South Africa will directly link the failure to reform key international institutions, including the United Nations (UN) Security Council, with the recent regulatory shortcomings that led to the global financial crisis, during lobbying efforts at the 65th session of the UN General Assembly, which kicks off on September 23.

The country, along with many other developing countries, has long been seeking reform of the powerful body, as well as a permanent seat for Africa on the Security Council, having previously participated as a non-permanent member.

The council has had the same five permanent veto-wielding members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the US - since 1945. However, it also has ten non-permanent members, which are elected to serve two-year terms. South Africa last sat on the council in 2007 and 2008 and has put its hat into the ring to serve again during the 2011 to 2012 term.

Speaking at a briefing ahead the departure of a high-level delegation to New York, International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane stressed that the economic crisis confirmed that the current structures and instruments of global economic governance were "largely inadequate" and "in need of reform".

However, she went further by arguing that an unwillingness to transform UN and other multilateral structures, including the Security Council, had been a factor in the current economic destabilisation.

South Africa was also seeking reforms at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation and the International Labour Organisation.

"We actually link the current economic and financial crisis with the lack of change in these very important institutions," she said.

"So, we would have been happier if, as the world emerged from this economic and financial crisis, that we also emerged with a change at these very vital institutions of global governance," she said.

"Reform of the international financial architecture is necessary to ensure a system that is better equipped and geared to achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)."

The crisis, she added, threatened Africa's progress towards attaining the MDGs by 2015 - South Africa would publish its MDG country report on Monday.

There was also a need to redefine the interaction between the Bretton Woods institutions and the range of other multilateral bodies that play a role in the system of global governance.

"We will continue to work with like-minded progressive forces to push for permanent change from within," Nkoana-Mashabane said.

But South Africa's desire for fundamental restructuring of the Security Council would not prevent it from seeking a non-permanent seat during a vote that was scheduled for October.

The Minister said that, should South Africa succeed, it would seek to encourage greater synergy between the African Union's Peace and Security Council and the UN Security Council during its tenure.