UNITED NATIONS REFORM NECESSARY TO EQUIP ORGANIZATION TO RESPOND TO CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING AGENDA FOR DEVELOPMENT, STATES SECRETARY-GENERAL

1 December 1997

Press Release
GA/EF/2801

UNITED NATIONS REFORM NECESSARY TO EQUIP ORGANIZATION TO RESPOND TO CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING AGENDA FOR DEVELOPMENT, STATES SECRETARY-GENERAL

19971201 Briefing Second Committee on Agenda's Implementation, Kofi Annan Says Solidarity Is Crucial Pillar of International Cooperation

The future well-being of humankind rested on the courage and foresight of its leaders to realize the full meaning of interdependence and to translate it into practical actions, Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) this morning at a special briefing on "The implementation of the Agenda for Development in a renewed United Nations system".

Solidarity remained a crucial pillar of international cooperation, he continued. As markets expanded and deepened, the international community had an opportunity to give new meaning to solidarity by enlisting new allies. Preparing the ground for investment and growth while at the same time forging new alliances may unlock the potential to successful development. The moral foundation and purpose of solidarity must be rebuilt. No purpose could be more compelling than the creation of hope and opportunity for millions of people excluded from the global economy, who lacked the opportunity to compete on a level playing field.

Stressing the importance of political will in sustaining the principles of partnership and solidarity, he said the adoption of the Agenda for Development reflected an emerging consensus on what constituted development in the new international environment. It recognized that international development was based on solidarity and partnership rather than on competing interests. While individual countries were ultimately responsible for their own development, their efforts could only succeed within an effective multilateral framework that spread the benefits of globalization as wide as possible and minimized its risks and costs.

The Secretary-General said the Agenda was notable for its unprecedented scope and complexity and that the policies and measures it embodied covered the whole spectrum of economic and social development. They encompassed participatory and rights-based approaches and they spanned the links between humanitarian interventions and development. The Agenda was also rooted in a more profound recognition that development required a comprehensive and integrated approach; it must be tackled on many fronts. It highlighted the

interactions and synergies between national policies and the international environment most conducive to growth and sustainable development.

He said it was the prerogative of each country to set its own priorities and to choose its own path. But that must be done through full strategic awareness of the internal and external forces that impacted on such priorities and were critical to their success. It must also be done with a sense of responsibility with regard to its effects on others and on the international environment, which in a globalizing world ultimately affected the destinies of all. The challenge implied a new approach to inter-agency coordination, one which placed a premium on a more clear-cut division of labour.

Calling on the international community to make the case for solidarity and to strengthen not only its economic but also its moral underpinning, he said the decline in official development assistance (ODA) must be reversed and new ways of financing development must be explored. Globalization had had both positive and negative consequences on a scale never experienced before. The boons of expanded trade and investment and of higher standards of living for millions of people contrasted with the ills of widening income gaps, environmental degradation and illegal drug trafficking.

Explaining that reforms were necessary to equip the United Nations to respond effectively to the challenges of implementing the Agenda, he said reforms must be based on a clear-headed process of assessing the patterns of change that impacted on the environment; defining institutional strengths and building on them; and refining roles and refocusing activities around key priorities, especially the promotion of development.

He said reforms were also aimed at enhancing the General Assembly's capacity to steer the actions of governments and of the United Nations system in support of the implementation of the Agenda. They were aimed at refocusing the Assembly's work on high priority issues and to incorporate the principal features of recent United Nations conferences into its work. A high-level segment of the Assembly should be devoted to "International Financing for Development", which was at the core of the Agenda for Development.

He said the new leadership and management structure in the reform proposals was based on the concept of a single Secretariat encompassing secretariat departments as well as the secretariats of the programmes and funds. That structure was organized around four sectoral committees, two of which were devoted to economic and social affairs and development cooperation, thus directly guiding the Organization's response to the requirements of the Agenda. The functions envisaged for the proposed post of Deputy Secretary-General and the establishment of a strategic planning unit in the Secretary-General's Executive Office were also highly relevant.

The Secretary-General said other actions had also been taken to enable the Organization to act more effectively in support of macroeconomic

Second Committee - 3 - Press Release GA/EF/2801 45th Meeting (AM) 1 December 1997

coordination and development. They included: the consolidation of different Secretariat entities in the economic and social field into a single Department of Economic and Social Affairs; the establishment of a substantive secretariat of the Economic and Social Council headed at the senior level; and a better division of labour between the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

He said the decision to issue a single report, beginning January 1999, on the world's economic situation and prospects, was one of the outcomes of the review undertaken of the respective roles of the new department and of UNCTAD in the macroeconomic area. The flagship publications of the various United Nations entities -- the World Economic and Social Survey and the Trade and Development Report, among others -- would elaborate on that single statement. The Agenda for Development would provide a common framework for the renewed effort to strengthen the Organization's impact on policy development.

He said that successful implementation of the Agenda for Development depended on effectively translating intergovernmental agreements, norms and standards into practical results in the field. The establishment of the United Nations Development Group and the formulation of a single United Nations Development Assistance Framework should contribute to bringing different activities at the field level into a coherent and mutually supportive whole. Making all funds and programmes part of a single United Nations office, under the Resident Coordinator, and establishing common premises of the United Nations at the country level were also in keeping with the Agenda's call for sharing administrative systems and services.

The recommendation of a new system of core resources and the establishment of an Office for Development Financing, according to the Secretary-General, should contribute to the Agenda's call for a substantial increase in resources for operational activities. The "Development Dividend" was also geared to strengthening the Organization's capacity to directly support countries in their development efforts. The Agenda called upon the Economic and Social Council to fully exercise its role as the overall coordinating body of all United Nations development funds and programmes. The implementation of the Agenda was just beginning and would for long require strenuous efforts from the international community. The reform proposals only set the stage, now it was time to act upon it.

Introducing the Secretary-General, the Chairman of the Committee, Oscar de Rojas (Venezuela), said that it was evident that there was an important link between the Agenda for Development and the United Nations reform process. The Secretary-General's many recommendations contained in his reform programme were related to international cooperation in the development field. His appearance at the Committee was a testimony to his commitment to help move the Organization more decisively ahead in addressing those goals.

The Committee will meet again at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 2 December, to continue its deliberations.

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