The Chief of United Nations (UN) Ban Ki-moon has called for `deep and systemic` reforms based on inclusive multilateralism for a global financial system that can better meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The ad hoc manner in which the governments have responded to the management of current crisis, Ban said, is reflective of serious lacunae in the existing world financial system.

Voicing deep concern over impact of the current crisis on the developing countries, he described the steps taken by the major economies so far as `laudable` but called for more global action to ensure the poor States are not impacted adversely.

``More coordinated approaches, including direct intervention by governments of the major economies, are necessary to recapitalise the banking system and guarantee the savings of ordinary people,`` he said in a statement.

The initiatives by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to provide new emergency liquidity provisioning to poor countries, Ban said, could help them counteract some of the consequences of this crisis.

``But more needs to be done,`` he added, calling for urgent reform of the global financial system.

Ban`s call for reform of the international financial institutions followed similar calls over the weekend by UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang, who told in several meetings in Washington that the crisis was clear proof of the urgent need to reform the international monetary and financial system set up during three weeks of talks in Bretton Woods in New Hampshire in the US in July 1944.

``The current crisis throws a spotlight on the international community`s failure to adequately address systemic issues,`` Ban said, calling for more effective regulatory frameworks, particularly in financial markets.

Other areas that `require critical attention` include improved risk monitoring and crisis avoidance as well as management better suited to the realities of contemporary global financial integration and more universal and equitable distribution of voice and representation in global decision-making bodies, he added.

There also must be follow through, in an accountable manner, on all international commitments made in the areas of aid, trade, debt reduction, and access to technology and affordable medicines in support of developing nation`s efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs), Sha said, referring to the ambitious UN programme to reduce a host of social ills such as hunger, poverty and lack of access to medical care and education, all by 2015.