At the time of this conference a clear consensus was starting to emerge for a standards-based approach to enhancing the global financial system. The G7 and the G22 had initiated a comprehensive effort to define global best practices in key areas that included standards for transparency of country financial data; fiscal and monetary policy best practices; accounting and auditing standards; governance and bankruptcy regimes, as well as bank and securities regulation codes. This conference focused on the pros and cons of this standards-based approach and placed a strong focus on discussing whether this approach should be considered as the only alternative to reducing the frequency of financial crises in emerging economies.  In retrospect, although the views expressed made it quite clear that financial stability was of great concern to the global financial community, at the time the focus was still geared to preventing a financial crisis in the emerging world, with no one really paying attention to the advanced countries.