SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS AMERICANS NEED LOOK NO FURTHER THAN OWN LIVES TO EXPERIENCE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM AT WORK
Press Release
SG/SM/6530
SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS AMERICANS NEED LOOK NO FURTHER THAN OWN LIVES TO EXPERIENCE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM AT WORK
19980420 Following is the text of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's address on "The United Nations in Our Daily Lives", delivered in San Francisco today at a luncheon hosted by the San Francisco World Affairs Council, Commonwealth Club and United Nations Association:It gives me great pleasure to join you today and to be visiting California and the beautiful Bay Area. For a United Nations Secretary- General, a trip to San Francisco is a special journey, a trip to the source, to the place where a Charter of hope for all humankind was born.
I know that the San Francisco of song is a city of the heart, but for me it is also the city -- the progressive, worldly city -- where the soul of the United Nations was forged and made real. At this crucial juncture in world affairs, I am pleased to have this opportunity to hear what Californians have to say about the state of the world: where we've been, and more importantly where we are going.
What is this crucial juncture to which I have just referred? It is a moment of promise and peril, an era of complexities and contradictions. Peace spreads in one region as hatred rages in another. Unprecedented wealth coexists with terrible deprivation. Globalization presents new opportunities and knits us closer together while intolerance keeps us apart.
The United Nations itself is also, to paraphrase Dickens, experiencing both the best and worst of times. The recent agreement with Baghdad on access by United Nations weapons inspectors shows what a united and determined international community can achieve through the United Nations. This was neither a "victory" nor a "defeat" for any one person, nation or group of nations; it was a victory for peace, for reason, for the resolution of conflict by diplomacy.
As we implement the agreement and seek full compliance with the Security Council's resolutions, my mind cannot help but turn to other challenges as well. For what we achieved in Iraq, we must also achieve across our entire agenda: the fight against drug trafficking, for example, or the struggle to uphold human rights, or the negotiations to establish an international
criminal court. We need only summon the political will. I say "only" because I believe that political will is not finite, as some would argue; like the California sun, it is a renewable resource.
So today I am emboldened to think ambitiously for our United Nations. At the same time I am constrained, and disturbed, by the Organization's precarious and perpetual financial instability. It is no exaggeration to say that the United Nations is on the edge: on the edge of scaling back its operations, on the edge of being unable to meet the most basic expectations of the world's people.
The United States is the biggest debtor, as is well known. Less publicized is the extent of other nations' arrears, which account for some 40 per cent of the whole. Overall, only 56 nations have paid their current assessments. The lack of commitment runs wide and deep, despite the successful diplomacy with Baghdad; despite my "quiet revolution" of United Nations reform and renewal; and despite a long list of United Nations achievements spanning more than half a century. This problem has not gone away; it may be getting worse.
So this seems an appropriate time, and certainly the right place, to dwell on the meaning and presence of the United Nations in our daily lives. I would like to begin by dispelling a few myths.
First, we are not a bloated bureaucracy. Five times as many people work for McDonalds. United Nations staff size has been cut by 25 per cent in the past decade, and last year's annual budget for our worldwide operations, including peacekeeping, was less than that of the city of San Francisco.
Second, we are not a paper factory. The amount of paper we use for documents in a year is equivalent to that used by The New York Times for a single Sunday edition.
Third, we have no designs on American or any other country's property and land. Those United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) "World Heritage List" or "Biosphere Reserve" designations you may have heard about for places such as Yosemite, Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon merely state the obvious: these are glorious places of rare natural beauty or distinction, worthy of tourism, preservation or both.
Finally, as for those notorious black helicopters, the idea would be laughable were it not also so tragic. We have no helicopters of our own. The ones governments give us for peacekeeping are painted white. When crisis erupts, as it did in Rwanda four years ago, the ability to respond quickly can mean the difference between life and death. But without any troops or equipment of its own, the United Nations is put in the position of needing to build a firehouse from scratch every time a fire breaks out.
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This is a prescription for ineffective action. I am in no way calling for a standing army, but there is a gap to be filled. Dozens of nations have earmarked troops that could stand on the ready in their home countries and be available for rapid deployment, and it is my hope that this will help and not be a quicker way to hear "no" for an answer when a crisis erupts and we go scavenging for troops.
But if these are all the things the United Nations is not, what are we? What does the United Nations mean to you? Is its day-to-day work present in your lives?
Here in San Francisco and around the world, the big picture is familiar: the United Nations as an advocate of universal values such as equality and tolerance; justice and progress; democracy and peace; harmony among peoples and nations.
Most people also know a fair amount about our work on the ground: our blue-helmeted peacekeepers; our programmes of disaster relief, refugee protection and electoral monitoring; our immunization of children against deadly diseases: efforts which have brought the United Nations system seven Nobel peace prizes.
As familiar as we are, however, I know that sometimes the United Nations can seem very remote, especially in the developed world. Our activities take place in conflict zones you will rarely if ever visit; in impoverished areas far from major tourist sites; or behind the scenes, in clinics and classrooms where progress occurs without bells and whistles and is measured steadily but slowly.
Media reports can bring you closer. Sometimes they generate concern and prompt people to get involved. But they also do the opposite, accentuating the distance between your lives, in one of the world's richest nations, and their lives, somewhere else, somewhere poorer and less secure. A sense of common humanity is our saving grace; it is why the United Nations was created and why polls show such strong American support for the Organization at the grass-roots level regardless of what is said and done on Capitol Hill.
But I would also like to suggest that even here in the United States, Americans need look no further than your own lives to experience the United Nations system at work. Consider the last 24 hours of my own life.
I flew to San Francisco yesterday afternoon, enjoying a smooth flight while reading and watching an in-flight movie. After settling into my hotel, I made a few telephone calls. Dinner last night featured some fine California wine and seafood. Before going to sleep I watched the news on television. And prior to joining you here today I ate a hearty California breakfast of fresh fruit and whole-grain bread. Where is the United Nations family to be
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found in such ordinary scenes of day-to-day life? Let's examine this picture again, this time in slow motion.
I said that I'd had a smooth flight. Thanks to the International Civil Aviation Organization, there are global standards for airplane and airport safety; a common language -- English -- for aviation communications; and standards for the performance of pilots, flight crews, air traffic controllers and ground and maintenance crews.
I should also mention the World Meteorological Organization and its World Meteorological Vigil system, which enables planes to pick safe routes through stormy skies. And let us not forget the in-flight entertainment, and the fact that the World Intellectual Property Organization helps protect copyrights for one of California's major exports: movies.
Next, I said I made a few telephone calls. Since taking office, I've rarely been more than a few feet from a telephone. This is sometimes an intrusion on my privacy but more often it is quite convenient: I can enjoy a walk in the woods while doing business. So I am grateful for the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which helps connect national communications infrastructures into global networks; and which manages the sharing of radio frequencies and satellite orbital positions. The news I watched last night, including reports from abroad, also owes no small debt to the ITU.
As for my meals, Californians need no lessons from anyone about growing high-quality produce; your Central Valley is one of the wonders of the world. But even here the United Nations plays a part.
The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) set international norms for food additives and limits for pesticide residues. The International Labour Organization (ILO) promotes safe working conditions for migrant farm workers. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, meanwhile, stipulates that coastal States have sovereign rights over natural resources and certain other economic activities in a 200 nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, meaning that California's waters are protected from fishing armadas from other countries.
This is not world government; it is sovereign nations such as the United States coming together in common cause. Nor is this intrusive; it is pragmatic problem-solving. The United Nations is your tool, your vehicle, your instrument; it exists to help nations navigate the new landscapes of international life.
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So let us not think not in terms of your lives and their lives, but of our lives. And if you thought that the United Nations was something of a charity, existing only for the poor and less fortunate on Earth, think again: for Americans are not only giving to the United Nations, you are living the United Nations.
I took office pledging to bring this Organization closer to the people it exists to serve. We are getting there: sometimes in massive operations; sometimes in small actions; in all cases guided by the Charter. We are making direct and vital connections with your daily lives and aspirations. But I need your help. I need your ideas, your energies, your voices. I especially need you to make sure your elected officials know how much you care about the United Nations. Let us, together, build and protect the fragile edifices of peace in the fullest sense of that word.
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