UNITED NATIONS - THE current financial crisis has shown it is time for clubs of rich nations like the Group of Seven to open their doors to key developing countries, a top UN development official said on Wednesday.

'Exclusive clubs of rich countries only really don't make much sense anymore,' Mr Kemal Dervis, head of the UN Development Programme, told reporters.

'Clearly an opening of these clubs to the big players, strong players coming from the developing countries is highly desirable.'

Top officials from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are also expected to attend Friday's meeting at UN headquarters.

Mr Dervis said it was unclear whether the meeting would result in an agreement on specific proposals.

It was up to the international community to figure out how to expand clubs like the G7 to integrate top developing nations but it was crucial that it be done, Mr Dervis said.

'Emerging market developing countries such as Brazil, China, India have such a hugely important role to play now in the world economy and some of them have huge resources to play with,' he said.

The White House said on Wednesday that President George W. Bush would host world leaders on Nov 15 to discuss the crisis.

Leaders of the G20, which includes the G7 and key emerging economies like China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and India, will attend.

The UNDP chief said he was concerned that the economic crisis could prompt rich countries to cut back on development aid, which would threaten the ability of the world to meet the UN Millennium Goals aimed at halving poverty by 2015.

'We haven't really seen any immediate signs of resources being cut back for official development assistance or programs being delayed,' mr Dervis said. 'But of course this is still early times and we are worried about that.'

Fiscal pressure
Mr Dervis said the impact on development assistance would become clearer once countries approve their 2009 and 2010 budgets. He said the coordinated effort to prop up financial markets worldwide was important but would have budgetary fallout.

'Deficits in major rich, developed and industrialized countries are going up,' he said. 'So there will be fiscal pressure.'

Despite these pressures, he said prior commitments made to the poorest countries can and should be met.

'The additional resources that had been promised for Africa were of the order of US$25 billion (S$37 billion) globally and when we compare this to the kind of fiscal (bailout) efforts that are underway, clearly these numbers are not very large,' he said.

But government aid was not the only problem. Commercial banks have become reluctant to lend to developing countries, which could cut off access to commercial financing, Mr Dervis said.

Over the last five years there has been strong foreign direct investment in development but that could also dry up 'as corporations may also be retrenching in some of their expansion plans,' Mr Dervis said.