ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL BEGINS SESSION ON INTEGRATED, COORDINATED FOLLOW-UP OF MAJOR UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCES AND SUMMITS

Press Release
ECOSOC/5753

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL BEGINS SESSION ON INTEGRATED, COORDINATED FOLLOW-UP OF MAJOR UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCES AND SUMMITS

Council President Calls UN Conferences of 1990s Only Common Response of International Community to Disorderly System of Globalization

The United Nations conferences and summits of the 1990s were the international community's only common response to the disorderly system of globalization that risked spinning out of control, the President of the Economic and Social Council said this morning as the Council began its session on the integrated and coordinated follow-up of major United Nations conferences and summits.

In an opening statement to the session, Juan Somavia (Chile) said the recommendations and conclusions of those conferences were not grounded on a limited ideological view of society, but on collective efforts to identify best practices to deal with problems. They also highlighted the rupture of basic balances needed to ensure social stability. The vision of the summits taken together was the only vision that could put order in the existing disorder, he said, adding that they underscored the importance of international cooperation and individual and national responsibility.

Also addressing the Council, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Nitin Desai said the conferences taken together constituted a body of doctrine that would shape international cooperation for development. There was no reason why the targets set in conferences should be monitored by different bodies, and the Council could play a crucial management role for its different subsidiary organizations, he stressed, adding that many of the common targets set in conferences could be monitored by the Council itself. He noted that the Council was in a position to link the goals of the conferences with the progress made in attaining financial assistance for meeting those goals.

Indonesia's representative said the follow-up activities of global conferences required financial resources, and developing countries, in particular, needed substantial new and additional funds for conference implementation. Speaking on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries

Economic and Social Council - 1a - Press Release ECOSOC/5753 6th Meeting (AM) 13 May 1998

and China, he said the Council should underline the importance of mobilizing resources for developing countries and reaching agreed targets for official development assistance (ODA). Poverty eradication was the overriding goal of the follow-up process, he emphasized, and the ultimate aim of the conferences was to elevate and enhance the situation of the human person.

Speaking on behalf of the European Union and associated States, the representative of the United Kingdom welcomed the stress in the Secretary-General's report before the Council on reaching development goals for the twenty-first century and the target of reducing the proportion of the people living in poverty by one half by 2015. Governments should adopt those goals as a basis for collaborative international effort to eliminate poverty and to improve the living conditions of poor people everywhere.

The representative of Japan said the Council should perform the role of "traffic police" for the functional commissions, funds and programmes in order to strengthen coordination among them. Meetings should be convened between the bureau of the Council and the bureaus of the individual commissions, as well as officers of all functional commissions, to provide such coordination. It was also important to consider ways in which civil society might participate in the follow-up process.

Statements were also made by the representatives of New Zealand, Romania, Russian Federation, Republic of Korea, Canada, Bangladesh, India, Mexico, United States, Iran and Lebanon. The Permanent Observer for Switzerland also spoke.

Also this morning, the Council heard a presentation on monitoring development outcomes from Brian Hammond from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee, and the Director of the United Nations Development Group Office, Allan Doss. Assistant-Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs Patrizio Civili also addressed the Council.

The Council will meet again at 3 p.m. this afternoon to hold a panel discussion on the experience of its functional commissions in an integrated, coordinated follow-up to conferences.

Council Work Programme

The Economic and Social Council met this morning to begin a three-day session on the integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up of major United Nations conferences and summits. The session will consist of exchange of views and panel discussions with representatives of subsidiary bodies of the Council, senior officials involved with the work of the Administrative Committee on Coordination's (ACC) inter-agency task forces, heads of Executive Boards and of funds and programmes, and representatives of the regional commissions and of the non-governmental sector.

Almost three years ago, at its substantive session of 1995, the Council launched a major initiative to develop a coherent and well-coordinated response by the United Nations system to the global agenda emerging from the major conferences of the 1990s. The Council agreed that such a response must be built around an integrated set of themes and goals derived from the outcomes of those conferences. The United Nations system as a whole could then coalesce around these common themes and provide integrated support to governments for their follow-up at the national level. The Council not only identified the key cross-cutting themes emanating from these conferences, but defined the broad orientations and the modalities that needed to be pursued by the system for carrying them forward at the global, regional and national levels.

The cross-cutting themes identified by a report of the Secretary-General submitted to the Council's session in 1995 (document E/1995/86) were the following: a stable macroeconomic policy framework conducive to development; external debt and finance for development; international trade and commodities; science and technology; eradication of poverty and hunger; access to productive occupational opportunities, full employment and family incomes; gender equality, equity and empowerment of women; basic social services for all; promoting social integration; environment and natural resources; Africa and special categories; and participation, democracy, human rights, accountability and partnerships with major groups and organizations. They were later grouped by the Council around the broad themes of "an enabling environment", "employment and sustainable livelihoods", "basic social services for all" and environment and natural resources.

In adopting its "agreed conclusions" on the subject in 1995, the Council took a major step forward by providing a coherent set of guidelines for developing a coordinated response to that global agenda at the intergovernmental as well as at the inter-agency levels. The principal purpose was to translate the internationally agreed goals and objectives into a consistent set of national strategies, policies and programmes for the implementation of which the United Nations system could provide integrated support to governments.

The Council also decided to play a key role in guiding the system and its subsidiary bodies in developing such a coordinated approach. It has done so in two ways: first, by placing the issue of coordinated follow-up on its agenda on a regular basis; and, secondly, by reviewing, at its coordination segment, the cross-cutting themes of conferences such as poverty eradication, gender mainstreaming, the enabling environment and human rights. The agreed conclusions of the Council on those themes have constituted a significant step forward in developing a coordinated approach, by providing clear guidance to the system and to its subsidiary bodies to strengthen coordination and avoid overlaps and duplication.

The three-day session starting on the coordinated follow-up issue is the first subject-oriented session of its kind, and it represents an important new stage in this process.

A report of the Secretary-General on the theme of the session (document E/1998/19) contains details of the progress achieved by the United Nations system at the intergovernmental, inter-agency and country levels on the implementation and follow-up to major United Nations conferences and summits, with specific recommendations.

The report focuses on the recently completed work of three task forces established in October 1995 by the ACC, which addressed the following cross-cutting aspects of the various conferences: basic social services for all, with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) as lead agency; full employment and sustainable livelihoods, with the International Labour Organization (ILO) as lead agency; and an enabling environment for economic and social development, with the World Bank as lead agency.

Comprised of three sections, the report also contains an introduction, which presents an overview and assessment of the work of the task forces. Section I addresses follow-up to conferences at the intergovernmental level, including ways to further enhance the coordination functions and management and oversight by the Council of its subsidiary machinery. Section II details the ACC review of coordinated follow-up to conferences at country and regional levels, including issues of coordination in reporting and monitoring. Section III of the report reviews the follow-up to the task forces by existing inter-agency bodies.

The introduction to the report states that as the task forces completed their assigned work and were discontinued, the ACC assessed their work and made a number of decisions for ensuring that the momentum for implementation that they had generated was sustained. Drawing upon the conclusions and recommendations formulated by the Consultative Committee on Programme and Operational Questions (CCPOQ) and by the Inter-agency Committee on Sustainable Development (IACSD), a workshop was convened at Turin, in December 1997, on coordinated follow-up to conferences at field level, with the participation of resident coordinators and government representatives, agencies leading the task forces and secretariats responsible for conference follow-up. The workshop developed integrated guidance for the resident coordinator system for pursuing a coordinated approach at the country-level.

The task forces have demonstrated that there is a large degree of consensus and consistency of understanding within the United Nations system on the broad elements of the policy framework for implementing the goals of the conferences, according to the report. As a result, coordination can be more effective because it is underpinned by a generally agreed policy framework. Differences, however, remain among agencies regarding priorities or sequencing of policies. Those stem, in part, from their different mandates and competencies. Nonetheless, that diversity is considered important because it provides governments with options and choices. The ACC agreed that conference follow-up should be placed in the broader context of United Nations reform and of the Organization's efforts to enhance its capacity to pursue the global agendas, while making use of the strengths and resources of civil society, the report goes on. It also directed that, following the completion of the work of the task forces, the ACC and its standing bodies would hold the primary responsibility for inter-agency coordinated follow-up to conferences at Headquarters.

Addressing coordinated follow-up at the intergovernmental level, the report states that it has been taking place in a three-tiered structure composed of the Council, the General Assembly and the functional commission with primary responsibility in that regard. The Council has a role in ensuring coordinated preparations of the forthcoming five-year reviews of conferences -- the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) (Cairo, 1994), the World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995), the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) and the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) (Istanbul, 1996) -- and to contribute substantively to those processes.

The Council's main contribution has been in reviewing cross-cutting themes emanating from conferences, the report states. In view of the Council's coordination function within the system, it could consider conducting an overall review of progress made on those cross-cutting themes and of the effectiveness of the United Nations system's support for the attainment of conference goals in the year 2000. The Council could conduct an integrated examination of the newly proposed multi-year programmes of work of the Commission on the Status of Women, the Commission on Population and Development and the Commission for Social Development, to ensure harmonization and coordination on cross-cutting issues. In addition, the Council could invite the governing bodies of the Organization to contribute to that review by examining relevant cross-cutting themes.

According to the report, the Council could call upon its functional commissions and the Secretariat to ensure substantive interaction during the preparation of five-year reviews of the outcome of conferences and summits. Reports presented to one preparatory committee on a given cross-cutting theme could be made available to another. The Council's agreed conclusions on gender mainstreaming and the reports and agreed conclusions of the Commission on the Status of Women on the matter should also be made available to preparatory committees.

Addressing the ACC review of coordinated follow-up to conferences at the country and regional levels, the report states that based on an intensive process of inter-agency consultations and country reviews, carried out over the last two years, the task forces have produced a wide variety of outputs covering a broad range of policy issues. Those outputs can be broadly categorized as follows: clarification of the key elements of the policy framework for pursuing conference goals; recommendations and guidelines for United Nations system programming; country reviews and case studies; proposals for other areas requiring attention (the role of civil society, the elaboration of statistics and indicators); and recommendations for institutional arrangements for follow-up to the work of the task forces.

To bring the work of the task forces and other conference follow-up mechanisms to bear on operational activities, the ACC has decided that their outputs and other guidelines for the implementation of conferences should be widely disseminated and fully used, the report states. To that end, a standardized "Guidance Note" for country-level coordinated conference follow-up, prepared by the CCPOQ, has been sent by the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Executive Heads of all agencies to resident coordinators and United Nations country representatives. The United Nations system organizations, including the Bretton Woods institutions, are also in the process of distributing the products, guidelines and country case studies of the task forces.

As a follow-up to the ACC decisions, CCPOQ has developed practical modalities for the further dissemination of the task forces' outputs, such as interregional, regional and subregional seminars and workshops; publishing outcomes of country reviews in different languages; and making information on the outputs available electronically. Those outputs are also being incorporated in the training modules of the United Nations system, in particular of the United Nations Staff College. In addition to the outputs of the task forces, guidelines are also being prepared for United Nations system policy advisory services in a number of areas that are relevant to conference follow-up, such as sustainable development, human settlements and HIV/AIDS.

The United Nations system has been assisting governments at the country level in formulating national plans of action and translating the conclusions of conferences into policies and practical strategies, the report says. The resident coordinator system has actively promoted a broad policy dialogue with governments, through a number of mechanisms linked with the programming of operational activities for development, notably inter-agency thematic groups. The report notes that the resident coordinator system was designed to ensure that there is appropriate inter-agency dialogue with national authorities on the cross-sectoral implementation of conferences. That dialogue should aim to help in aligning the global agendas with country-specific circumstances, and enable the United Nations system to determine the nature of the support required, as well as areas for inter-agency cooperation. A first important step should be a situation analysis by the resident coordinator system and the government on how national policies and priorities support conferences' goals and the effectiveness of institutional mechanisms for follow-up and monitoring.

Thematic groups are the main instrument for coordinated United Nations system support for conference implementation by governments, the report says. Such groups are being established in many countries, in particular to deal with themes such as poverty alleviation and women's empowerment, basic social services, employment and sustainable livelihoods, and HIV/AIDS, as well as follow-up to Habitat II and the World Food Summit. The work of such groups tends to be more effective when they have proper staffing and financial support and are linked with the preparation of the Country Strategy Note (CSN) or other programming frameworks.

The preparation of the CSN provides an opportunity to establish links between that programming instrument and the implementation of conference goals, the report states. The ongoing revision of the guidelines on the CSN will be an opportunity to ensure that the follow-up to conferences be included as a required key factor in formulating the strategy for United Nations system support at the country level. The ACC has called upon organizations of the United Nations system to fully utilize national-level mechanisms and frameworks to support the development of national strategies and action plans for integrated conference implementation based on national priorities.

According to the report, the launching of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) as a new mechanism to achieve goal-oriented collaboration, programmatic coherence and mutual reinforcement among United Nations programmes of assistance has reinforced the commitment of the United Nations system to assist governments in their efforts to implement the recommendations of global conferences. The UNDAF establishes a direct linkage between the follow-up to those conferences and the definition of related mandates of individual United Nations system organizations, on the one hand, and the assessment of the national priorities, taking into account national policies and programmes, on the other. The objectives and strategies presented in the UNDAF will take into account the follow-up to the ACC task forces and the outcomes of other inter-agency processes. The UNDAF is initiated after a Common Country Assessment (CCA) has been made, which is based, among others, on indicators reflecting the follow-up to global conferences.

To support integrated conference implementation, the resident coordinator system needs to interact with and support national institutions entrusted with the follow-up to conferences, the report says. The United Nations country team should assist and encourage greater policy coordination among these national agencies and ministries, including by fully utilizing existing coordination structures and mechanisms. The setting up of broad-based national consultative bodies mandated by conferences, such as Sustainable Development Councils and the National Habitat Committees, also need the support of United Nations country teams. For those bodies to be effective, the need for national capacity-building remains paramount.

The ACC has consistently underscored the important role of civil society in advancing the objectives of international conferences at the national as well as at the international level and has called upon the United Nations system organizations to make optimal use of its strengths, advocacy role and resources, the report goes on. The task force's work and its review by the ACC confirmed the importance of strengthening the involvement of civil society in conference follow-ups. The resident coordinator system has been urged to support and encourage the interaction between the government and civil society in conference follow-up activities, mainly as facilitator based on a careful review and assessment of the role of civil society organizations.

Recent global conferences have provided a new impetus to closer cooperation between the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions, the report says. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) participated fully in the three task forces, as they do in other inter-agency bodies for conference follow-up. There is also much collaboration at the country level, where the Bretton Woods institutions are involved in thematic groups and field-level committees and have consultations with the United Nations while supporting the government in defining important policy frameworks. Progress is also being made in bringing the United Nations, the agencies and the Bretton Woods institutions to work together in support of national action in the furtherance of internationally agreed objectives.

The implementation of conferences requires considerable financial resources, the report states. While the conferences recognized that a major part of those resources would have to come from a country's own public and private sector, substantial new and additional funds for implementation remain essential for developing countries. Official development assistance (ODA) should be a main source of external funding for those countries and, in particular, the least developed countries. The continuing decline in ODA is therefore of international concern, and agreed targets need to be met if conference goals are to be achieved. A greater share of ODA should also go to the least developed and low-income countries which are further removed from conference goals.

Besides the importance of increasing ODA, implementation of the 20/20 initiative endorsed by the Social Summit should help to ensure that more resources are directed towards achieving the goal of universal access to basic social services through a better allocation by both donors and recipients, the report states. The 20/20 initiative calls on governments and donors to allocate at least 20 per cent of public spending and ODA, respectively, to basic social services -- basic health, including reproductive health, nutrition, water and sanitation, and basic education.

The regional commissions have a mandated role in conference implementation and follow-up, the report says. Regional specificity, the level of resources and the mandate of each regional commission all determine the scope of their involvement in follow-up activities, which mainly consist of the following: data collection and processing; analysis and research; awareness raising and dissemination of information; monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of globally and regionally agreed plans and strategies; advisory services to member countries; sponsoring regional ministerial conferences and holding inter-agency meetings in preparation of the ministerial conferences; and organizing national workshops, non-governmental organization workshops, regional seminars and expert group meetings.

A variety of measures could be undertaken to strengthen the role of the regional commissions in assisting the Member States of their regions in implementing the conferences, the reports says. The regional inter-agency coordination mechanisms could serve as forums for the increased exchange of information and experience on programme activities to improve coordination within the United Nations system. It might also be useful to initiate collaborative projects in which the funding organizations of the system provide resources to the regional commissions to implement regional and subregional projects. In addition, the experience of the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), which established inter-country teams at the regional level to ensure that country staff have access to high quality technical advice, could be replicated.

While progress has been made at the regional level, the report states that there is considerable potential for expanding collaborative action at the interregional level among the regional commissions for promoting actions in support of the coordinated follow-up.

The report recommends that the Council express support for the ACC's efforts, through the Inter-agency Committee on Sustainable Development (IACSD), to streamline requests for national reporting in the area of sustainable development. The Council could support the development of modalities for coordinated and integrated reporting to be widely used within the United Nations system to meet a variety of reporting requirements.

The report states that the ACC has provided guidance at Headquarters on the responsibilities of its standing committees, including for interaction with intergovernmental bodies, in the inter-agency coordinated follow-up to conferences. The CCPOQ has the principal role in facilitating the coordinated approach to conference follow-up at country, regional and global levels. In addition, the CCPOQ, IACSD and the Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality have been asked to expand and strengthen the dialogue among them, given the importance of sustainable development and gender mainstreaming in advancing conference objectives. The ACC Subcommittee on Statistics also provides support in relation to data and indicators and pursues the recommendations addressed to it on the follow-up to conferences.

According to the report, the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) office will be the focal point for collecting information through the resident coordinator system on United Nations activities in the implementation of conference goals at the country level. It will provide information to the ACC, CCPOQ and other ACC committees on such activities, including the use of the outputs of the task forces, as well as lessons learned and best practices. The ACC has encouraged its standing bodies to interact with the Council and its subsidiary bodies, for example, by means of panels which should continue to be pursued.

With the completion of the work of the task forces, the report recommends that the Council request that the coordinated follow-up to conferences be ensured by the ACC and its subsidiary machinery. Collaboration among United Nations organizations on certain cross-cutting themes should be maintained through a network approach using task managers and information technology. The intergovernmental bodies of the United Nations system should take into account the recommendations of the Council and the ACC to ensure a coordinated approach to conference follow-up throughout the system.

Statements

JUAN SOMAVIA (Chile), President of the Economic and Social Council, said the current session signified an important step in strengthening the Council's oversight and coordination within the United Nations system. Performing well on management functions was one of the Council's main political tasks. An element of the session concerned the Council's performance regarding its management responsibilities, as directed in the United Nations Charter.

The current decade had shown an unprecedented international consensus on development issues, he said. All institutions and governments must work together to deal with important global financial issues. The United Nations conferences and summits were so important because they were the only common response of the international community to the disorderly system of globalization that risked spinning out of control. They were a practical response because their conclusions and recommendations were not grounded on a limited ideological view of society but on collective efforts to identify best practices to deal with problems. The conferences and summits also highlighted the rupture of basic balances needed to ensure social stability. The vision of the summits taken together was the only vision that could put order in the existing disorder. They underscored the importance of international cooperation and individual and national responsibility.

The Council's current session was important because it would evaluate how well the United Nations system was responding to the hope generated by the conferences and summits, he said. The mobilization of the political will and commitment of all countries to the global development agenda was of paramount importance. The Council should promote a well-coordinated response of the United Nations system to the goals of those conferences. It could also promote coherence among the funds, agencies and organizations in the implementation of the outcomes of those conferences. In addition, the Council could also ensure that the follow-up to conferences was approached in an effective and integrated manner.

The ACC led a system-wide effort for the follow-up of United Nations conferences by establishing three task forces, he said. Those task forces covered the following cross-cutting areas: an enabling environment; employment and sustainable livelihoods; and basic social services for all. This week's session constituted an important new step in the Council's follow-up. It needed to examine if the work of its subsidiary machinery was effectively directed to the integrated implementation of follow-up to the conferences and summits. The session should enable the Council to engage in a dialogue on how to improve interaction with the funds, programmes and specialized agencies on all the crucial cross-cutting goals.

He welcomed the many major United Nations system players that were taking part in the session. Their participation emphasized the importance of the meeting. The bureau would continue to pursue a more closely integrated relationship between the Council and its functional commissions, he concluded.

NITIN DESAI, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, introducing the Secretary-General's report to the session, stressed the need for coordination of conference recommendations at the intergovernmental level. The conferences taken together constituted a body of doctrine that would shape international cooperation for development and they identified the role of public policy in a world that was changing very rapidly. It was important to identify themes that cut across the conferences, but the Council should also look for ways to implement recommendations. The Council could also play a crucial management role for its different subsidiary bodies. There was no reason why the monitoring of all the targets set by the conferences should take place in different bodies. Many of the common targets set in conferences could be monitored by the Council itself.

One topic that the Council could focus on was the area of finance, he added. The Council was in a position to link the goals of the conferences with the progress made in attaining financial assistance in meeting those goals. The Council could also preside over the functions of its commissions, examining their work plans and ensuring a level of credibility in them. It was possible for the Council to provide constructive guidance for those commissions. It could also give policy guidance, based on the conference goals, to the executive boards of the funds and programmes.

MAKARIM WIBISONO (Indonesia), speaking on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China, said there should be substantive interaction among the Council's functional commissions in the preparations for the five-year conference reviews. The various preparatory committees could only benefit and enhance their own activities if the outcomes of the Council's coordination, high-level and operational activities segments addressing the cross-cutting themes of the conferences were incorporated as integral parts of the five-year reviews. Therefore, the Council could make additional efforts to draw on the activities of the functional commissions as input for its own work, including by dealing with the outcome of their work in an integrated fashion.

He said it was encouraging that efforts had been exerted at the field level which had served as useful inputs for national governments in implementing the commitments agreed at the conferences in a more integrated and coordinated manner. The Group of 77 stressed the essential need throughout the follow-up process of maintaining dialogue with national governments, which had the primary responsibility for follow-up activities. The ACC task forces had proved to be of considerable value in clarifying the policy frameworks and agendas at the country level. They had also underscored the need to maintain continuous dialogue between the various agencies and respective governments. The resident coordinator system had proved useful in pursuing a coordinated and collaborative approach to a global agenda at the national level.

Follow-up activities required financial resources, and developing countries were in particular need of substantial new and additional funds for conference implementation, he said. The continuing decline in ODA remained a major stumbling block that must be resolved. The Council should underline the importance of mobilizing additional resources for developing countries and reaching agreed ODA targets. Poverty eradication was the overriding goal of the follow-up process, and the aim of the conferences and summits was ultimately to elevate and enhance the situation of the human person.

STEPHEN GOMERSALL (United Kingdom) spoke on behalf of the European Union and Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Iceland. He said the panel discussions to be held during the session should provide an opportunity for the Economic and Social Council to learn more about the challenges the United Nations system faced, to seek clarification on how coordination actually worked in practice and to identify shortcomings. In light of that exercise, the Council should be well placed to consider, at its substantive session in July, action-oriented recommendations designed to enhance system-wide coordination of the follow-up to global conferences.

On the Secretary-General's report to the session, he said it would have benefited from a clearer structure, and from an executive summary which could have helped to set the scene for the tasks of the session. It was also rather thin in its analysis of field-level coordination. The Council would have welcomed some specific examples of how coordination was actually working at the country level. His delegation welcomed the report's stress on reaching development goals for the twenty-first century and the target of reducing the proportion of the people living in poverty by one half by 2015. Governments should adopt those goals as a basis for collaborative international efforts to eliminate poverty and to improve the living conditions of poor people everywhere.

WATARU NISHIGAHIRO (Japan) said it was necessary for Member States to consider once again the role the Economic and Social Council played in the process of reviewing the major conferences. There was a severe limitation in the role of the Council as the vehicle through which preparatory bodies report to the intergovernmental bodies conducting that particular review, such as the General Assembly in special sessions. In many cases, the Council was not expected to provide substantial input and in other cases the review was undertaken without even going through the Council. In the review process of the World Summit for Social Development, a preparatory committee had been created that was completely separate from the subsidiary bodies of the Council.

He added that the Council should perform the role of "traffic police" for the functional commissions and funds and programmes, in order to strengthen coordination among them. Meetings should be convened between the bureau of the Council and the bureaus of the functional commissions. Also, it was important to consider effective ways in which civil society, including

non-governmental organizations (NGOs), might participate in the follow-up process to make use of the information they possess.

MICHAEL POWLES (New Zealand) said the session was an important fist step in an area where the Council had a positive role to play. Too often work in the United Nations became focused on the negotiations of an agreed text, thereby stifling real debate. The session would provide the opportunity to have a honest and fruitful debate on the effectiveness of cooperation that would inform the Organization's future work in the area of follow-up to conferences and summits. New Zealand supported efforts to remove overlap and duplication among agencies with the task of implementing the conclusions and recommendations of the major conferences. Member States should also be kept fully informed on the activities of the ACC and should be provided with regular briefings on its work.

SORIN TANASESCU (Romania) said that results and experience achieved at the national level in the follow-up process were essential for the Council's debates and for its decisions on coordination within the United Nations system. In the first follow-up years, there had been some imbalances in the implementation of programmes of action at the national level. For example, more attention had been paid to Agenda 21 compared to the Cairo or Vienna Programmes of Action. There were also imbalances due to different institutional capacities of nations. The cross-sectoral character of the action required in implementing national programmes made it necessary to develop horizontal cooperation between governmental institutions involved in the process. In addition, there had also been some imbalances in the involvement of local communities and civil society in the follow-up process.

NIKOLAI TCHOULKOV (Russian Federation) said the initiative for holding the session gave the Council the opportunity to realize its potential to coordinate the follow-up to conferences and hold a dialogue with the various actors, including the ACC and the functional commissions. The format for the session would allow for an interactive dialogue without labour-intensive negotiations on a final draft resolution. The session would help the Council to prepare for a more detailed discussion of the subject during its substantive session later in the year.

The recommendations in the Secretary-General's report were interesting but required further careful study, he said. One of the fundamental aspects of the issues taken up during the session was how to ensure effective interaction between the agencies on the successful implementation of the outcome of global conferences. The Russian Federation supported the work of the ACC and its task forces in that area. The work done by the task forces should be carried on in the future. Despite significant positive changes achieved in recent years, the machinery of the ACC still required further

improvement, and the dialogue between the ACC and the Council should be refined and made more transparent.

The mandate of functional commissions was not limited to implementation of the outcomes of the global conferences, and they should not be weighed down with too many requirements which would impede their functioning, he said. One outcome of the recent global conferences was the strengthening of real interaction between the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions. The participation of the latter had created the necessary network of ties, which were more effective than resolutions. The Secretary-General's report did not reflect the current needs of agency interaction at the country level. The resident coordinator system was key for implementing conferences at the country level, he concluded.

CHANG BEOM CHO (Republic of Korea) said, on the Secretary-General's report to the Council's session, that it should have included actual accounts on how the ACC guidelines for programming could be translated at the field level. The Secretary-General's future reports on inter- agency coordination should provide more concrete accounts on the actual application of policy guidelines for coordination. It was essential to ensure tangible implementation at the field level, he stressed.

On his country's activities to follow-up on conferences, he said it had made extensive efforts to re-orient its development policy by placing more emphasis on social development issues. The new approach of focusing on "quality of life" measures had been formally adopted in 1995. That reconfiguration in national development policy reflected his country's firm resolve to embrace emerging international consensus on the new concepts of development.

ROSS HYNES (Canada) said the conferences undertaken represented a historic phase in international cooperation. The impact of the goals of the conferences were evident in their effects on domestic agendas. In Canada, those conferences had played an immense role in energizing policies at the national level and in international cooperation, especially cooperation with developing countries. The Secretary-General's report demonstrated the influence conferences had had on the United Nations agenda as well. Among the objectives for the current session should be to ensure that there was a full discussion on what had been accomplished to date, especially at the field level. There should also be discussions on the challenges faced in implementing the goals of conferences, but the Council should not get bogged down in negotiations over those topics.

On the topic of action-oriented system-wide coordination on follow-up, he said the inter- agency task forces had played a crucial role in the follow-up and it was important to continue that work. The Council was properly placed to offer direction on putting in place further coordination and follow-up efforts. It should consider regular, built-in opportunities for coordination between the executive bodies, programmes and the Secretariat. There was much more room for improvement in that area.

ANWARUL KARIM CHOWDHURY (Bangladesh) said implementation at the country level of the outcome of conferences had been emphasized by the Secretary-General's report. It clearly defined the role of the Council, which should be kept in mind in the Council's exercise during its substantive session. The Council should support the "operationalization" of the outcomes of the conferences at the country level. While integration and cooperation were important, implementation was also important, and one should not be sacrificed for the other. The cross-cutting issues were not getting the emphasis they deserved in the implementation at the country level.

Dialogue was important for effective implementation of the goals of the conferences, he said. The focus at the country level should include trying to identify which countries needed special attention. Special efforts should be extended to the 48 least-developed countries that needed special measures and assistance. There was a huge gap between the ACC process and country-level implementation, and there was no close linkage or close connection between the two. If the countries that provided CSNs were few, then the UNDAF process would not be effective in coordinating follow-up to the conferences.

The role of civil society had been emphasized by all and was important, he said. The private sector role was emerging, and it should be encouraged to focus on development aspects. It was important to ensure that in supporting the goals of the conferences, the private sector was appropriately motivated in promoting social development. The Council should identify the major development targets and goals and link them to available financial resources. If it succeeds, then it would be playing a major role in the implementation of the outcomes of conferences and undertaking its responsibility in that regard more effectively.

NANDHINI IYER KRISHNA (India) said the ACC task forces constituted an unprecedented system-wide effort in providing integrated, coordinated and productive support to governments in the follow-up to the programmes of action of recent United Nations conferences. While those task forces helped to build consensus and consistency on the broad elements of a framework in implementing the goals of conferences, national priorities and developments also need to be taken into account. India supported the Council's proposal to conduct an overall review of programmes on cross-cutting themes and the effectiveness of the United Nations system support for attainment of conference goals by the year 2000. The governing bodies of the United Nations system should also contribute to that review.

She said interaction between the various functional commissions and the Secretariat in preparation for the forthcoming five-year reviews would be useful. Preparations for those reviews should include ensuring availability of reports on cross-cutting themes and issues to all functional commissions. Some sectoral issues were also common to all conference outcomes and, where relevant, reports on such sectoral issues could also be made to every functional commission. The mid-term preparatory review processes should take into account the deliberations and outcomes of the Council's high-level, coordination and operational activities segments, when they take up cross- cutting themes. Yet, the outcomes of those segments did not always reflect intergovernmental consensus, since they were not always subject to negotiation.

MAURICIO ESCANERO (Mexico) said international conferences were crucial in raising challenges in the areas of human rights, development and the protection of the environment. At the national level, countries had had to carry out very quickly the goals and recommendations that arose from the conferences, and that process had required a number of governmental reforms and structural adjustment. The coordinating role played by the Council was a fundamental component in the implementation of goals of the conferences. Its role was to support what progress had been achieved at the national level and worldwide in regard to the conferences and put those efforts in the context of global goals. The report of the Secretary-General was a useful review of efforts taken by the task forces and the Mexican delegation intended to submit further comments on that report.

SETH WINNICK (United States) said any legislative follow-up to the Secretary-General's report should be saved for the Council's substantive session. The report's first part covered the general subject of follow-up to global conferences. The second part contained a good, if highly condensed, summary of the outputs of the ACC task forces. That section of the report raised many questions. Specifically, the report stated that the outputs of the task forces would be widely disseminated. His Government had mostly seen the results of the efforts of the task force on basic social services for all. It had also seen some evidence that outputs of other task forces had been distributed in the field at the country level. Yet there was not much information available from those other two task forces.

The United States was interested in having better access to the material produced by the ACC and its task forces, he said. That goal was symptomatic of the challenge in trying to achieve closer collaboration between the ACC, as an overall Secretariat coordination body, and the Council, as the intergovernmental coordination body. It was important to achieve better interaction between the two bodies. His Government fully respected the integrity of the ACC process. It was a co-equal to the Council and not

subordinated to it. The session was an excellent first step in setting out a new path of enhanced collaboration between the ACC and the Council.

BAGHER ASADI (Iran) said the implementation and follow-up to conferences should be undertaken in a comprehensive manner, so that no particular aspect or recommendation was overemphasized or given short sight. Each of the goals needed to be addressed in an integrated and balanced manner. All the conferences in their own right had an independent standing and proper context which should be taken into consideration by the Council. It must also be recognized that each conference took place in response to particular needs and they had to meet those needs.

In the follow-up to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), there had been a gradual weakening of the development aspect in favour of the environmental aspect, he said. That should be avoided in the process ahead of the Council. That was also true of the World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, 1993), where certain recommendations were followed up and others were still languishing in working groups and had not been acted upon. The Council needed to ensure that was avoided and the spirit of genuine cooperation kept. Balanced and comprehensive development constituted the major common objective of all the major conferences, and that should be reflected in the Council's work.

JENO STAEHELIN, Permanent Observer for Switzerland, said the Council's current session would allow it to take a look, from various perspectives, at the theme under consideration. States would also be allowed to familiarize themselves with the various subjects at greater depth. Switzerland hailed the work of the ACC, its task forces and its other existing and new machinery. His Government encouraged it to continue to show imagination in its good work. The ACC should continue to make further progress in achieving greater transparency and in strengthening the dialogue between it and the Council at all levels.

The Council had the crucial role of ensuring coordination of the plans of action of the global conferences, he said. Switzerland supported all measures that would strengthen the Council's role, including information exchanges between it and the subsidiary bodies. Three issues that called for greater focus and attention were the following: coordination in the field; cooperation and coordination between the Council and the Bretton Woods institutions and civil society at large; and developing a set of baseline data indicators and strengthening the capacity of countries to gather and interpret statistical data.

HICHAM HAMDAN (Lebanon) said it was important to draw lessons from the current national activities to integrate the decisions and recommendations of major United Nations conferences into the national programmes of individual Member States. It was also imperative to prepare a special report by the Secretariat that included various national experiences. Such a report could draw lessons from information that the international community could utilize in developing its responses in the future.

The report should be based on information provided by the resident coordinators in Member States, assuming that they would closely follow the national activities and cooperate with competent national authorities. It was important to highlight the factors that hindered the operational capacities of States and to underline those experiences that could be utilized in future international responses. Lebanon's experience in the process of post-conflict peace-building would be useful in highlighting the problems of numerous countries in such a situation.

Presentation on Monitoring Development Outcomes

ALLAN DOSS, Director of the Development Group Office, said the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), along with the World Bank and other United Nations bodies, was developing new mechanisms for monitoring national implementation of the goals of the major conferences. The mechanisms were meant to be complementary with existing systems and were not intended to create additional reporting burdens on States. Such follow-up mechanisms included inter-agency task forces, conference-specific task forces and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework. Those bodies and many others helped create a core set of indicators for measuring implementation and outcomes.

BRIAN HAMMOND, Head of the Division Reporting Systems, Development Cooperation Directorate, OECD Development Assistance Committee, elaborated on the core set of indicators, which monitor national progress in achieving conference goals. In the area of poverty eradication, aspects that should be examined should be: population below poverty level, inequality between the poorest and wealthiest segments; and child malnutrition. Other selected indicators of development were population figures and gross national product (GNP) information.

Mr. DOSS said that the next steps to be taken to follow-up on the indicators included: developing a harmonized/integrated system for monitoring of conference goals at the global level, harmonizing and coordinating support to national priorities for conference follow-up at the country level, and coordinating resources for national statistical capacity-building and national monitoring of goals.

Statement by ASG for Policy Coordination, Inter-Agency Affairs

PATRIZIO CIVILI, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said he appreciated the comments made, adding that the recommendations would be discussed further. The suggestions for strengthening the dialogue between the ACC and the Economic and Social Council should be stressed, as well as placing greater emphasis on field-level coordination. The task forces were geared to produce outputs that would have an immediate effect on work in the field, but more efforts were needed in that area. There was also a need for strengthening the machinery of the ACC based on the lessons learned by the task forces.

Some of the most vital factors involved links and coordination between organizations and representatives from the donor community, as a whole, he said. That coordination was extremely important in view of the overlapping questions raised by the recommendations of the various conferences and their cross-cutting nature. There was a need to rationalize the available financial resources and to activate international appeals and national causes for additional resources.

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