NEW MULTILATERALISM REQUIRES GREATER UN ROLE, SECRETARY-GENERAL TELLS MALENTE SYMPOSIUM XI, IN LUBECK, GERMANY
Press Release
SG/SM/6084
NEW MULTILATERALISM REQUIRES GREATER UN ROLE, SECRETARY-GENERAL TELLS MALENTE SYMPOSIUM XI, IN LUBECK, GERMANY
19961017 Following is the text of an address delivered today by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali at the eleventh Malente Symposium in Lübeck, Germany:It is wonderful to be here in Lübeck -- a city which is a continuing inspiration for the United Nations.
This historical city has always looked outward. Lübeck has always understood that peace, prosperity and progress are globally linked.
The Hanseatic League of Cities, headed by Lübeck, showed us how different governments could deliberate and cooperate for the mutual benefit of all. The Hanseatic League developed a network of trade and political contacts, bringing together vast regions of the world, and reinforcing international trade as a common link between East and West.
All this is symbolized by your city's historic centre, which the United Nations Economic and Social Council has declared to be an important part of the world's heritage. So, it is most appropriate that this city and this symposium take up one of the great issues of our time: the integration of economies in transition into the world economy.
This is a time of transition in every part of the world, and in every aspect of human society. But the transition you have come here to consider and to advance is unique.
No precedents and no proven theories exist to show the way for countries with central planning to adopt market-oriented economies. We are all exploring uncharted territory.
Economic aspects of transition are probably the most visible, now that profound changes in political systems have been made. Yet we should not forget that economic transition was not inspired by economic considerations alone. It was a complex movement involving social, political, security, humanitarian, cultural as well as economic aspects. This is profoundly significant as far as the role of the United Nations is concerned.
The United Nations, as a family of institutions covering cooperation in almost all spheres of human activity, is uniquely suited to address the components of transition in all their interrelationships.
Today, therefore, I should like to share with you the broad lines of my understanding of the transition process, and my views on the role of the United Nations in this transition.
There was uncertainty about the effect of the political changes that took place in this part of the world in 1989 on other parts of the world community. The first challenge was to mobilize the international community in the interest of a peaceful transition. It was the first time in history that countries with central planning opted to change to market-oriented systems. There were no proven theories showing the ways of practical implementation of transition. There were only high hopes both in these countries and in the international community.
To meet the challenge of peace, the United Nations, with the collaborative action of several Member States, came to assist in making and keeping peace in some of the republics of the former Yugoslavia and Georgia.
The second challenge for the United Nations has been to provide a platform for dialogue to help elaborate shared values, enhance common understanding and promote practical cooperation between transition economies and the world community.
During the years of the cold war, countries could be divided into three groups: countries with a market economy; centrally planned economies; and developing countries. Gradually, however, developing countries adopted and adapted, with varying degrees of success, features of one of the two great models: allocation by the market or allocation by central decision-making.
With the end of the cold war, however, the division of world economic systems into three separate groups was further complicated.
We can now look at the world as consisting of four types of economic system: countries with market economies; countries in transition from central planning to a market economy; developing countries in transition to a market economy, and countries with economic priorities reflecting the transition from a crisis economy -- for instance due to civil war -- to a stable market economy.
In other words, the vast majority of the world is undergoing a transition to the market, but the conditions in which this transition takes place differ according to different historical specificities.
- 3 - Press Release SG/SM/6084 17 October 1996
The problem is further complicated by the fact that the goal posts have shifted. The market economy of the 1990s is not the market economy of the 1950s or 1960s. We are looking today at an increasingly globalized economy, especially in the areas of financial flows, production decisions, information networks and trading areas. So all countries are in transition to a globalizing economy. This is a challenge for all -- and for economies seeking to change the way resources are allocated, it is an added complication.
Another aspect of the transition is that in many cases it has been accompanied by an equally significant transition from a single-party to a multi-party political system.
Societies in transition thus have to bear the strains of transition from one political system to another, from one economic system to another, and from a local or regional system to a global economy. A further complication is that these different transitions each proceed at a different pace, and with different constraints. The pressures on society are thus quite severe.
And just as the goal of a market economy has changed, so too has the political goal. At the same time as countries move to change their internal political system, they find that they are challenged to interact with a rapidly changing international political system. For many newly independent States, this is an exhilarating, though difficult process -- especially as the international political system of the past now includes new actors such as major municipalities, non-governmental organizations, and regional organizations.
These then are the challenges of the period of transition in which the whole world finds itself. The aspects of this transition are so interconnected that it has become not only a challenge to the countries with economies in transition, but to the entire international community.
A new international system is in gestation. It is the historical mission of the United Nations, at the close of the twentieth century, to bring this new system into existence, to reinforce its positive features, and to strengthen the new participants in this system. The times call for an unprecedented degree of international cooperation: a new multilateralism.
This new multilateralism involves agents such as the private sector and non-governmental organizations. The former Hanseatic League was one of the most successful non-governmental organizations in history. Like the United Nations, it too had to change and adapt with the times. Today's Hanseatic days are a brilliant example of such adaptation.
The new multilateralism has many aspects calling for a greater role for the United Nations.
- 4 - Press Release SG/SM/6084 17 October 1996
The United Nations has worked to end the conflicts left pending by the end of the cold war. In Mozambique, in Cambodia, in Nicaragua, the United Nations has sought to bring together the conflicting parties and to embark upon the transition to a post-cold-war era. This has not been easy, and we are still working to build peace, where we have been able to end war. In Angola, in Afghanistan, the United Nations is facing a most difficult task, but I am confident that we shall be able, there too, to bring the cold war to an end.
The United Nations can support the domestic political transition to a multi-party system. In 1992, I set up an electoral assistance unit at Headquarters in order to develop and coordinate electoral assistance to countries which request it. In the past year alone, 25 requests for electoral assistance from the United Nations have been received.
Based on Member State requests, the United Nations provides several types of electoral assistance: coordination and support; organization and conduct; technical support; follow-up and report (short-term observation); and verification. The most notable examples of United Nations electoral assistance in the last year took place in Azerbaijan, Haiti and Sierra Leone.
The United Nations, by setting up country offices in various countries, brings them the benefit of cooperation, not only with the United Nations as such, but also with the various agencies of the United Nations system in a coordinated manner.
Such offices, especially in the newly independent countries, offer to countries in transition services related to development, economic liberalization, political and information support, and assistance with integration into the international system. The United Nations, through its country offices, also provides support in dealing with specific problems of political transition, such as the protection and resettlement of refugees and displaced populations.
Most importantly, by setting up a system of relations between the international community and the countries with economies in transition, the United Nations helps these countries become an integral part of the international system.
The gradual integration of the transitional economies in the European Union is fundamental in this regard. Germany had already shouldered a great share of the burden by assisting the transition economies in the difficult change from centrally-planned to market-based economies. The United Nations, through its regional commissions, provides national and regional support for development efforts of the countries in transition. Through the regional
- 5 - Press Release SG/SM/6084 17 October 1996
commissions, countries with economies in transition are able to obtain technical assistance in following common standards in areas such as trade, transport and information.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) is helping transition countries simplify import-export operations through a standard electronic system, known as EDIFACT, for administration, commerce and transport.
Since the end of 1990, ECE has been involved in organizing almost 200 training workshops on issues relevant to the transition process. Since July 1994, ECE Regional Advisory Services Programme carried out more than 140 missions in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, central and eastern Europe, the Baltic States and donor countries. Assistance to Georgia culminated in the elaboration of a medium-term strategy for economic reconstruction, recovery and reform. A similar programme is being implemented in Tajikistan.
The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has continued to support countries with economies in transition. With national workshops on macroeconomic reform in the central Asian republics. By mobilizing private sector financial resources for infrastructural development in Indo-China, and through assistance to such countries as Uzbekistan and Viet Nam in the formulation of macroeconomic simulation models.
The practice of holding international conferences and meetings, and the regular work of United Nations intergovernmental bodies in the 1990s, has involved newly independent countries and countries in transition, in all its work. In addition,there has been an increasing role for these countries in the peace-keeping activities of the United Nations. Apart from the intrinsic values of these meetings and of this participation in peace-keeping, they also serve as forums to help newly independent countries become an active part of the international community.
I want to conclude this talk by returning to my initial comment: countries with economies in transition are not only the countries of Eastern europe or central Asia. In Africa, in Latin America, and in Asia, countries are undertaking tremendous efforts to transform their economies, and to adjust to the new realities of the globalizing world economy.
These countries, however, are burdened by debt, by a declining share in world trade, and by low levels of foreign investment. The United Nations is helping these countries create an environment more favourable to investors, and reform their economic systems so as to become efficient contributors to the world economy.
- 6 - Press Release SG/SM/6084 17 October 1996
The world is embarking on a new transition, even as we live through the transition that characterized the end of the cold war. This new transition is a transition from a North-South system where a growing gap separates States and peoples, to an era of international cooperation for development and a new multilateral diplomacy of development.
The material aspects of the transformation are important. But they are not the most important. Higher living standards and democratization are only instruments; the true aim of the transition process is to empower individual citizens. This means that they must have knowledge and the freedom to use it. They need access to information and a universally accessible education system. Health and education are fundamentally important -- in their own right and for the functioning of the economy. The transition from a centrally planned to a market economy came to us all of a sudden, as if by surprise. The first part of the transformation -- dismantling the old system and laying the foundations for the new -- is probably over for many European countries. The response to the challenges of the next phase, however, will be vital in defining the form of the market economy that is chosen and the quality of success in economic growth.
Now we must be prepared for the transformation of economies and societies throughout the whole world community. We must be able to manage change in the way North and South relate to each other.
The United Nations has been and will be indispensable to this great transformation. It is a marvellous mechanism at the service of all the peoples of the United Nations.
* *** *