A/RES/53/182 Page 2 or, where appropriate, country-specific round-table meetings during the Conference to contribute to the work of the Conference; 6. Calls upon the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank to link the forthcoming round-table and consultative group meetings to the preparatory process of the Conference, and to ensure that they make substantive contributions to the Conference; 7. Requests the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, in his capacity as Convenor of the United Nations Development Group, to ensure the full involvement in the preparations for the Conference of United Nations resident coordinators and country teams in the least developed countries; 8. Calls upon the Secretary-General of the United Nations, in consultation with the SecretaryGeneral of the Conference, to convene an inter-agency meeting to ensure the full mobilization and coordination of all relevant organs, organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, as well as other relevant institutions, for the purpose of preparations for and follow-up to the Conference; 9. Invites the Secretary-General of the Conference to make arrangements, on the basis of consultations with Member States, to facilitate the involvement of civil society, including nongovernmental organizations and the private sector, in the preparatory process and the Conference; 10. Decides to defray the cost of participation of two government representatives from each least developed country in the intergovernmental preparatory committee meetings and the Conference itself through the use of extrabudgetary resources and, should those resources prove to be insufficient, to consider all other options; 11. Requests the Secretary-General of the United Nations, with the assistance of concerned organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, including the Department of Public Information of the Secretariat, to take necessary measures to intensify their public information efforts and other relevant initiatives to enhance public awareness in favour of the Conference, its objectives and its significance; 12. Also requests the Secretary-General of the United Nations to submit a report to the General Assembly at its fifty-fourth session on the state of preparations for the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries. 91st plenary meeting 15 December 1998