Martin Khor
Director, Third World Network
May, 1996
I: Is the UN Still Useful?
Do we still need the United Nations, an agency set up specifically for states to collectively intervene in humanity's affairs, in a world that is governed more and more by the "invisible hand" of market forces?
The answer is yes, at least as far as the UN's economic and social role is concerned. As liberalisation, economic competitiveness and globalisation increasingly become the processes and operational principles that organise and drive countries, the United Nations is needed more than ever before as an articulator of the opinions and interests of the world public, and to provide a counterweight on behalf of people and countries that are marginalised by these processes. Even as it marks its fifteeith anniversary, the UN and its agencies have a crucial, indispensable role to help determine what kind of development, and what kind of globalisation, will take place in the century to come.
Three conditions must be met for revitalising the economic and social role of the UN. The weaker countries have to get together (and get their act together) to reaffirm the UN's role. More importantly, the powerful nations must agree to give it the space, opportunity and authority to carry out its functions. Unfortunately, the prospects for meeting these two conditions are presently not bright. The third condition is that the UN and its agencies stand for and act in the interests of the weaker countries, and of the weak and poor within countries. They must not themselves be coopted by those that represent narrow or commercial self-interests; for then the UN would become an accomplice against instead of a counterweight on the side of public interests, and would thus lose its raison e'tre.
II: Liberalization and a Return to Laissez-Faire
Some influential forces in the North are currently arguing that the UN has little role to play in the economic and social fields; that its main development umbrella, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), is merely an ineffective chamber for speeches and debate; and that some UN agencies should be drastically cut down or closed down. Instead, the world's economic and social policies should be left to the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organisation to determine and implement, as they more efficient, effective and reflective of the market principle which should be accepted by all as the key to running global and national affairs.
This attitude of discarding the UN in favour of market-oriented institutions is an international extension of an ultra-conservative position on national policies that has gained dominance in some powerful Northern countries, particularly in the wake of the Soviet empire's collapse and the ending of the Cold War. It follows a paradigm of extreme liberalisation, whose elements include a much reduced role for government in economic and social affairs, privatisation and deregulation, drastic cuts in income taxes and a dismantling of the welfare state. The state's redistributive role, of taxing the better off (and companies) to subsidise the poor (and consumers of basic services) is in retreat. There is a movement back to the laissez-faire model of the 19th century, where governments are supposed to only set up and implement rules, whilst leaving the players to get on with their own game. The state's role is to be a traffic policeman, implementing traffic rules, and not to interfere with who owns what vehicles and whether society's transport needs are met overall.
It requires reminding that the laissez-faire model, which suited commercial elite interests, faced severe challenges and revolt from the large segments of society that it pauperised. The social fallout of laissez-faire, in terms of poverty, lack of basic facilities, glaring inequities, and thus social and political instability, led to the step-by-step building up of social welfarism in Western societies, with the state taking responsibility for social services and security. Following the Great Depression experience, the state's economic role expanded further with Keynesian policies to combat unemployment. Redistributive fiscal policies were part of this scheme.
It is this social-welfare and social-security model that has come under attack in some Northern countries, as the conservative elites are no longer willing to pay with income taxes to finance social programmes. The cutbacks in government social spending has led to increased poverty, homelessness and inequities in those societies affected and contributed to high unemployment. Incrasingly the state is also prevented from interfering with the way businesses are run. In the US, environmental and safety laws are being dismantled or diluted whilst affairmative action on behalf of disadvantaged groups is under attack.
III: Transfer of Liberalization to the South
The liberalisation model and process has now been transmitted to countries of the South as well as to the arena of international relations. Many developing countries have adopted liberalisation (and the accompanying reduction in state expenditure, privatisation and deregulation) as the centrepiece of the structural adjustment programmes (SAPS) designed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as a condition for external debt rescheduling or new loans.
The adoption of this model replaced many of the previous policies of those Southern governments that had believed in intervening to strengthen the domestic economy and to provide social development. The combination of crushing external debt, the loss of much-needed resources to service these debts, and the adoption of SAPS, have caused many developing countries to suffer declining incomes; cutbacks in health, education and social services; growing poverty, unemployment and social disintegration; and political unrest.
If liberalisation has enlarged social problems and inequities in the richer Northern societies, it has had much more severe repercussions on the poorer Southern countries that had much greater poverty and fewer resources to begin with. Whilst a greater degree of liberalisation, carefully planned and phased, may be useful for countries with sufficient capacity for private- sector growth to take up the slack, and moreover to compete internationally, for many other countries it has resulted in an economic vacuum and increased marginalisation and despair for poor and ordinary people.
IV: The UN's Role within the Aid and Compensatory Framework
In international affairs, the liberalisation process has also eroded the the principle and practice of development aid and support that until recently had been accepted as part of the responsibility of the international community. The need for the United Nations to intervene on behalf of weak and poor countries had been recognised from the UN's birth itself. It was accepted, at least in rhetoric, that the ex-colonies had to be helped to recover from the colonial experience, build strong domestic economies so that in time they could participate more equally in the international ecopnomy and global affairs.
A social-welfare and redistributive model was adopted whereby aid provided by the rich countries (supposedly to reach an agreed target of 0.7 percent of their GNP) would help finance the South's development. A significant part of the funds was channelled through the UN agencies, such as the UNDP for general development and policy advice, UNCTAD for trade and development, the WHO for health, UNICEF for children, UNESCO for culture, UNEP for the environment, the ILO for employment and labour, FAO for agriculture, UNIDO for industry, and so on, and their programmes would be mainly on a grant basis. The UN General Assembly and ECOSOC would be the political forum where global social and economic issues would be discussed, and decisions taken. Away from the formal UN system, though part of the UN family, the World Bank was to finance development projects with concessionary loans whilst the IMF would maintain the fixed exchange rate system by providing short-term finance to countries with balance of payments difficulties.
To some extent this was what happened, but not to a satisfactory degree. Except for a few countries, Northern aid did not reach the targetted amount. Whilst the various UN agencies took on their respective roles, these were compensatory in nature and did not entail altering the basic global structures. The powerful countries were not prepared for any fundamental change to prevailing international economic relations or structures which they dominated and wanted to continue dominating.
For a brief moment in the 1970s, in the wake of OPEC's successful attempt to raise oil prices, the developing countries collaborated to advocate for "a new international economic order", with proposals to reform the terms of international trade, investment and technology transfer. Despite the passing of UN declarations on the NIEO, these plans were eventually rejected by the North. It was clear that measures (practical, legal or structural) to alter the fundamental economic equation (whether practically would not be allowed.
The most concrete of the measures was the attempt taken through UNCTAD to improve the Third World's terms of trade by establishing commodity agreements that would ensure stable and adequate prices. Several producer-consumer agreements were set up, as was a General Fund for Commodities. But these succeeded only to a limited degreee and only for a short time. Over the past decade, the rich consumer countries pulled out of most of the agreements, which then collapsed. It was after all in the direct interest of the North if the prices of raw materials they import were to remain low. Commercial self-interest was given a higher priority than international partnership. In the event, the prices of Third World ecommodity exports plunged in comparison with those of manufactures and have recently been at their lowest historical comparative level.
Instead of reform, the Northern countries agreed to non-binding aid and compensatory mechanisms and institutions, including the UN agencies. These would give expression to the attitude of giving their weaker brethen a helping hand in the understanding that this would be for the good of everyone, both the givers and the receipients. The UN assemblies, conferences and conventions could continue to be a forum for developing countries to air their grievances and needs, whilst UN agencies would give grants for various aspects of development. Aid can only have a compensatory function, and an unsatisfactory one, because annually up to US$500 billion of resources are flowing from South to North on account of terms-of-trade losses, debt servicing, repatriation of profits, royalties and technical payments, capital flight and brain drain. Moreover a large part of aid, which at US$50 billion a year is already only a tenth of South-to-North resource flows, is in the form of repayable loans or military and non-development expenses, so that the development benefits are less than they would appear.
Nevertheless, that part of aid which sustained the UN's economic and social activities and agencies has till now played a generally useful role in helping build the South's development capacity. Besides its attempts on improving commodity prices, UNCTAD has helped developing countries with technical assistance and and policy advice to strengthen their trade, financial and development performance, acting as a kind of "economic secretariat for the South" in preparing the South for North-South dialogue and negotiations and for South-South cooperation. The UNDP is tasked with building up the domestic development capacity and institutions of Southern countries, recently evolving a framework for implementing "sustainable human development."
The WHO, working under its Alma Atta Declaration, had striven to meet the goal of "health for all by the year 2000" through a comprehensive approach that included primary health care, provision of basic facilities such as water and sanitation and combatting various diseases. Using children's rights and issues as an entry and rallying point, UNICEF has also sought to promote access for the poor to social facilities, and took a leading role in exposing the ill effects of structural adjustment and advocating the need for a social dimension to it. UNEP has promoted environmental awareness and helped develop environmental policy and enforcement capability in Southern countries, as well as important international environmental agreements.
Meanwhile the UN has also provided a valuable forum for the airing of major global problems through its world conferences (such as on the environment in 1992, human rights in 1993, population in 1994, social development and women in 1995). The conferences and the follow-up activities (such as through the Commission for Sustainable Development and the Climate Change and Biodiversity Conventions after UNCED) have generated new trends in policy thinking and in programme directions.
V: The Decline of Aid and the UN's Influence
It is true that aid, including the aid which funded the programmes of UN agencies, has often had damaging environmental and social effects. For example, the FAO had been promoting some forestry programmes that contributed to tropical deforestation, and helped introduce chemical-based agriculture (which today is widely recognised as "unsustainable") to many developing countries.
Aid needs urgent reform, and its quality should be improved tremendously. But this is not the same as saying that aid should be cut down or eliminated. Instead, the volume of aid should be increased towards the targetted 0.7% of Northern GNP, whilst simultaneously a serious exercise can be initiated to reform aid principles and upgrade the quality of aid.
It is also true that in a more ideal situation, aid should not and need not be on the global agenda, if other aspects of the international economic equation (trade, finance, technology, investment) were more balanced. But given the present imbalance and inequalities, which the North is unwilling to correct, aid has become a symbol of Northern commitment to help offset a little of the inequities by providing a kind of "safety net", however inadequate, for the South.
In recent years there have been two impulses pulling the prospects for aid and international cooperation (and thus the role of the UN) in opposite directions. On the one hand, there has been the rise of political and economic conservatism in some major Northern countries which is in favour of reducing or discardig aid and North-South cooperation. This trend has accelerated with the end of the Cold War: the West no longer sees the need to woo the South with aid and dialogue as there is no longer a Soviet camp for the weaker nations to run to. Preoccupied with reducing their budget deficits whilst maintaining the stand not to raise taxes, many Northern governments are geared towards slashing the overseas aid budget, including funds for the UN.
On the other hand, there is the realisation amongst large sections of the Northern public, and the Northern establishment, that serious global problems have emerged that could threaten global stability, security and even survival. High on this list is the environmental crisis, concern for which led to the UNCED (or Earth Summit), a process which was taken very seriously by governments and the public in both Northern and Southern countries. UNCED was a watershed in reviving awareness of the inextricable link between global ecological and economic problems. The South could do its part in the transition to environmentally-sound development only if they had more economic resources. It was the North's responsibility (as well as being in its interests) to help provide these resources. Since the North had ruled out freeing those resources through more structural measures such as greater debt relief and better tersm of trade, the only remaining recourse was for Northern countries to pledge to significantly raise aid levels, as close as possible to the targetted 0.7% of GNP. The 1992 Earth Summit produced "the spirit of Rio", a revival of awareness of the imporance of North-South partnership, to be symbolised by a commitment for more aid, or "new and additional resources."
This clash of conflicting impulses is important to undrstand, for the two impulses represent different attitudes in the North, and the resolution of this conflict will largely determine the future direction for international cooperation. Alas, the "spirit of Rio" did not last very long at all. Instead, the first impulse overcame the second, and 1993 saw a drastic change in attitude towards aid, and an erosion in aid volume. The OECD countries' aid fell from US$61 billion in 1992 to $56 billion in 1993 and 14 of 21 donors decreased the share of aid in their GNP. Since 1993 the situation has worsened further with continuing aid cuts in many donor countries.
The attitude change towards aid and international economic cooperation has also affected the UN adversely. Non-payment of financial contributions has resulted in continuous problems for the UN Secretariat. Donor funds to several UN agencies have been significantly cut, and these agencies are having to retrench staff and reduce their programmes. These moves are already affecting the size and effectiveness of the UN's economic and social activities, with detrimental repercussions on the South. There are also proposals, mainly from Northern governments and institutions, to close down some UN agencies, including UNCTAD, and to even abolish ECOSOC itself. If carried out, especially in the absence of reforms establishing equivalent institutions, these proposals would be disastrous for people in the South.
VI: Basic Differences between the UN and the Bretton-Woods-WTO Approaches
The downgrading of the UN's social and economic fuctions have been done in the name of efficiency, the need to cut donn bureaucracy, duplication and waste. These are merely rationalisations, for simulataneously the costly security and peace-keeping functions of the UN have been ungraded. More seriously, in the same economic and social fields, the roles and activities of the Bretton Woods institutions and the GATT/WTO have been tremendously boosted. What is happening, in fact, is a shift in resources and authority away from the UN and its agencies and a simultaneous transfer of these to the World Bank, IMF and the WTO.
As discussed earlier, the original function of the IMF was provision of guidance and loans to trade-deficit countries (including in the North) to defend their currency levels. When the fixed exchange system collapsed in 1972, the IMF's role was left in question. It found a new function in the 1980s as provider of loans to indebted developing countries requiring debt rescheduling, and more importantly as policy formulator and monitor of stabilisation and structural adjustment policies which receipient countries had to accept. The World Bank's original role was the provision of development project loans; in the 1980s it too took on the additional function of giving loans conditioned upon structural adjustment programmes to indebted countries. Both institutions had great leverage because it is on their advice that commercial banks decide on rescheduling and new loans for developing countries with debt difficulties. In recent years, the World Bank's policy advice and lending has extended to new areas including the environment and health: even as the UN agencies dealing with these sectors face severe financial and manpower constraints, the World Bank has significantly expanded its resources and functions in these areas.
The WTO, which came into force in 1995, is the embodiment of the vastly expanded role given to GATT through the Uruguay Round agreement. GATT had only been a provisional agreement, whilst the WTO is a fully-established institution. Whilst GATT had dealt only with rules relating to international trade in goods, the Uruguay Round has empowered the WTO to also set and enforce rules on services, investment measures and intellectual property rights. These rules have given greater rights to transnational corporations, at the expense of developing countries whose markets will be rendered more open whilst at the same time their attempts at technological development will be curbed by the protection given to the companies through tighter laws on intellctual property rights. Attempts are now being made by Northern countries to further widen the WTO's scope to include such issues as the link between trade and environmment, labour standards and foreign investment regimes.
The exercise of depleting the UN and its agencies whilst upgrading Bretton Woods-WTO is not a mere replacement of one set of bureaucracies by another to carry out similar functions, for there are very basic differences between the two sets of agencies in philosophical underpinnings, governance, management, approach, policy framework and programmes. The UN's governance is on a one- country-one-vote democratic basis, its operations and decision- making process are transparent, and the majority of countries being of the South are able to have an influence corresponding with their numbers. Since financing of the UN secretariat and agencies are through government contributions and grants, they do not need to be driven by profit or commercial interests. The programmes of UN agencies are meant to be (or at least have a greater chance to be) "country-driven", in terms of being tailored to meet the needs of individual countries. Most projects are conducted on a grant basis or have a high subsidy content, and rely heavily on public-sector implementation.
In the UN approach, there is implicit and explicit understanding that states have the prime responsibility to ensure that the poor majority in their countries have access to basic facilities, irrespective of their ability to pay. The role of the UN is to reaffirm the rights of people to fulfil their basic needs. To help in the realisation of these rights, it is recognised that redistributive policies and mechanisms are required. The UN agencies operate as part of the redistributive mechanisms at international level, and are meant to augment the states' redistributive mechanisms at national level.
The UN framework also recognises the need for developiung countries to overcome the adverse effects of colonialism on their econonmic, social and cultural structures, and to build up their national capacity for implementing appropriate development strategies. It further recognises the imbalanced nature of the international system, and the need for South-South collaboration and North-South partnership to redress this through structural reforms, aid, financial, trade and technology access concessions. These themes run through many of the discussions at UN assesmblies, conferences and meetings. They also form an important part of the rationale and goals of many UN agencies.
On the other hand, the governance of the Bretton Woods institutions follows the one-dollar-one-vote principle. As such, decision-making control is by the Northern countries that own a majority of the equity, with developing countries having a minor role. These institutions are Secretariat-driven in policy, and have been widely criticised for designing their stabilisation-structural adjustment plans in Washington without adequate consultation with or participation of the loan receipient countries. Being commercial-driven organisations, their policies and projects are designed so that the loans are repaid with an adequate yield. Even if they would like to be more development-oriented, the IMF and World Bank will always face the in-built constraints of being first and foremost commercial institutions with the highest priority given to getting adequate returns on their investments.
The structural adjustment policies, as discussed earlier, are biased towards liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation and a drastic reduction in public-sector functions. The main concern of the financial institutions is to attain "financial balance" in government budget and the balance of payments account; that the methods used to achieve this may have serious adverse effects on social development or growth is of more minor significance to the institutions. Social and even development objectives have therefore often been subjugated to financial imperatives. The redistributive role of government is depleted, whilst reliance on market forces is greatly enhanced. The social fallout is recognised as inevitable side effects; instead of being prevented through a balanced designing of adjustment programmes, a "safety net" approach (of compensatory measures) is adopted.
In the GATT-WTO system, governance is theoretically through concensus decision-making of the contracting parties. In reality, as the Uruguay Round long closing stages showed, key decisions are made by the major trading countries (the US, European Union and Japan), which often reach agreement among themselves, consult with some other big trading countries, and then oblige the majority of parties to sign on. Small and middle-sized countries find they have little real influence.
Decision-making processes are not also not publicly transparent. The important countries are heavily influenced by their big corporations, which are now successfully play a crucial role in setting the negotiating agenda.
As a result, the already assymetrical nature of GATT has, after the Uruguay Round, become even more imbalanced against the South and against development interests. There is an erosion of the "development principle" and of special treatment (whereby developing countries are allowed exemptions, safeguards and less strict adherence to disciplines) as well as of trade preferences. The WTO is newly empowered to accelerate the liberalisation of services and investments in developing countries, which are now concerned that the resultant competition from transnational companies (which moreover are now afforded greater technology monopoly through intellectual property rights laws) could erode the market of local enterprises and threaten their viability.
These recent developments in GATT-WTO will accelerate the opening up of developing countries to "market forces". When liberalisation is also coupled with rapid globalisation, this will mean an increasing share of domestic economic activities going to transnational companies, and being dependent on the flows of external trade and capital markets. Perhaps those developing countries that have a strong enough domestically-owned or managed economic capacity and sufficient policy experience in dealing with the vagaries of the world market can take advantage and even thrive in this highly competitive globalisation process. But the vast majority of Southern countries are not ready to open up their local enterprises to competition with the giant corporations. They will require more time, experience, a strengthening of domestic capacity and the negotiating strength to bargain for these. They are likely to find that the WTO is not a friendly venue for realising these goals, for its priority is to push forward the frontiers of free movement of trade and capital, to extend the freedom and space of transnational corporations, and to reduce or remove the right of governments to restrict this corporate freedom.
VII: Reasserting the Role of the UN
The shift of location in decision-making in international economic and social affairs from the UN to the Bretton Woods-WTO institutions would lead to the downgrading of development as an operational principle and strategic goal, and its replacement by the free reign of the "market." And with deregulation and liberalisation both nationally and internationally, subjugation to the "free market" means that transnational corporations will exercise overwhelming control of the market in most or all sectors, with minimum interference from governments.
This carries the serious implication that development goals such as growth, poverty eradication, social equity, access to basic facilities and employment, will be seriously compromised. It is widely accepted that the realisation of these goals requires a significant degree of state intervention in the economy, as the market by itself cannot for instance bring the economy into full employment equilibrium. Moreover, due to its bias towards catering to the elite and middle classes (who have the purchasing power), the market cannot take care of the social needs of the poorer sections of society, which in many countries form the majority.
If the UN's resources and influence wane further, its approach entailing domestic capacity-building, redistributive policies and social-development programmes will even more be replaced by the harsh principles of the market forces, in which individuals matter in correspondence with what capital or skills they can offer to the market and how much purchasing power they can bring to it. Development as the central operating principle will be replaced by laissez-faire, or maximum rights to corporations and the "market." The goal of development will be displaced by the means of the market. Large sections of the population that are unemployed, unskilled and poor will likely find they have few rights and little space in their market-dominated society and that increasingly the welfare programmes, subsidised health and education services and other "safety nets" will be reduced or disappear. Thus, even the compensatory measures that already offset the adverse social effects of the market to only an inadequate degree may wither away.
This scenario is already a reality in many Third World countries, and increasingly in some Northern countries as well. In recognition of the present and potentially greater adverse social effects of globalisation and liberalisation, the UN in March 1995 convened the World Summit on Social Development, attended by 187 countries, 115 of which were represented by heads of state or government. The Summit's Copenhangen Declaration, in addressing the impact of globalisation (para 14), acknowledges that it has brought some benefits, then goes on to recognise that: "The rapid processes of change and adjustment have been accompanied by intensified poverty, unemployment and social disintegration. Threats to human well-being, such as environmental risks, have also been globalised. Furthermore, the global transformations of the world economy are profoundly changing the parameters of social development in all countries. The challenge is how to manage these processes and threats so as to enhance their benefits and mitigate their negative effects upon people."
The Declaration (para 16) states that the insecurity that many people face about the future is intensifying, and notes aong other things that in many societies the gap between rich and poor has increased; the gap between developed and developing countries has widened; more than one billion people live in abject poverty; a large proportion of people have very limited access to income, resources, health care or nutrition; over 120 million worldwide are officially unemployed and many more are underemployed; and millions of people are refugees or internally displaced persons.
During the Social Summit process, Southern governments and the non-governmental groups emphasised that external debt and structural adjustment policies were major factors causing poverty, unemployment and social disintegration. Concerns were also prominently raised about how the policies of the Bretton Woods institutions often contradict the approach and policies adopted at UN assemblies and conferences, and about the lack of acountability of these institutions.
In addressing these concerns, the Copenhangen Declaration and Programme of Action (para 91), in carefully worded language, called on governments to ensure that in structural adjustment programmes: social development goals are included; basic social programmes and expenditures are protected from budget reductions; and the impact of structural adjustment programmes should be reviewed to reduce their negative effects and improve their positive impacts.
The Declaration (para 98) also called for "promoting and strengthening the coordination of United Nations system activities, the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO at the global, regional and national levels in the area of economic and social development programmes." It also stressed the need for the UN to develop a framework for international cooperation to follow up on and implement the outcome of the Social Summit and the other recent major UN Conferences, and gave special emphasis to the policy- making and coordinating role of the General Assembly and ECOSOC.
From the above, it would appear that high political leaders in governments in general are aware of the critical (and worsening) state of social problems such as poverty, inequalities, unemployment, marginalisation of vulnerable groups and social disintegration, and that the globalisation process, economic problems such as debt, and liberalisation policies (as contained in structural adjustment programmes) are major contributory factors.
Ideally, the different global entities (the UN, the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO) should have a continous dialogue and moreover coordinate their approaches as envisaged by the Social Summit, so as to realise its social development goals. However this seems unlikely, at least in the near future. The World Bank has made it clear that as a financial and commercial institution, its operational principles are different from the UN and that its mandate gives it the authority to function independently. The World Bank president, James Wolfensohn, told the ECOSOC session in July 1995 that he was willing to cooperate more with the UN, but would not take policy guidance from it. As he put it: "I am happy to work with you but I don't want or need guidance from you. I want to work with you but not to be coordinated by you."
If coordination, even on equal footing, between the institutions is not possible (or not yet possible), at the least the United Nations and its agencies should be given the opportunity and resources to maintain their identity, have their approach and development focus reaffirmed, and strengthen their programmes and activities. In particular, those Northern countries that have downgraded their committment to the UN should reverse this attitude and instead affirm its indispensable and valuable role in advocating the social and developmental dimension in the process of rapid global change. The world, and especially the developing countries, require that this dimension be kept alive and indeed strengthened greatly, otherwise there is a danger that a monolithic laissez-faire approach, shared by the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO, will rule in monopolistic fashion. Given the nature of liberalisation and the rapid pace of its spread through globalisation, the negative social trends noted in the Social Summit declaration are likely to deteriorate further, even if the UN continues with its social and economic activities at the present level.
Only a great strengthening of the UN will allow it to play its compensatory role more significantly and effectively. But of course a complementary "safety net" function is the minimum that should be set for the UN. For the South and indeed the international community to make progress towards redressing the basic inequities in the international system, the UN must be able to make the leap: from merely offsetting the social fallout of unequal structures and liberalisation, to fighting against the basic causes of poverty, inequities, social tensions and unsustainable development.
As part of of a revitalisation exercise, there must also be a review and reform in the policies and operations of UN agencies, to cut down on over-bureaucratisation and to change outmoded policies and programmes that contribute to environmental damage without yielding positive social results. The UN and its agencies also need to be more strategic in their overall goals and activities, and to be more and more relevant in an flexible, action-oriented way that caters to the present and changing needs of the world community, especially its poorer sections. Such a review and revitalisation exercise can be usefully done in the context of drawing the conclusions and planning the follow up to the several major UN conferences held in recent years. Without reform, the UN is unlikely to be able to meet the challenges of the future.
Moreover, it is vital that the UN continues to adopt development, an equitable world order and the realisation of human and development rights as its central economic and social goals. There is a danger that some UN agencies (and the Secretariat itself) may be influenced by conservative political forces to join in the laissez-faire approach or merely be content to play a second-fiddle role of taking care of the adverse social effects of laissez-faire policies promoted by other agencies. If it does join in with the "market ideology" in order not to be left out, the UN would no longer be able to provide an alternative position, and there would be only a monolithic or monopolistic approach to globalisation; and that, as discussed earlier, would leave a large part of humanity without protection. The UN should therefore be to keep true to its mission of development and justice for the world's people, and to always advocate for policies and programmes that promote this mission, otherwise it would lose its credibility and its reason for existence.
VIII: The South Needs to Defend the UN and Coordinate Itself
It is the people of the South who most need a revitalised, reformed and strengthened United Nations. Southern governments have to play the most important part in defending and enlarging the UN's role, especially since it is coming under attack from some forces in the North.
Countries of the South, at many different fora, have collectively reaffirmed their view that the social and economic role of the UN and its agencies is even more necessary in view of globalisation. At a meeting of the Trade and Development Board in September 1995, Colombia's ambassador Guillermo Alberto Gonzalez, speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, said that UNCTAD should remain a counter-balancing force to ensure bold and innovative plurality of thinking, when such thinking is in danger of being increasingly dominated by the Bretton Woods institutions. Any attempt to reduce this role of UNCTAD should be resisted. UNCTAD as an institution should be empowered to exercise its development mandate fully, particularly in light of the globalisation of the international economy and the deepening interdependence among states and their implications for the future of developing countries. He added that the Group of 77 and China remained committed to UNCTAD as an institution that had attained greater relevance as a result of the creation of the WTO, which has reinforced the need for a policy-oriented trade forum like UNCTAD with a strong development perspective.
Whilst countries of South have spoken up, they have to do even more to assert their belief in the UN's role and to intensify the fight to reverse its decline. They should also strengthen South- South cooperation, with the support of UN agencies such as the TCDC Unit of UNDP and UNCTAD, as well as through their own mechanisms and organisations. This cooperation should include an increase in trade, investment and communications links at bilateral level and between regions, as well as joint projects involving several South countries.
Equally or even more urgently required is South-South cooperation in the area of policy coordination in reaching common positions. This is especially because policies that used to be taken at the national level as the prerogative of national governments are increasingly being made at fora, institutions and negotiations at the international and regional level. Without a more effective collective voice at such international fora, Southern countries will find even more that their national policies on economic, social and cultural matters being made and dominated over by the more powerful Northern governments and the institutions they control.
Policy coordination among Southern countries is urgently required in such areas as to advocate for the strengthening of the role of the UN in the face of the current attacks against it, to follow-up on the Social Summit's call for a review of structural adjustment policies, to reform the structures and policies of the Bretton Woods institutions, and to negotiate more effectively in the WTO as well as in UN Conferences and meetings. Even if aid is not so forthcoming anymore from the North, the South should mobilise resources of its own to facilitate the expansion of South- South communications, cooperation and coordination.
In the end, the efforts of Southern governments, NGOs and people to organise themselves, and to hold discussions with the North, will have a major bearing on the future of the UN's social and economic role. Just as people get the government they deserve, we may get the United Nations we deserve.
Martin Khor is the Director of Third World Network.
For more information please contact TWN at:
228 Macalister Road
10400 Penang, Malaysia.
Tel: (604) 226-6159/226-6728
Fax: (604) 226-4505
Email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
