UN FINANCIAL CRISIS AFFECTING OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL AT DEVELOPMENT PLEDGING CONFERENCE
Press Release
SG/SM/5803
DEV/2073
UN FINANCIAL CRISIS AFFECTING OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL AT DEVELOPMENT PLEDGING CONFERENCE
19951031 CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY Following is the text of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's statement to the United Nations Pledging Conference for Development Activities held at Headquarters on 1 November:These are difficult times for the development work of the United Nations. Funds are running out. The global economic climate is not good. Many developing countries, especially the poorest among them -- including many African countries -- have stagnant economies and declining per capita incomes. The living standards of millions of people are actually falling. Statistics showing global rates of growth do not tell the whole story. We should not forget that 1.2 billion people still survive on daily incomes of one dollar or less.
Last year I noted that official development assistance (ODA) in 1993, at 0.29 per cent of gross national product (GNP), was the lowest ratio reported since 1973. Since then, the need for development aid, far from diminishing, has increased. But ODA for 1994 was at the same level as 1993: 0.29 per cent. For most recipient countries, drops in official flows have not been compensated by private capital flows.
The financial crisis facing the United Nations is not, then, confined to the United Nations regular budget and peace-keeping and humanitarian operations. It is also impacting on the operational activities of the United Nations system for development. Development needs, the development challenges that the system is being called upon to address, are growing, both in range and in complexity. Levels of development aid channelled through the United Nations system are, however, declining.
The operational activities of the United Nations system for development are a vital component of multilateral development cooperation. All development, in its essence, is local. Activities undertaken at the country level are key to the credibility of the United Nations system. If sufficient
resources are not made available to the United Nations funds and programmes, not only will their efficiency and effectiveness be impaired. The larger profile of the United Nations system will be affected.
The stakes involved in voluntary contributions pledged to United Nations funds and programmes go beyond the viability of operations in the field; they touch the very heart of United Nations development cooperation in its broadest dimensions. At a time when there is a growing perception that the profile of the United Nations in development should be highlighted, contributions to its funds and programmes assume special importance.
In 1994, contributions to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) from governments and other sources, including cost- sharing, amounted to just over $3 billion. The trend of substantially increased resources being channelled through trusts and other special-purpose funds, at the expense of core, central funding, continued in 1994. This further diminished the flexibility and viability of country-level activities.
Member States, recognizing the importance of funding of operational activities, began, in 1993, a process of intergovernmental consultations through General Assembly resolution 48/162, to place the funding system on a more predictable, continuous and assured basis. Consultations over the past two years have not yielded the expected results, a matter of considerable concern to the United Nations system, and to developing countries.
Placing the funding of the operational activities of the United Nations system on a more secure and stable basis is essential if their efficiency and effectiveness is to be enhanced. This session, the General Assembly will be conducting its triennial policy review of operational activities. It will be reviewing the progress made and problems faced in the implementation of its resolution 47/199. My report, in document A/50/202, offers a broad range of recommendations to serve as a basis for deliberations and decisions on this important matter. I look forward to a full discussion of the issues raised. In my view, it would be a mistake to conduct this review merely on issues of efficiency of the means of delivery, divorced from the crucial questions of governance and funding.
The fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations, and the deliberations of the General Assembly on my Report on An Agenda for Development, provide a window of opportunity. We should unite our efforts at this time to revitalize United Nations system development cooperation, and to reverse the trend of declining resources for operational activities.
I would now like to make a few comments on the specific requirements of the United Nations funds and programmes.
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UNDP, as the central funding, planning and coordinating agency for technical cooperation in the United Nations system, plays a key role. UNDP is now focusing its efforts on sustainable human development -- on programmes that help alleviate poverty, create employment, advance the status of women and protect the environment.
UNDP allocates most of its core resources to the poorest countries with a per capita income of $750 or less. Since UNDP's programmes are planned on a multi-year basis, core funding, by providing greater predictability and security of resources, directly contributes to UNDP's objectives. Unfortunately, the 8 per cent annual growth foreseen by the UNDP Executive Board for the present programme cycle (1992-1996) has not, so far, been attained. On the contrary, shortfalls have necessitated drastic reductions of IPF allocations to 70 per cent.
In June 1995, the UNDP Executive Board adopted a new three-year programming framework and established, for planning purposes, the figure of $3.3 billion for core resources for the three-year period starting in 1997. A high level of core resources is vital to UNDP's ability to attain its central goal of sustainable human development and poverty alleviation.
I therefore appeal most strongly to Member States to show their commitment to development and to the important contribution that UNDP makes by providing, for 1996, a level of resources commensurate with the enormous tasks that lie ahead.
UNICEF serves the world's most vulnerable populations, children and women, through programmes in most developing countries. It is also an important advocate, globally, for the needs and rights of children and women.
While the unprecedented number and scale of emergency situations during the last few years have commanded significant attention from governments and the public, as well as from UNICEF, the bulk of UNICEF's efforts has continued to be directed to combatting the "silent emergencies" facing children around the world -- the insidious combination of diseases, malnutrition and poverty - - through development activities with a long-term perspective. For these activities, it is particularly important that UNICEF be assured of predictable general resource funding.
UNICEF operates through a network of more than 200 offices in 115 countries, where some 85 per cent of all UNICEF staff live full-time, and some 95 per cent of all UNICEF programme expenditures are made. Its decentralized structure allows UNICEF to respond rapidly to the changing needs of women and children, as well as to emergency situations.
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UNICEF's cooperation, within the framework of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is in many countries guided also by National Programmes of Action prepared in response to the 1990 World Summit for Children. UNICEF also assists governments to fulfil their commitments made at the recent International Conference on Population and Development, the World Summit on Social Development and the Fourth World Conference on Women, as they pertain to the survival and development of poor children and women.
The strength and effectiveness of UNICEF cooperation is based on the country programme process. An ongoing dialogue between UNICEF and the government for identification of country specific needs of poor children and women, and appropriate modalities to address them, underpins programme implementation and planning for the subsequent programme cycle. These programmes are built around cost-effective approaches and encourage restructuring of public expenditures towards basic social services for children.
This year marks the first anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo. ICPD was a landmark global meeting because it started a new era in our thinking about population and development. The Programme of Action unanimously adopted at ICPD goes beyond population numbers and demographic targets and places human beings, rather than population numbers, at the centre of all population and development activities. Investing in people's health and education is seen as the key ingredient of sustained economic growth and sustainable development, as well as of balanced sustainable population growth. Indeed, reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health, female education and a general improvement in the status of women are some of the best ways of combatting poverty around the world.
As part of the follow-up to the ICPD, an Inter-Agency Task Force has been established, with UNFPA as the lead agency, to enhance system-wide collaboration in the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action, with particular emphasis on the country level. I am pleased that this Task Force has made quick and tangible progress. It has produced, for example, a set of practical "guidelines" for use within the resident coordinator system.
Although we are making every effort to organize support to implement the goals of ICPD, the objectives of the Programme of Action cannot be achieved unless the necessary financial resources can be mobilized. Currently, around $5.6 billion is available for global population assistance. Approximately 75 per cent of this amount comes from developing countries. By the year 2000, the ICPD Programme of Action calls for $17 billion annually, from both domestic and external resources, for the implementation of national reproductive health programmes, including family planning and sexual health, as well as other basic activities for collecting and analyzing population
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data. Approximately one third of this amount, or $5.7 billion, is expected to come from the international donor community.
The mobilization of resources to the level of $17 billion over the next five years is a formidable challenge. However, it is very encouraging to see that many developing countries have responded enthusiastically to ICPD. They are now giving greater attention to social sector investment, including programmes in reproductive health, family planning and sexual health. A number of donor countries have already indicated their intention to increase significantly their resources for population. I strongly encourage all countries to continue the momentum begun in Cairo, and to provide necessary resources to achieve the goals of the ICPD Programme of Action.
We face mounting challenges in development. Political will needs to be sustained. Development fatigue must be resisted. I ask you to look beyond narrow, short-term, domestic interest. Let us together look to the future, to peace and security in their broadest sense.
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