On November 28, 2008, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani convened more than thirty state leaders and ministers attending the UN high-level conference on financing for development in Doha, as well as leaders of the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development for a high-level meeting on coping with the financial crisis. The meeting analyzed the financial crisis and global economic slowdown, as well as the impact that food shortage, energy crisis and climate change may have on global development, especially on developing nations. The participants of the meeting emphasized that under the current situation, all countries should strengthen multilateralism, implement global partnership, increase official development assistance, fulfill commitments to developing countries, reform financial systems, and push the World Trade Organization's Doha round to end as early as possible. The participants also agreed that global development needs a stronger role of the United Nations.

Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei, also special envoy of Chinese President Hu Jintao, elaborated on the position of the Chinese government at the meeting. He pointed out that the international community should take the settlement of the development issue as one of the priorities for coping with the financial crisis. He put forward a five-point proposal. First, he called on the international community to offer necessary support, ensure development resources and strengthen development agencies to substantially help developing countries to maintain financial stability and economic growth. Second, He called on countries to pay special attention to the impact their own macro-economic policies may bring to the developing countries. Third, he urged the international financial organizations to establish a more facilitated mechanism through measures such as relaxed loan conditions. Fourth, He called on the international community to restrain the trade protectionism and promote the Doha round negotiations to achieve positive results. Fifth, he also called for a stronger role of the United Nations in pushing forward development.