NEW YORK - Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic informed in New York on Monday the members of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) about the extent of the damage caused by the May floods in Serbia and invited them to take part in the international donor conference in Brussels on July 16.

He told the ECOSOC Political Forum the success of the donor conference would be very important to Serbia, the Foreign Ministry stated.

Serbia appreciates deeply the willingness of the international community to organise the conference at the request of the European Commission, France and Slovenia, he noted, adding that the event would be used to present the donors with a report on the damage caused by the floods in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in May, which would be based on analyses by the EU, UN and World Bank.

According to preliminary estimates, the damage from the floods that recently hit a part of Serbia is EUR 1.5 billion, he remarked.

When it comes to poverty, Dacic says Serbia has hit its main target regarding the Millenium Development Goals and halved the number of poor among its citizens by 2008, but as a country with a medium level of personal income, it faces special development challenges in eradicating poverty.

Unfortunately, the situation has taken a turn for the worse since the start of the global financial crisis and the rates of unemployment and poverty are on the rise, he stressed, adding that there was still a significant lack of balance in development between Serbia's cities and villages, as well as its capital and the rest of the country, particularly the south.

The difficult economic situation is made worse because of the large number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the country, and these vulnerable groups are one of the biggest problems in Serbia, which has the biggest population of refugees and internally displaced persons in Europe, he pointed out.

Finding a lasting and sustainable solution for these groups remains one of the chief tasks for the government, but there are still significant obstacles to the refugees' return to the country of origin, especially considering the increased frequency of incidents with ethnic background and hate speech, Dacic stated.

That is why Serbia is deeply concerned over the premature adoption of the UNHCR recommendation in April this year to terminate the refugee status of all the people who were driven out of Croatia between 1990 and 1995, says Dacic, adding that out of the 200,000 internally displaced persons from Kosovo, less than 5 percent have returned to the homes they left in 1999.

He commented on the talks on formulating the goals of sustainable development post 2015 by saying that Serbia was an active participant as a member of the Open Working Group.

Serbia is also an active participant of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing and acknowledges in full the principle that the foremost responsibility of each country is its own development and that it needs to conduct the reforms necessary to establish an efficient tax system and good management and to eradicate the illegal financial flows, Dacic remarked.

The Serbian government is taking serious steps in this direction when it comes to reforms, but official development assistance remains a very important instrument, particularly for the least developed countries, he noted.

Dacic stated he was pleased to take part in the ECOSOC High-level Segment, which Serbia had joined after more than two decades, adding that, as a new member of the UN's most important body on economic, social and environmental protection, his country wanted to make an active contribution to its work.

Dacic met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Development Programme Administrator Helen Clark in New York.

Clarke will represent the UN at the international donor conference in Brussels on July 16 and she will visit Serbia on July 14 to learn about the damage caused by the floods.

The ECOSOC High-level Segment includes the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and the Annual Ministerial Review.

Serbia was elected in 2013 a member of the ECOSOC for a period of three years, from 2014 to 2016, with a possibility of re-election.