NO 94 OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 2002
| UN UPDATE | NGO NEWS | FOCUS |
| SG Endorses
Counter-Terrorism Strategy SG Calls for Concerted Action on Poverty Ethiopia Faces Famine UNAIDS/WHO Release AIDS Epidemic..2002 WFP Launches Africa Hunger Crisis.. GA President Observes World.. FAO/WFP Commemorate World Food Day WHO Releases Study on GM Foods BWC Ends Fifth Review Conference Climate Change: COP-8 Meets in New.. GA Considers the Cloning Con.. GA Discusses Financing for Dev.. UNCTAD Releases World Inv. Report 2002 WIDER/UNU Report Calls for Reform World Economic and Social Survey..02 World Bank/IMF Hold Annual Meeting FAO Estimates Toxic Waste at 500,000 Ton.. DDA Holds Roundtables on Disarament GA First Committee Discusses Multilateralism Peacekeeping in Bosnia-Herzegovina Winds.. Landmine Convention Meets World Health Report 2002: Preventing Risks WHO Publishes World Report on Violence.. Int. Day Examines Environment/War UNEP/WCMC Releases Mountain Watch.. UNEP Finance Initiatives Warns of Risks WFP Atlas on Food Security of Urban India S-G’s Report on Composition of the Secreta.. UN Population Division Releases Migration.. |
Enabling
Environments for MDGs FIM Holds Conference on Governance Worldwatch Reports on Resource Wars Reporters Without Borders Publishes.. AWID Holds 9th International Forum CUTS Launches Jubilee 2010/2020 |
African
Development: UNCTAD Calls for.. GA Addresses African High-Level Plenary Meeting FAO Releases State of Food Insecurity, Agriculture 2002 General Assembly Debate Opens on Economic Issues Globalization: How to Manage the Prevaling Economic Forces Pre-ExCom and ExCom 53rd Session Calendar |
|
A new report produced by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), entitled From Adjustment to Poverty Reduction: What is New?, takes a close look at the renewed efforts by the multilateral financial institutions to tackle poverty in Africa. The report suggests that a careful, frank and independent assessment of the effects on economic growth and income distribution of the packages on offer is required if such packages are to deliver on their promises.
After almost two decades of applying
structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), the report notes that poverty
levels in Africa have risen, slow and erratic growth are the norm,
rural crises have intensified and “de-industrialization”
has damaged future growth prospects. The report asks: “what is
new” with the new policy approach promoted by the Bretton Woods
institutions in the form of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs)?
It finds that the PRSP approach reaffirms the need for structural
reforms designed to accelerate the integration of the region into
the global economy—through liberalization, deregulation and privatization—as
the key to sustained and rapid growth. However, the approach also
recognizes that stabilization and adjustment policies may exert a
temporarily adverse impact on the poor, thus requiring safety nets
and targeted spending programmes to mitigate that impact.
Because growth may not automatically
trickle down to the poor, the new approach gives greater emphasis
to the public provision of primary education and health care. It also
emphasizes the principle of policy “ownership” based on
wide-ranging consultations with civil society and the poor, intended
to avoid “slippage” in implementation. However, the report
argues, ownership seems to be confined to the design of safety nets
without extending to macro-economic policies and development strategies.
Based on an examination of 27 PRSPs in Africa, the UNCTAD report concludes
that the macro-economic and structural adjustment policy content of
these papers shows “no fundamental departure from the kind of
policy advice espoused under…the Washington Consensus.”
Putting Growth and Equity at the
Forefront
Rapid trade and financial liberalization
is still expected to increase the access of the poor to financial
and other assets that could allow them to escape from poverty, says
the report. But any explanation of how this happens is missing from
the PRSPs,
and the record in Africa should caution against simple pronouncements.
The report argues instead for proper sequencing of reforms in line
with institutional capacities, effective regulation and management
of capital movements, and limited, time-bound protection for certain
industries so as to provide an opportunity for actively nurturing
the development of the industrial sector.
The report welcomes the attention given
to raising standards of education and health care. However, the recommendation
to combine fully funded primary education and basic health care with
across-the-board user fees for higher levels of education and health
care suggests a misplaced faith in markets as the fairest way to deliver
on these goals. The study shows that increased public expenditure
across all levels remains the surest way of reducing income inequality,
although differentiated subsidies and user fees, as well as a progressive
tax system, would ensure that the rich pay more for the provision
of such services.
Improving Governance: More Ownership,
Less Control
According to the report, a closer scrutiny
of the current strategies shows that reconciliation of country ownership
with ever-increasing conditions attached to aid and debt reduction
(going well beyond the original rationale of protecting the financial
integrity of the multilateral financial institutions) is proving to
be difficult and thereby casting a shadow on whether policies are
truly “owned” or merely designed to be acceptable to the
exigencies of lenders. The report recommends a “considerable
pruning” of the political conditionalities that have mushroomed
in recent years. Of the 114 conditions that, on average, are attached
to multilateral lending to countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the report
says, almost three-quarters are governance related.
International Issues
Expert Panel Discusses Report at
UNCTAD Board
Panellists concurred with the report
findings that, while the PRSP approach added new governance related
conditionalities and new provisions were made to cushion the social
impact of adjustment, the PRSPs' core macro-economic and structural
reform package remained similar to the earlier generations of SAPs.
It was noted that SAPs had been originally initiated as short-term
(2 to 3 years) stabilization programmes, but had persisted over the
past 20 years, and without delivering on the long-term gains that
painful short-term adjustments were purported to foster. One speaker
argued that the macro-economic model informing PRSPs had been proven
to be “deflationary” and yet presented as a vehicle to alleviate
poverty. He said that the World Bank predicts an average 3.5% growth
if the model is followed, although it has been estimated for a number
of years that an average 7% growth would be needed to alleviate poverty
in Africa. He added that the application of such economic prescriptions
over such a long period had led to an “accumulation of errors,”
resulting in a new breed of economies that were no longer responding
to normal policy signals and economic incentives.
During the discussions, the representative
of one developed country questioned the reason why panellists were
dwelling on the mistakes of the past in light of the fresh policy
thinking that has developed among international financial institutions
and the donor community. One panellist responded with the view that
it was fundamentally a question of accountability. Although Nobel
Prize laureate and former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz
had presented a watershed critique of the Washington Consensus in
1999-2000, critiques of SAPs had abounded well before then and went
back to the early 1980s. “Is it enough,” the panellist asked,
“to simply say that you have updated your knowledge? Is it correct
to go on experimenting economic models on poor countries without taking
responsibility?”
Among the other issues raised during
the meeting was the fact that aid was administered in small doses,
which meant that it could not act as a catalyst to give a boost to
African economies in order to reduce aid dependency in the longer
term. This, according to some participants, had led to a phenomenon
of “aid addiction.” One speaker invited the United States
to conduct a study that would compare the design of the post-World
War II Marshall Plan for European reconstruction with the current
regime that governs official development assistance (ODA) to developing
countries. The Marshall Plan, he argued, had been much more flexible,
and left more room for recipient countries to decide their own policies.
Some participants also argued that there
was a “democratic deficit” in the process of preparation
and implementation of adjustment programmes as they were undertaken
in such a manner that accountability had become externally oriented.
In effect, technocrats were far more answerable to Bretton Woods institutions
than to elected domestic parliaments, they suggested.
In addition to examining strategies
to overcome Africa’s commodity dependence, many participants
expressed the need to expand regional economic cooperation in order
to overcome the constraints of small domestic markets. Improvements
in physical infrastructure would greatly facilitate and promote regional
integration and cooperation. A regional approach to infrastructure
development would reduce infrastructure costs for individual countries
while creating larger economic spaces and expanding investment opportunities. Contact: Kamran Kousari, Special
Coordinator, Office of the Special Coordinator for Africa, UNCTAD,
Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland, telephone +41-22/907
5800, fax +41-22/907 0274, e-mail <kamran.kousari@unctad.org>,
website (www.unctad.org).
|
||
|
The General Assembly (GA) met on 16
September 2002 at UN headquarters in New York in a high-level plenary
session to consider how to support the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD). NEPAD was established by the Assembly of Heads
of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity, now
the African Union, at its 37th ordinary session held in Lusaka (Zambia)
from 9-11 July 2001.
Featuring more than 80 speakers, the
meeting was “a source of reflection on the difficult issues facing
the continent,” according to GA President Jan Kavan (Czech Republic).
Mr. Kavan emphasized the need for both African countries and the international
community to honour their respective commitments, while saying special
attention should be given to incorporating lessons learned from the
implementation of the UN New Agenda for the Development of Africa
in the 1990s (NADAF) into future policies and actions to support NEPAD.
Addressing the plenary, UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan said that NEPAD would not be successful if Africa failed
to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). “By framing
its aims around the Millennium Development Goals, NEPAD challenges
Africa’s development partners to deepen their commitment to global
poverty reduction. The NEPAD’s stated objective is to achieve
the overall 7% annual growth necessary for Africa to meet one of the
Millennium Development Goals—halving poverty by 2015. Meeting
this target requires more than doubling Africa’s recent growth
rates,” Mr. Annan said.
The Secretary-General emphasized that
peace and security were vital to development, and called for economic
programmes and projects to be combined with “real progress toward
ending conflicts and deepening the roots of peace.” He also highlighted
development cooperation, emphasizing the commitment African leaders
have made through NEPAD to making political and economic reforms in
order to achieve development, including “government with the
consent and the authority of the governed,” and ensuring accountability
and transparency. He called on the international community to demonstrate
partnership by strengthening its support for this effort.
South African President Thabo Mbeki
raised the question of how best to organize for the implementation
of NEPAD, stressing the importance of regional organizations and their
coordination with other actors in carrying out programmes. Nigerian
President Olusegun Obasanjo emphasized the importance of the African
Peer Review Mechanism, which is aimed at increasing the transparency
and accountability of African governments. President Abdoulaye Wade
of Senegal stressed that it was in the interest of the international
community to have Africa as a partner participating in international
commerce. Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika chose to emphasize
the role of peace and security, highlighting the Council of Peace
and Security created by the
African Union (AU) and the African Academy for Peace. He stressed
the need for political, technical, logistical and financial commitment
from the international community to support and complete efforts of
Africans in this field.
A representative of the European Community
said that the new pan-African level of governance-as conceived by
NEPAD-held great potential, while pointing out that civil society
and the private sector should also be allowed to make a contribution
to the integration process. He noted that the European Commission
would support the NEPAD process, and that its programmes in Africa
would now be reassessed in light of it.
UN Development Programme Administrator
Mark Malloch Brown stressed that major resource transfers to Africa
were required to meet NEPAD and MDG objectives. He noted that when
the problems of good governance, education and health had been addressed,
there would still be infrastructure challenges in Africa to be dealt
with. The role of enhanced official development assistance (ODA) levels
and aggressive encouragement of foreign direct investment (FDI)
to Africa were a crucial component, he said.
The GA then adopted the UN Declaration
on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, welcoming it
as an African Union-led, owned and managed initiative and a serious
commitment to addressing the aspirations of the continent. The Declaration
also welcomed the commitment of African countries to take effective
and concrete measures through the establishment of various institutional
mechanisms and the development of strategies for the implementation
of NEPAD.
That commitment, the Declaration said,
would reflect the recognition that the primary responsibility for
the implementation of NEPAD rested with African governments and peoples.
The Declaration affirmed that international support for the implementation
of NEPAD was essential, however, and urged the UN system and the international
community-in particular donor countries-to assist with NEPAD’s
implementation.
Introducing the report, Panel Chair
Kwesi Botchwey (Ghana) said that the performance of NADAF had been
far from satisfactory. Growth performance had averaged about 4%, well
below the target. ODA flows had actually fallen by 43%, from US$28.6
billion in 1990 to US$16.3 billion in 2000. Debt reduction initiatives
also failed to achieve the expected results, and, by April 2000, only
four countries had reached the prescribed level for debt cancellation.
There had also been little progress on the trade front, with a deterioration
of terms of trade and problematic issues of market access.
Among the lessons learned, Professor
Botchwey said the Panel found that “conflict and development
were mortal enemies,” and peace and stability were therefore
of primary importance. The model of international development cooperation
also needed to be revised from the dominant thinking that had guided
it over the past two decades, Professor Botchwey stressed. Commitments
made had to be kept by all parties, sustained advocacy for African
development had to be undertaken, and there was a need to increase
the efficiency and relevance of the UN. As to the way forward, the
Panel concluded that rather than spawning another new initiative,
the UN should throw its weight behind NEPAD.
In the ensuing discussion, speakers
raised questions on such issues as how to ensure a coherent UN response
to NEPAD. Several representatives, including Cameroon, asked why anyone
should believe that NEPAD would not suffer the same fate as its predecessors
with regard to the broken financial promises of the international
community. The donors who had committed themselves to NADAF, Cameroon
said, seemed to have disappeared.
Uganda noted several issues that were
missing from the Panel’s report, including Africa’s low
productive capacity, which it identified as one of the continent’s
major challenges. Infrastructure development, the absence of which
is a hindrance even to regional trade, and low-capacity development
of energy-a major weakness even in country programmes-were among the
other issues Uganda said the report had not addressed. Uganda emphasized
the importance of capacity building, noting that a key element in
attracting investment was the availability of skilled labour.
Regarding conflict, the representative
of the African Union (AU) said that among the root causes of conflict
was the problem of governance and public administration, which was
not always transparent. All the conflicts experienced in Africa over
the last ten years, excepting conflict in the Great Lakes region,
were domestic in nature, the AU representative noted, often due to
the exclusion of one section of the population. He emphasized the
importance of the African Peer Review Mechanism in this context.
The representative of the UN Conference
on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) noted that a major problem facing
African countries was the unavailability of resources for accumulation
and growth. In general, he said, African countries had been unable
to establish a virtuous cycle of savings, investment and export. Policies
were necessary to grant African exporters access to markets. To achieve
lasting solutions to debt as well as resources for human and infrastructure
development, there had to be a change in the international community’s
attitude towards African countries.
Additional sessions of the Ad Hoc Committee
are being devoted throughout the current GA session to the negotiation
of a draft resolution to define the international community’s
review of NADAF and its support for NEPAD. While expressing disappointment
at the limited progress in realizing the objective of NADAF, the draft
text currently endorses the recommendation of the Secretary-General
that NEPAD be the policy framework around which the international
community, including the UN system, should concentrate its efforts
for Africa’s development. The draft resolution is included in
the report of the Ad Hoc Committee (A/AC.251/L.2).
NGOs Hold Dialogues with Development
Partners
According to a panel on Governance,
Participation and Decision Making, held on 25 September 2002, the
crisis in governance in Africa is a result of the exclusion of critical
stakeholders in decision-making processes. Attention was drawn to
the exclusion of women, in particular, and the need to empower stakeholders
in building and sustaining good governance was emphasized. Participants
also criticized the trade of conflict diamonds, citing it as a contributing
factor to recurring civil wars in several African countries, and pointing
to a lack of good management in the diamond industry at the local
and international markets.
A panel on Poverty and Development Experiences
of Africa was held on 26 September 2002. Participants cited the decline
of official development assistance (ODA) and its combination with
deteriorating terms of trade as the main causes of poverty in the
continent. One participant said that the structural adjustment programmes
(SAPs) initiated by the Bretton Woods institutions had failed to reduce
poverty because of the stress caused by conditionalities and privatisation.
Panellists agreed that solutions could
not be imposed by international agencies but must emerge from national
and local initiatives. Citing the failure of macro-economic policies
to alleviate poverty, they emphasized the need for self-sustaining
micro-initiatives at the grassroots level to ensure economic development.
Access to credit, education, health services, improved infrastructure
and markets were also highlighted as means for achieving empowerment
and poverty reduction.
Some of the recommendations reached
during these dialogues included: the importance of vision as the “road
map” of any development process; the crucial need to promote
self-reliance while ensuring that people have access to education,
financial resources, services and the market; the need to ensure that
macro-policies do not negate countries’ initiatives; the central
role of women in all sectors of development; the recognition that
civil society has an important role in the process of development;
the acknowledgement of the international dimension of conflict prevention
and peace-building; and the need to find a solution to the twin problems
of poverty and disease. Contact: Office of the Special
Coordinator for Africa and the Least Developed Countries, One UN
Plaza, Room 1238, New York NY 10017, USA, fax +1-212/963 3892, email
<esa@un.org>, website (www.un.org/esa/africa/oscal.htm).
|
||
|
Progress in reducing world hunger has virtually come to a halt, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its annual report The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2002 (SOFI 2002). As a result of hunger, millions of people, including six million children under the age of five, die each year. FAO has also launched an international appeal for funding in 17 countries.
FAO estimates that there were around
840 million undernourished people in 1998-2000, 799 million in developing
countries, 30 million in countries in transition and 11 million in
industrialized countries. Between 1990-92 and 1998-2000, the number
of undernourished people decreased by barely 2.5 million per year,
and in most regions the number of undernourished people may actually
be growing.
FAO warns that unless trends are sharply
reversed, the world will be very far from reaching the 1996 World
Food Summit goal of reducing the number of hungry by half before 2015.
“The price we pay for this lack of progress is heavy,” said
FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf in the foreword to the report.
“The hungry themselves pay most immediately and most painfully.
But the costs are also crippling for their communities, their countries
and the global village that we all inhabit and share. To reach the
goal of the World Food Summit, the number of hungry people needs to
be reduced by 24 million each year from now until 2015.”
Dr. Diouf said, “We do not have
the excuse that we cannot grow enough food or that we do not know
enough about how to eliminate hunger. What remains to be proven is
that we care enough, that our expressions of concern in international
fora are more than rhetoric, that we will no longer accept and ignore
the suffering of 840 million hungry people or the daily death toll
of 25,000 victims of hunger and poverty.”
FAO credits the marginal gains in reducing
the number of hungry as the result of rapid progress in a few large
countries. “China alone has reduced the number of undernourished
people by 74 million since 1990-92. Indonesia, Viet Nam, Thailand,
Nigeria, Ghana and Peru have all achieved reductions of more than
three million. This helped to offset an increase of 96 million in
47 countries. If China is set aside, the number of undernourished
people in the rest of the developing world has increased by more than
50 million since 1990-92,” the report notes.
The report cites conflict as one of
the most common causes of food insecurity. War and civil strife were
the major causes in 15 countries that suffered exceptional food emergencies
in 2001 and early 2002. According to FAO, conflict in sub-Saharan
Africa resulted in losses of almost US$52 billion in agricultural
output between 1970 and 1997, a figure equivalent to 75% of all official
development assistance (ODA) received by the conflict-affected countries.
Estimated losses in agricultural output for all developing countries
averaged US$4.3 billion per year, enough to have raised the food intake
of 330 million hungry people to minimum required levels.
SOFI 2002 also emphasizes that secure
access to land is one of the key factors for food security, while
noting that severe poverty and hunger are concentrated among the landless
or farmers whose plots are too small to provide for their needs. More
than 30% of the rural poor in Latin America and the Caribbean are
landless. FAO says that improving access to land can have a major
impact on reducing poverty and hunger. Developing countries where
land was more equally distributed have made more rapid progress in
reducing the prevalence of hunger.
Growth of the agricultural sector is
also essential to reducing hunger and poverty, says FAO. However,
ODA to agriculture declined by 48% between 1990 and 1999.
According to the Anti-Hunger Programme
proposed by FAO, additional public investment of US$24 billion annually
would be needed to accelerate progress in reducing hunger and reach
the target of the World Food Summit. The investments should be focused
on poor countries with large numbers of undernourished people. The
global benefits of reducing the number of hungry by half would be
at least US$120 billion per year as a result of longer, healthier
and more productive lives for several hundred million people. FAO
has proposed that the financing of the investment be divided on average
equally between industrialized and developing countries.
State of Food and Agriculture 2002
This year’s SOFA 2002 features
two special chapters: Harvesting Carbon Sequestration Through Land-use
Change: A Way Out of Rural Poverty? and The Role of Agriculture and
Land in the Provision of Global Public Goods.
The report says that agriculture is
of key importance in the issue of climate change, both as one of the
sources of the problem and as a recipient of its impacts. According
to FAO, scientists estimate that about 80% of global carbon stocks
are stored in soils or forests and that a considerable amount of the
carbon originally contained in soils and forests has been released
as a result of agricultural and forestry activities and deforestation.
Agriculture and forestry practices sequester and fix carbon into the
soil, plants and trees through photosynthesis, reducing atmospheric
greenhouse gases.
Agriculture and forestry activities
have the potential to counteract the impact of emissions made elsewhere,
the report says, adding that this could be accomplished by reducing
deforestation, expanding forestry plantations, adopting agroforestry
schemes, reducing soil degradation, and rehabilitating degraded forests.
Whether poverty alleviation would improve
the environment, or improved environment could reduce poverty is unclear,
with the report noting that research and experience over the past
ten years have shown that there are no clear correlations or causal
links between poverty and resource degradation. However, it suggests
that paying farmers to adopt carbon-sequestering land-use methods
could play a role in promoting sustainable development among the poor,
and may also represent an important new way to finance such efforts.
“On the other hand, it would be wrong to believe that poor land-users
will necessarily benefit from such payments unless programmes and
policies are carefully designed to ensure they do,” said Hartwig
de Haen, FAO Assistant Director-General, Economic and Social Department.
Examining the role of agriculture and
land in the provision of global public goods, the report finds that
agriculture, fisheries and forestry have an importance beyond that
of providing the world with food and raw materials, and ensuring the
livelihoods of many. People employed in these sectors of the economy
play a role in managing resources that benefit the world at large.
“Through proper management of these resources, farmers, fishermen
and foresters provide a range of benefits to others, such as landscape
conservation, watershed protection, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem
stability and maintenance of fish stocks,” FAO says.
While these public goods are widely
recognized as benefiting large numbers of people, they cannot be expected
to be provided for free, and the report concludes that “mechanisms
for compensating the providers are necessary to ensure that socially
desirable levels of the good will be provided.”
Though the report calls for increased
international financial flows towards agriculture and rural areas
in order to promote the provision of global public goods, it questions
whether such increased financing can also contribute to global poverty
alleviation, saying this depends on specific circumstances and on
“the design of the mechanisms compensating the providers.”
One option would be to link additional
official development assistance flows to the effective mobilization
of domestic resources for the provision of global public goods. “A
particular challenge is to design mechanisms in such a way as to also
ensure an important contribution to poverty alleviation,” the
report suggests.
FAO Appeals for US$88.5 million to
Rehabilitate Agriculture in Disaster-stricken Countries
In related news, FAO on 19 November
launched an appeal of approximately US$88.5 million to carry out agriculture
relief aid in 17 countries and regions in 2003 where more than 60
million people are currently affected by food emergencies and are
in need of assistance. FAO is responsible for the agricultural part
of the United Nations Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeals 2003.
“Our call for funds is based on
conservative estimates,” said Fernanda Guerrieri, Chief of the
Emergency Operations Service. “We are calling for the real minimum
in priority countries where the needs are biggest. These countries
are either in a critical post-conflict situation or suffering from
a combination of conflicts and natural disasters.”
“The distribution of seeds, tools,
fertilizers and veterinary drugs and the provision of basic technical
assistance give people in the poorest countries the chance to regain
their self-sufficiency. People want to produce their own food. They
don’t want to be dependent on food aid.”
“Agriculture sometimes tends to
be overlooked by the donor community,” Mr. Guerrieri said. “Agriculture
is a complex sector which often doesn’t yield immediate results.
But agriculture is what rural people know and rely on. The development
of agriculture in the most vulnerable countries which provides the
basis of people's survival and can contribute to peace and stability.”
The largest part of the request seeks
funding for Sudan (US$19 million), Angola (US$12.7 million), the Democratic
Republic of Congo (US$12.4 million), where ongoing conflict, population
displacement, and weather conditions have created serious security
concerns, FAO said.
The other 14 countries included in the
appeal are the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Burundi, Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea, Uganda, Sierra Leone, West Africa, Guinea, Somalia,
Tajikistan, Eritrea, Indonesia, North Caucasus, Liberia, Great Lakes.
FAO’s Emergency Operations and
Rehabilitation Division is currently active in more than 70 countries.
Contact: John Riddle, Information
Officer, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, I-00100 Rome, Italy,
telephone +39-06/5705 3259, fax +39-06/5705 3699, e-mail <john.riddle@fao.org>,
website (www.fao.org). Anne M. Bauer, Director, Emergency
Operations and Rehabilitation Division (TCE), Technical Cooperation
Department, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy,
telephone +39-06/57054936, fax +39-06-57054941, e-mail <relief-operations@fao.org>,
website (www.fao.org/reliefoperations/default.htm).
|
||
| General Assembly Debate Opens on Economic Issues | ||
|
Speaking before the Second Committee of the General Assembly, UN Under-Secretary-General Nitin Desai said the past year has been an important year for policy development, and one in which the meetings of Doha (November 2001), Monterrey (March 2002), the World Food Summit: Five Years Later (June 2002), Johannesburg (August-September 2002), and other processes had set in train a “new multilateralism.”
Mr. Desai, in his address to the GA
committee that deals with economic and financial issues, suggested
that this new multilateralism involved the blurring of distinction
between procedural and substantive goals. Multilateralism, which has
traditionally been seen as essentially procedural—establishing
certain rules that should constrain national policy as it affects
other countries—is becoming more substantive in nature.
Conversely, international economic and
development cooperation in areas such as official development assistance
(ODA) and technical assistance have, in Mr. Desai’s words, “moved
beyond a voluntaristic framework into something akin to global rules.”
There are two types of rules: hard ones where treaty obligations are
involved as in the case of the environment and human rights, and soft
ones where a globally agreed programme is accepted as a basis for
national and international actions. “A good example of the latter
is the Millennium Development Goals,” Mr. Desai said.
Suggesting that the outcomes of the
World Trade Organization’s (WTO)
ministerial meeting in Doha and the International Conference on Financing
for Development (FFD) in
Monterrey have illustrated the fusion of procedural and substantive
goals, Mr. Desai went on to say that this has come largely as a result
of the UN conferences over the past decade providing a substantive
framework not just for international economic cooperation, but also
for the multilateral system of trade and finance. “Today, the
goals of international trade negotiation cannot be framed simply in
terms of liberalization and constraints on unilateral actions, but
also in terms of their contribution to promoting development and reducing
disparities among nations.” Similarly, countries were no longer
looking at their obligations regarding exchange rate and financial
policies in terms of provisions of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) Articles of Agreement, but
also in terms of the impact on the global flows of concessional and
market-based finance.
Speaking specifically about Monterrey,
Mr. Desai said the meeting and its preparatory process had led to
a sea change on the macro-economic policy front, in particular with
respect to the relationship between the UN, the international financial
institutions, the WTO, and the regional development banks. According
to Mr. Desai, as recently as four years ago, the issue of macro-economic
policy coordination was seen as something largely within the remit
of the institutions outside the UN proper—the WTO, IMF and World
Bank. The UN was therefore challenged to take up this new role and
keep the development agenda at the forefront of macro-economic policy
development and provide a platform for looking at issues of policy
coherence. He suggested that the UN system might consider looking
at such issues as trade, ODA and debt in a holistic fashion rather
than in a traditionally segmented way by its different bodies. He
challenged the Second Committee to consider new and interrelated issues
that have emerged, such as sovereign debt restructuring, the relationship
between trade and investment, international corporate governance and
accounting, and to ensure that development concerns were included
in their deliberations.
During the opening days of the Second
Committee, delegates also heard from economist and Nobel Prize laureate
Joseph Stiglitz who highlighted the costs and benefits of globalization.
While aspects of globalization had helped move forward ideas on democracy,
human rights and debt forgiveness, he said that the system had brought
instability and poverty to much of the world. He stressed that the
main characteristic of the system was its malfunctioning and its lack
of management, and, as a result, most developing and emerging economies
had experienced financial crises and were now poised to move towards
their second crises.
He pointed to several irregularities
in the system that he said were contributing to the instability of
the global economy, including the fact that the United States did
not live within its financial means and was the world’s largest
debtor; and that resources around the world did not necessarily flow
from rich to poor countries. Mr. Stiglitz drew attention to the problem
of debt servicing at a time when exchange rate fluctuations and changes
in interest rates had tremendous impact beyond national borders. He
suggested that the current debate on the resolution of sovereign debt
crises needed to conclude with more than agreement to broaden the
kind of collective action clauses already included in some bond issues,
as well as considering a universal legal framework that would facilitate
resolution between creditors and debtors.
Mr. Stiglitz said three main lessons
could be drawn from recent experiences of globalization: first, overcoming
the democratic deficit in decision making and not leaving economic
decisions solely to finance ministers; maintaining a balanced role
for both governments and markets in the economy; and not exacerbating
economic downturns by adopting contractionary policies. More information on the Second Committee
can be found online (www.un.org/ga/57/second/index.html).
|
||
| Globalization: How to Manage the Prevailing Economic Forces | ||
|
A panel under the theme of Managing Globalization was held at UN headquarters on 1 November 2002. It included included Eveline Herfkens, Executive Coordinator of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Campaign, Ann Pettifor of the New Economics Foundation, Roberto Bissio of Social Watch, and Adrian Wooldridge, correspondent for The Economist.
During the panel discussion, organized
by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), and the Second
and Third Committees of the General Assembly, panel participants were
unable to agree on how to manage the prevailing economic forces in
the world, although they did all agree that globalization could be
handled better for the majority of the world’s people, and that
for many globalization has meant worsening prospects.
Beginning the dialogue, Mr. Wooldridge
asked whether the events of 11 September 2001 had set off a chain
of events that would ultimately bring to an end the global integration
process that had been growing over the past decades. He suggested
that the attacks had contributed to what he called a “synchronous
sinking” of the world’s major economies, adding that terrorists
have “extraordinary capacity to disrupt economic life.”
He said it was necessary to push ahead with more globalization, pointing
to both India and China as countries that have made “gigantic”
economic progress in the past decade as a result of opening their
economies. However, he cautioned that it was necessary to find a way
to ensure that globalization would “lift all boats” rather
than just a few.
Ms. Pettifor drew a more critical picture
of globalization and suggested that if it was under attack it was
because citizens no longer felt they had redress through their elected
representatives, who had been stripped of their policy autonomy as
a consequence of ever more powerful integrated financial markets and
international financial institutions. She suggested that justice had
to be introduced into international finance and that co-responsibility
for debt crises should rest with both international creditors and
sovereign debtors.
Comparing the recent examples of Enron
and Argentina, Ms. Pettifor noted that Enron, due to US bankruptcy
procedures, was able to be “protected from creditors,” while
Argentina was “looted” by creditors and investors. She said
a procedure similar to US Chapter 9 (bankruptcy of governmental bodies)
was needed to deal with sovereign debt and warned against the current
Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM) being proposed by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), which would be dominated by the
IMF even though it is a major creditor in its own right.
Ms. Pettifor alternatively proposed
the “Jubilee Insolvency Framework,” which would be overseen
by the UN, be independent of both debtors and creditors, and be transparent
and accountable to civil society in debtor and creditor countries.
When challenged by a US representative on whether or not the UN was
capable of carrying out such a function, Ms. Pettifor suggested that
the UN, given its lead role in the MDGs, was best placed to determine
debt sustainability levels for countries, and would convene the panel
but would not run it.
On her first official day as Executive
Coordinator on the MDGs Campaign, Ms. Herfkens elaborated on the MDGs
and the prospect for achieving them in an era of globalization. She
said that globalization as such was not the problem but rather the
lack of capacity of States to deal with it. She envisaged strong States,
not ones weakened by globalization, which could enter into new coalitions
and alliances on specific issues, such as the Global Alliance for
Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
Mutual accountability as laid out in
the Monterrey Consensus in March 2002 would be the hallmark of work
around the MDGs, Ms. Herfkens said. When asked by the Ambassador of
India how industrialized countries would be monitored and held accountable
for their performance on development through the MDGs campaign, Ms.
Herfkens suggested that mutual accountability could start with trade
agreements that are currently being negotiated. She urged civil society
and international institutions to look at the Doha proceedings and
ask if those policies were supporting achievement of the MDGs.
Roberto Bissio told the audience that
civil society was taking the potential of the MDGs seriously, as well
as their use in holding governments accountable to their promises.
However, he stressed that governments and international institutions
also had to take them seriously, as seriously as they respected trade
agreements and conditionality frameworks. He also said that human
rights and other conventions should be taken just as seriously.
Mr. Bissio questioned the focus being
placed on service delivery when dealing with the MDGs. He said this
would allow international institutions to undermine a role that has
historically been carried out by governments. He criticized both the
World Bank and IMF in this regard and said that the General Agreement
on Trade in Services (GATS) was enforcing the client/server relationship
between citizens and their governments. He envisioned the MDGs and
the Millennium Declaration as being more of a “pact” between
governments and people that should include a broad range of issues
such as debt, trade, official development assistance (ODA), capital
controls, human rights, democracy and social development. More information on the Millennium
Development Goals can be found online (www.un.org/millenniumgoals/index),
and in NGLS Roundup 98.
|
||
| Pre-ExCom and ExCom 53rd Session | ||
|
The 53rd Session of the Executive Committee
(ExCom), the body of 61 Member States that guides and governs the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’
(UNHCR) work in the field, was held from 30 September-4 October 2002
in Geneva, and was preceded by NGO-UNHCR consultations, known as the
Pre-ExCom, from 25-27 September.
This year’s Pre-ExCom brought together
some 260 representatives from 180 national and international NGOs,
UN, and international organizations. Based on an evaluation of 2001’s
meetings, several refinements were made to Pre-ExCom 2002. The length
was reduced to two and one-half days and plenary sessions were limited
in favour of smaller, more issue-focused, roundtable meetings so to
encourage a better exchange on issues of concern and to optimize contact
among participants. To promote more dialogue among NGOs, ExCom members
and UNHCR, a special ‘linkage’ session was organized on
the last day of Pre-ExCom in which NGOs reported directly to ExCom
members on the outcome of their consultations.
Discussions on refugee protection centred
on the role of NGOs, the prevention of sexual exploitation of refugees
and the reception of asylum-seekers. The working sessions looked at
the operational side of refugee protection, including refugee and
staff security, standards and indicators in assistance and protection,
Geographic Information Systems, HIV/AIDS, the World Food Programme/UNHCR
Memorandum of Understanding, asset management and procurement, and
the challenges of financing humanitarian action. Five regional sessions
provided NGOs with the opportunity to discuss these issues and share
views with UNHCR’s senior staff. The increased restrictive asylum
and refugee policies of several countries and the follow-up to the
report on the practice of sexual exploitation by aid workers in West
Africa were also discussed.
High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud
Lubbers opened the Pre-ExCom. He defined partnership as “an evolving
effort from both sides,” stressed the necessity of learning from
each other, and underscored the need to work more with national NGOs.
Erika Feller, Director for the Department of International Protection,
spoke about the Agenda for Protection that resulted from the Global
Consultations process and which provides six main goals (and was later
adopted by the 53rd session of ExCom). She said it provided a framework
to help UNHCR and NGOs to engage governments, to look for improvements
in the implementation of the 1951 refugee Convention and its 1967
Protocol, and in the protection of asylum-seekers and refugees. UNHCR’s
Assistant High Commissioner, Kamel Morjane, reflecting on the challenges
facing UNHCR and NGOs, highlighted the need to find new ways of working
in a changed world in which refugees are a political rather than a
humanitarian matter, and emphasized the fact that NGOs are needed
to help implement the Agenda for Protection.
The NGO contribution forwarded to the
General Debate of the ExCom on 2 October addressed the issues of UNHCR
and Funding; the Agenda for Protection; Internally Displaced Persons;
Women and Children; Sexual Violence and Exploitation; Onward Movements;
Where is the Protection Focus?; Detention; Resettlement; Prevention
and Preparedness; Post-September 11; UNHCR and the Role of NGOs; and
Information.
53rd Session of the Executive Committee
Mr. Lubbers said that the recent 18-month
process of Global Consultations on international protection—involving
a wide array of government specialists, non-governmental agencies,
academics, judges and other refugee experts, including refugees themselves—had
produced a blueprint for future action known as the Agenda for Protection.
Listing the three main themes of the Agenda as better refugee protection,
more durable solutions and improved international burden sharing,
Mr. Lubbers said, “the time has now come for action.” The
Agenda sets out goals and objectives and enumerates specific activities
that will improve the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers worldwide.
While hailing the unanimous reaffirmation
by governments last December of the 1951 Refugee Convention, the cornerstone
of international refugee law, Mr. Lubbers said it had nevertheless
“become clear that on its own, the Convention does not suffice.”
He called for a new approach—the “Convention Plus”
approach—that would supplement the Convention in areas that it
does not adequately cover.
He cited a number of such areas that
could be addressed by the Convention Plus approach, with countries
in the North and South working together to find durable solutions
for refugees. “It concerns comprehensive plans of action in cases
of massive outflows,” he said. “It concerns agreements on
‘secondary movements,’ defining the roles and responsibilities
of countries of origin, transit, and potential destination, with regard
to asylum-seekers. It concerns better targeting of development assistance
in regions of origin, helping refugee-hosting countries to facilitate
local integration. It concerns post-conflict reintegration. And, last
but not least, it concerns multilateral commitments for resettlement.”
Amre Moussa, Secretary-General of the
League of Arab States also presented a statement to the ExCom expressing
the hope that UNHCR and the League of Arab States would pursue their
close relations and further develop their cooperation at a regional
level in order to respond to the protection needs of refugees. He
spoke of his concerns over the risk of massive displacements that
faced the Arab region at this point in time, and urged UNHCR and the
Executive Committee to play their roles as “guardians of humanitarian
principles.” He also expressed his concern over what he called
the repressive tendencies, including deportation and expulsion of
asylum-seekers as well as humiliation and indiscriminate accusations
of terrorism, affecting many persons of Muslim origin.
Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of
the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), addressed the ExCom
and spoke of the close working relationship between her agency and
UNHCR, particularly in facing the challenges of protection. She referred
to the General Assembly Special Session on Children held in New York
in May 2002 during which child participants had called upon world
leaders to provide greater protection for refugee and internally displaced
children. The outcome document of the Special Session, entitled A
World Fit for Children, aims to address a number of key child protection
concerns. Ms. Bellamy said the UNHCR/UNICEF Memorandum of Understanding
now underway would help to identify more specific areas for pooling
efforts and ensuring complementarity between the two agencies.
Addressing governments on 2 October,
UNHCR’s Director of International Protection, Erika Feller, stressed
that the Agenda for Protection “is not an abstraction, but is
directly relevant to the management of today’s asylum dilemmas.”
The Agenda sets out clear objectives, grouped according to six main
goals, and outlines a number of specific activities designed to support
them, include measures for preventing sexual and gender-based violence;
improving the protection of women and children; maintaining the civilian
character of refugee camps; clarifying responsibilities for refugee
protection during rescues at sea; and strengthening individual asylum
systems and procedures that are often cumbersome and prone to abuse.
Ms. Feller said UNHCR itself had already
begun to implement some of the measures contained in the Agenda, even
before it was officially endorsed and despite the constraints imposed
by UNHCR’s repeated funding crises.
“It is difficult to make protection
a meaningful concept where one field officer has responsibility for
three refugee camps,” she pointed out, while adding that the
agency had nevertheless found ways of deploying specialists to boost
urgent protection activities in understaffed locations.
On the last day of the 53rd session,
the 61 Member States endorsed the Agenda for Protection (A/AC.96/965/Add.1).
The Executive Committee also made recommendations on the reception
of asylum-seekers in the context of individual asylum systems, and
requested that action be taken to ensure respect for the civilian
and humanitarian character of refugee camps.
Closing the 53rd Session, Mr. Lubbers
said he was “delighted” the ExCom had endorsed the Agenda
for Protection and encouraged Member States to commit themselves to
the effective implementation of it. He also mentioned the creation
of a Forum, consisting of a group of experts, which would aim to develop
new tools to complement the Convention, particularly in special agreements
between States. The High Commissioner said a formal paper would be
circulated on the issue taking into consideration comments that had
been made.
Mr. Lubbers also described the NGO Pre-ExCom
meeting as “lively and constructive,” saying he was encouraged
by the strong message of support to UNHCR from the NGO community.
He also emphasized the importance of strengthening UNHCR’s partnerships
with organizations, agencies, as well as its traditional partners.
Contact: NGO Liaison Unit, Rue de Montbrillant
94, CH-1202 Geneva, Switzerland, telephone +41-22/739 8111, fax +41-22/739
7377, e-mail (HQNG00@UNHCR.CH)
website (www.unhcr.ch). International Council of Voluntary
Agencies (ICVA), 48, chemin du Grand-Montfleury, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland,
telephone +41-22/950 9600, fax +41-22/950 9609, e-mail <secretariat@icva.ch>,
website (www.icva.ch).
|
||
| CALENDAR | ||
|
|
Children Crime Disarmament Ecosoc/General Assembly Human Rights Information and Communications International Law Narcotic Drugs Population and Development Social Development Sustainable Development
|
|
|
|
|
|
