MANILA, Philippines?President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Wednesday said the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of developing countries could respond better to global challenges like the financial crisis and climate change and come up with quick solutions if it spoke as one.

Ms Arroyo was speaking at the two-day summit of the NAM which opened at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheih Wednesday, the 15th such gathering since the group was founded in the 1950s.

?The issues confronting humanity are so grave there is no time, no time for rigid ideologies while the poor suffer,? the President said in her speech which was aired live on state-run NBN 4 television Wednesday.

The President, who is representing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the summit, stressed the need for stronger solidarity among NAM member-countries in the face of tough international challenges.

The 15th NAM summit has adopted the theme of ?international solidarity for peace and development.?

The 118-member NAM has struggled to stay relevant after it was founded during the Cold War by countries which did not want to be aligned either with the Soviet Union or the United States.

Made up mostly of African, Asian and Latin American nations, it has since become primarily an international speaking forum for developing nations.

The presidents of Cuba, Egypt and others who also spoke at the opening Wednesday, said the world needed a financial system that is fairer to the developing nations which, they claimed, have suffered most in the global financial crisis caused by rich countries.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon also touched on the global economic crisis when he addressed the summit, echoing Cuban President Raul Castro?s demand that more must be done to protect the economies of developing nations and give them a bigger say.

Castro handed the movement?s presidency to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose country will head the group for the next three years.

Ms Arroyo said that if there?s any lesson to be learned from the global economic slump, it would be that ?peace and development, and a return to stability in our global financial system can only move forward in an atmosphere of international cooperation.?
?If the developing world speaks as one, and in the Non-aligned Movement we have the potential to speak as one, then we have the power to move forward toward faster solutions to the many challenges facing the world today,? she said.

Among the challenges she mentioned were the ?barriers? to international consensus in the global fight against climate change, and nuclear non-proliferation to stop the growth of the ?world?s nuclear arsenals.?

Ms Arroyo said that as the ASEAN has shown?in which ASEAN holds regular meetings with so-called dialogue partners?dialogue could be effectively developed among peoples, civilizations and religions.

?We, as part of an integrated global community, must work together to halt the divisions in international relations that work against our common effort to promote peace, stability, development and progress,? she said.

She said the Philippines was doing its bit by hosting the NAM special ministerial meeting on interfaith dialogue and cooperation for peace in Manila from Dec. 1 to 3 this year.

?The meeting will mark the first time that NAM will harness the great potentials of interfaith dialogue and cooperation to advance our secular concerns for a durable and lasting peace and sustainable development,? she said. With Reuters and Associated Press