to stress. one, is the need to make allocation of development assistance to countries equitable. the guiding principles should be the incidence of poverty and the effectiveness of poverty reduction efforts. this is best done in multilateral settings so that allocation based on national or strategic considerations are kept to the minimum. the breadth of their work, especially the analytic services and the richness of their development experience improve the quality of policy dialogue. there is also the need to reduce transaction cost of development assistance through better harmonization of procedures and processes. the rome initiative needs to be followed up and bilateral donors should look at ways of working with multilateral institutions so that common mechanisms for project preparation, appraisal, procurement, monitoring, reporting, auditing, etc. could be evolved. another way would be to cofinance projects and programmes that recipient countries draw up and avoid running parallel stand - alone projects that yield sub - optimal results and strain country capacities. developing countries have been taking courageous steps in reforming their policy environment, improving their institutions of governance and in general, widening, deepening and making more equitable the delivery of services to the poor. timely and productive development assistance as well as increased access to markets are required to complement and strengthen these efforts. developed countries must be prepared to play the role of partners in this process as they agreed to do at monterrey. all players in the development process - developing countries, developed countries and the multilateral institutions - have to work to bring about greater accountability. the monitoring of policies, actions and outcomes needed to achieve mdgs can be a useful tool to bring about increased effectiveness of the development process. while this would require considerable efforts at improving the capacities in developing countries, particularly in gathering reliable and accurate statistical data, such efforts should be a part of the overall development process