ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL OPENS 1997 SESSION; PRESIDENT CALLS FOR 'GENUINE DIALOGUE'
Press Release
ECOSOC/5700
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL OPENS 1997 SESSION; PRESIDENT CALLS FOR 'GENUINE DIALOGUE'
19970701 Holds Panel Discussion with Agency Heads On 'Operational Activities for International Development and Cooperation'(Reissued as received.)
GENEVA, 30 June (UN Information Service) -- The global problems of mankind were of such a dimension and profound nature that anything less than rational and unselfish behaviour could not lead to a better, less troubled world, the President of the Economic and Social Council said this morning in opening this year's session.
History might have caused a heavy burden on mutual relations and resulted in sometimes emotional interpretations of the current global situation, said the President, Vladimir Galuska of the Czech Republic, but such perspectives should be abandoned. He called on national delegations to engage in a "genuine dialogue" on economic and social development, poverty eradication, empowerment of women, basic human rights, and education for all.
The morning meeting also featured an "informal dialogue" on "operational activities of the United Nations for international development and cooperation" with James Gustave Speth, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme; Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund; Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the World Food Programme; and Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund.
After delivering opening statements, the panellists responded to questions from country delegates on, among other things, the functioning of the resident-coordinator system and efforts to improve cooperation with the Bretton Woods institutions: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
In other action this morning, the 54-member Council adopted its agenda and work programme for the session and reviewed upcoming activities under its "high-level segment", which will take place from Wednesday, 2 July, through Friday, 4 July.
The Council will reconvene this afternoon at 3 p.m. to continue its "informal dialogue" with agency chiefs. The Council's 1997 meetings will run through 25 July. (For background information on the session, see Press Release ECOSOC/5698 of 23 June.)
Statements
VLADIMIR GALUSKA (Czech Republic), President of this year's session, said that the period after the United Nations fiftieth anniversary had seen a growing consensus that more substantial reform of the United Nations structure and its work was urgent and necessary; some reform proposals and initiatives already had been announced, and the second track of the reform process would be announced in mid-July; it was hoped that during his visit to the Council later this week Secretary-General Kofi Annan would provide a preview of the upcoming reforms.
This year's session had tasks still unfinished and waiting for further progress -- substantial progress -- such as the revision and streamlining of the Council's subsidiary bodies, Mr. GALUSKA said. The issue was not whether some important topics would be eliminated from the United Nations agenda as some might fear; the issue was the extremely high risk of making work less efficient because of spending too much time and effort struggling with heaps of reports, papers, meetings, and negotiations, which could and should be organized more efficiently and more rationally. He appealed to all at the meeting not to waste time with empty speeches and senseless arguing, but to focus strictly on the basic problems everyone was here to solve.
Consultations were sometimes hampered by tacit, though still existing lack of confidence among parties concerned, the President said; though well-hidden, there was a feeling that "others" had a hidden agenda through which "our" substantive or important interests might be harmed. A new style of thinking and understanding must be adopted and must prevail. Similarly, history might have caused a heavy burden on mutual relations and resulted in sometimes emotional interpretations of the current situation; this should be abandoned. The global problems of mankind were of such a dimension and profound nature than anything less than rational and unselfish behaviour could not lead to a better, less troubled world.
Seven global conferences dealing with urgent social, economic, or environmental issues had been held in the last few hears, the President said; the Council had attended and was now in the position of reviewing the results and the coordination of the follow-ups to those meetings.
The President said the major topic of this year's high-level segment, moreover, was extremely important: an enabling environment for development. One of the major problems of the world was the issue of economic and social development including the questions of growth, poverty eradication,
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empowerment of women, basic human rights, and problems of education for all and for girl children especially. It was hoped that this year's segment would be a genuine discussion, not a series of monologues, although the meeting was still somehow bound to the "classical" model of United Nations negotiation, the usual series of statements.
NITIN DESAI, Under-Secretary General in Charge of the Economic and Social Department, said it was important that the Council now had an agreed agenda for development, adopted by the General Assembly; it laid out both conceptual and priority issues for the work of the United Nations on development; and this year's session could take that plan into account. In addition, there was the General Assembly Special Session focusing on a review five years after the Rio de Janeiro "Earth Summit". It was very important to focus attention on implementation of the conclusions of the Rio summit and the Special Session. Some reforms -- including reform of the Council -- already had been completed, he added, along with administrative rearrangements to make United Nations Secretariat work more streamlined and effective and so provide the Council with a unified Secretariat with which to deal.
It was to be hoped that the new structure would bring to the Council's attention what could be called "emerging issues" -- issues that were new and of important, that needed substantive reaction from the United Nations system, Mr. DESAI said. He agreed with the President that the Council needed at this meeting more of a dialogue and less of a series of formal statements; flexibility of format was needed to reach conclusions on important issues.
JIN YONGJIAN, Under-Secretary General for General Assembly Affairs and Conference Services, said the Council had evolved significantly over the last five years, and this session would reflect the many positive changes resulting from the restructuring and revitalizing process. The Council had streamlined its agenda and avoided duplicative debates. Yet important issues remained prominent, like the theme for the high-level segment, namely, "Fostering an enabling environment for development: financial flows, including capital flows: investment and trade". Mr. YONGJIAN noted that this was the first session of the Council to be serviced under new arrangements outlined by the Secretary-General. Among these was the establishment of a Department of General Assembly Affairs and Conference Services integrating the major technical secretariat support services for the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and their subsidiary bodies. With the cooperation of all concerned, the provision of technical secretariat support to endeavors in the economic, social and related fields would be significantly enhanced by the new arrangements.
Panel Discussion
JAMES GUSTAVE SPETH, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said informal dialogue enhanced the formal
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debate of the Council. He would concentrate on what had been achieved in the fields of coordination and capacity building. Concrete progress had been achieved on the first track. Guidelines had been established for the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) and a pilot test in ten countries would take place soon. There was also a strong resident-coordinator system which could be improved. The pool for recruiting the coordinator was widening, as well as which entity and country the person came from. UNDP played a major role, financially and in other ways, in helping the resident-coordinator system. But the system had many weaknesses and shortcomings, and there was much that could be done.
Dr. NAFIS SADIK, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, said in her introductory statement that UNFPA was pleased to report considerable progress on each of the Council's recommendations of last year on capacity building and field and regional level coordination, although the agency recognized that much more needed to be done. UNFPA had reinforced its primary commitment to programme countries by trying to ensure that it actually contributed to capacity building, rather than funding activities which were sustainable only with outside support; it had been very active and had contributed to the Inter-Agency Task Forces and other system-wide initiatives; it was "operationalizing" core programme areas: reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health; population and development strategies; and advocacy. It attached great importance to monitoring and evaluation.
In all efforts, Dr. SADIK said, UNFPA's motivation was country-driven; the agency agreed wholeheartedly on the need for streamlining and simplifying guidelines and procedures; and it supported the Secretary-General's efforts for United Nations reform. It had always supported and would continue to support the resident coordinator system and looked forward to its strengthening, and it emphasized the need to separate that system from any one organization to ensure impartiality and the coordinator's capacity to represent all mandates and issues equally well.
CATHERINE BERTINI, Executive Director of the World Food Programme, said the organization had undertaken a number of reforms to remain effective and efficient in changing circumstances, and that the reforms had involved both headquarters and field staff. These measures would be fully in effect by the start of 1998. Among other things, by then nine out of eleven anticipated regional offices would be in place to allow decision-making closer to the beneficiaries and implementation partners; increased delegation of authority would be made to regional managers and country directors, giving them greater responsibility for the results and more accountability; management skills would be strengthened; headquarters staff would be downsized and restructured to provide stronger support to the field; and headquarters activity would be focused more than in the past on development of strategies and policies and setting of priorities.
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In addition, Ms. BERTINI said, there had been constitutional reform at WFP, including transformation of its governing body, proposed new arrangements about the role of WFP in the United Nations system, and proposed revisions to the general regulations of WFP. The agency also was contributing strongly to the broader United Nations reform process.
CAROL BELLAMY, Executive Director of UNICEF, in her introductory statement, said she was deeply committed to the reform process in UNICEF and within the United Nations system. UNICEF's Management Excellence Programme was the most obvious evidence of its commitment to reform. UNICEF had developed a clear set of principles and professional standards for all staff. It had clarified accountability and overall interrelationships between our Headquarters and country and regional offices and had also implemented systems improvements like integrated budgets, and reduced cycle times for procurement and delivery of supplies. It had shared its experiences and results with other United Nations partners and this had enabled it to implement field programmes more effectively and to coordinate more efficiently with sister United Nations agencies.
More effective management models for the Resident Coordinator System involving support from all participants were being designed, she said; and she stressed that the key to the future role and functioning of United Nations operational activities had to be results at the country level, and results had to be measurable and verifiable. The United Nations system also needed to become more results-oriented; and there was a critical need to update, simplify and make more relevant the vast system of rules, regulations and procedures that the United Nations had. Closer work with the Bretton Woods Institutions was needed.
Questions from the floor dealt with such topics as "South-South" cooperation as reflected in the operations of such agencies; with possible country representation on the board of any unified development system; and about intergovernmental systems for setting priorities on development issues in times of crisis; about efforts to improve communication and cooperation with the Bretton Woods institutions, and what progress had been made; and about what problems had been encountered with the resident-coordinator system; about what were the prospects for increased resources for programme activities; about how the system of resident coordinators could be strengthened and other steps taken to improve efficiency and coordination in the field; and about the level of cooperation in the field between United Nations agencies and the Bretton Woods institutions.
Among other responses, Mr. SPETH said UNDP allocated 5 per cent of its budget to South-South cooperation, and took the matter very seriously, and that it would help to have an "intergovernmental forum" involved in such matters as post-conflict reconstruction; he added that review and consideration of relations with the Bretton Woods institutions was leading
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UNDP to the conclusion that such efforts should be made "in-house", and that efforts to improve the resident-coordinator system included development of much more detailed job descriptions and guidelines and principles that would help such officials to balance their duties and function effectively.
Dr. SADIK said, among other things, that UNFPA had a major initiative -- two programmes -- called "South-South" cooperation, focusing on such matters as "centres of excellence"; a new programme, moreover, stressed "North-South" cooperation on such topics as reproductive health and featuring the help of various non-governmental organizations (NGOs); that a potentially merged board on development would be up to the Secretary-General, but that there was concern at UNFPA that experts in population issues from developing countries be assured participation in important policy-making decisions; that the Council needed to refine its "rationalization" of boards and committees so that the system was less complicated and more unified in its actions and decision making; that resident coordinators needed to receive sets of coherent instructions, setting out which priorities were the most important, and needed to know well and represent the mandates of the agencies they represented -- in some cases, for example, they clearly had difficulties advocating such issues as "family planning"; and that UNFPA was carrying out a number of projects in cooperation with the World Bank.
Ms. BERTINI said, among other things, that last year, 65 per cent of the food purchased by WFP was purchased in developing countries, amounting to some $166 million; that procurement offices in the field, including Africa, were being strengthened; that other South-South cooperation measures included support for national food assistance programmes; that the capacities of national offices were being increased; that at least 50 per cent of WFP resources were spent, by policy, in least-developed countries; that it would be useful for the Council to develop policies for how various agencies could respond to emergency situations; that there were indeed problems with resident coordinators, and the agencies were working jointly on reforms to take into account a number of issues, although it was "frustrating" that "radical reforms" had not been undertaken; that donors were increasingly "tying" their donations to various projects or causes, in some cases limiting the responsiveness and flexibility of agency aid programmes; and that working relationships with the World Bank were increasing in number, although not especially in emergency situations.
And among Ms. BELLAMY's replies were that South-South programmes under UNICEF included cooperation between developing countries presenting reports before the Committee on the Rights of the Child, to share knowledge and experience, and sharing of experience between ministers of health and education in developing countries on such vital matters as oral rehydration therapy and girls education; that informal, inter-sessional meetings of country representatives were quite important to UNICEF and helped greatly with coordination; that any unification of agency boards should not lose sight of
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the importance of keeping programmes to aid children free of any politicization; that problems involving resident coordinators ranged from dealing with the UNDAF to accommodating different programming cycles to balancing issues of common premises and coping with difficult field circumstances; that it was a challenge to select the best candidates for resident coordinator positions and to develop the best guidelines for their operations; that financial resources for development had been declining, and priorities had changed, for example, to reflect concerns of donor countries with their own regions; that bilateral aid had increased, leaving multi-lateral agencies "at the bottom of the barrel"; and that coordination with Bretton Woods institutions had been increasing "quite dramatically", as evidenced, among other things, by programmes on girls' education and post-conflict reconstruction.
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