SHANGHAI, May 27: The Global Conference on Poverty Reduction ended in Shanghai on Thursday amidst calls for the developed world to help poor countries in achieving their goals of reducing poverty.

After two days of discussions that highlighted some of the success stories coming out of third world countries, speakers at the conference warned of dire consequences if the developed world did not contribute more to the uplift of the poor in developing countries.

While much of the criticism was directed at developed countries, most of which were conspicuously missing from the conference, the World Bank and other multilateral agencies also came in for a fair amount of attack from participants.

In Thursday's session, Ugandan president Yuveri Museveni questioned the concept of micro-finance, as propounded by donor agencies and said that under existing system of trade, it was the third world countries that were in fact the donors "as we donate our profit margins and our job opportunities to the West by exporting raw materials."

The Ugandan president gave the example of coffee prices and said that while his country was the fourth largest producer of the commodity, a small fraction of the money spent on coffee came to it because most of the money was made in roasting, packaging and selling the product instead of its production.

He echoed popular sentiment when commenting that the developing world was not looking for hand-outs but wanted to be an equal partner in a fair system of trade. On Tuesday, China called for establishing a new international, political and economic order "that is fair and rational."

Speakers talked of taking a holistic view of development in which the governments of the host countries would have to be involved. In a case study on Pakistan presented on Thursday, NGO specialist Shoaib Sultan Khan of the Rural Support Programme Network that the impact of social uplift programmes could only be felt when "time, coverage and complimentary public investment were made." Khan's work in the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme was highlighted at one of the sessions.

For the World Bank, which has been plugging at more donor funding being channelled through it, what was clear was that future programmes would have to be home-grown and not finalized in Washington.

World Bank South Asia economist Shanta Devarajan said that poverty reduction in South Asia is possible as shown by experiences in Bangladesh and India. Devarajan said that the West has to do more as it is evident this is not the case at present.

"The OECD countries give agriculture subsidies worth of $300 billion to their farmers and $50 billion in aid to poorer countries. When pushed to give more their excuse is that they do not have the fiscal space to do so," said Devarajan, adding "but what we are saying is that they should reduce their subsidies if they can't raise aid funds."

World Bank officials also pointed out that only one fifth of those cases that were being discussed at the conference were actually funded by the bank. They said that one of the aims of the conference was to tell donor agencies and developed countries that aid money was being utilized effectively.