PRESS BRIEFING BY UNDP ADMINISTRATOR MARK MALLOCH BROWN

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY UNDP ADMINISTRATOR MARK MALLOCH BROWN

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was presently facing a serious situation at several levels, as global development changes were occurring that allowed countries to leapfrog into a much higher sustainable level of economic growth than was available to them in the past, Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator for the UNDP, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing today. Mr. Malloch Brown, former Vice-President of External Affairs for the World Bank, begins a four-year term as UNDP Administrator today.

He said that dramatic breakthroughs in the areas of information technology, vaccines and public health, and the intellectual consensus around a sound macroeconomic policy and human development agenda presented, an excellent opportunity for the UNDP. However, at the moment, that organization was not well equipped to grasp the opportunity since the financial situation there remained dire.

Several major donors had recently announced reductions in their contributions for reasons not directly related to the UNDP, he stated. The German cabinet had decided to cut their contribution to the UNDP by 50 per cent -- about $25 million -- next year so that they could meet the Maastricht target. That decision had not yet been ratified by the German Parliament, he stated. The other cut was by the Danish Government, traditionally one of the most generous donors to the UNDP. They announced a 23 per cent cut so they could finance their bilateral contribution to Kosovo.

Expressing alarm at Denmark's cut, Mr. Malloch Brown said that, for a country that had such a long history of commitment to multilateral development cooperation and focus on the poor, it was troubling to see them take money away from places like Africa to assist Kosovo. It was a dangerous trend, he noted. In the next six to nine months, the UNDP must develop a compelling business strategy built around real comparative advantages it might have, for example, capacity-building and governance.

For an organization which should be at the forefront in the fight against world poverty, it was the time to confront why the UNDP was not being given the resources to do it, he said. At a global staff meeting this morning, the message was that there was never a better moment for development. Therefore, it had become necessary for public institutions, particularly the UNDP, to put their house in order to create a superior development institution which would recapture the support of donors and would, in turn, allow the organization to provide the resources to fight poverty.

He said the Secretary-General, with the support of the General Assembly, had appointed him so that he could deliver a "first-class development organization", which could be a part of the Secretary-General's commitment to

UNDP Briefing - 2 - 1 July 1999

the "Group of 77" developing countries that the United Nations would not only be a superior peacekeeping and political organization, but also a superior development organization, he stressed.

In addition, as Administrator, Mr. Malloch Brown felt that he was also expected to provide the United Nations with a broad spectrum of partners. He promised that the organization would move aggressively in promoting those partnerships with the World Bank, the rest of the United Nations, non- governmental organizations, as well as numerous non-traditional development partners. Another role that the UNDP was expected to fulfil, under his leadership, was that of advocate so that the voices of Africa and the world's poorest could be raised in the global debate about priorities that public policy must address.

He announced that his itinerary for the next few weeks would be the first step in getting the programme off the ground. He was scheduled to be with the Economic and Social Council in Geneva, to visit the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and Kosovo.

In response to a question on the current status of the organization's budget, Mr. Malloch Brown said the total resource budget of the UNDP was about $2 billion. However, $1.2 billion of that, non-core funds, are raised for particular country programmes or around particular issues. That happened disproportionately in Latin America, with whom the UNDP had an exceptionally good relationship.

The core resources were allocated to Africa and the poorest countries based on a global formula. Out of the $750 million available as core resources, the organization was now forced to contend with those cuts that he had referred to earlier. That was cause for alarm, since it severely hampered the organization's ability to deliver quality development service to those countries. He added that the donors and the programme countries had, through negotiations, recently committed to rebuild that core-based budget to $1.1 billion.

Mr. Malloch Brown also said that the work that his predecessor, James Gustave Speth, had done had paid off since a wide group of donors had increased their contributions based on the multi-based management concept that he was introducing, as well as multi-stakeholdership.

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