ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL HEARS BRIEFING ON RESULTS OF INITIAL SESSION OF ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE ON COORDINATION

Press Release
ECOSOC/5890

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL HEARS BRIEFING ON RESULTS OF INITIAL SESSION OF ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE ON COORDINATION

The Economic and Social Council held a brief organizational meeting this afternoon to receive a briefing on the discussions in the most recent session of the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC).

Patricio Civili, Assistant Secretary for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, briefed the Council on the results of the first regular ACC session, which was held from 6 to 7 April in Rome, Italy.

Mr. Civili said the briefing was part of a wider effort to bring about a more continuous and increasingly productive dialogue between the Council and the ACC. The Secretariat was assisting the ACC Bureau in arranging for meetings with groups of executive heads dealing with issues related to the Council. Furthermore, beginning this year, the scope of the ACC reports was being expanded to cover not only the ACC itself, but also major developments in the work of individual organizations of the system, so as to provide the Council with a concise but comprehensive view of the “state of the system” and of the state of coordination within the system.

Turning to the latest ACC session, he said the ACC had been engaged over the past 12 months in a continuous process of reflection on the implications of globalization for international economic cooperation and development, and on the new challenges it posed for the work of the system. At each of the three sessions, different dimensions of the issue were selected for in-depth treatment. Interrelationships between trade and economic, social and environmental dimensions, as well as the question of information technology, had been discussed. At its next session, the health and other social dimensions of globalization and financing for development would be discussed.

Meeting the new challenges of globalization was bringing the system together in a way that -- in his observation as a long-time observer of ACC meetings -- was unprecedented. Coordination was being rediscovered, not only as a requirement of cost effectiveness, but as a basic condition, in the new circumstances, for progress and for each member of the system to meet its objectives. There was an increasingly strong, common realization that a new balance among the various dimensions of globalization must be brought about, and that no agency alone could address the challenges in the comprehensive way required.

During the latest ACC discussion on interrelationships between trade and economic, social and environmental dimensions, the executive heads had highlighted the integration and effective participation of all countries in the global trading

Economic and Social Council - 2 - Press Release ECOSOC/5890 9th Meeting (PM) 12 May 2000

system, and a better integration of the economic sphere with the social, environmental and cultural spheres, he said. The problems of market access for developing countries was seen as a key objective, as was continued support to developing countries in improving their infrastructures and strengthening their productive capacity. Reinforcing the institutional basis for the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements and of internationally agreed labour standards was seen as the most effective way of advancing the environmental and social agendas, without overloading the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute-settlement mechanisms.

In the discussion on information technology, the emphasis was on strengthening inter-agency coordination and on determining how such improved coordination could serve to enhance the system’s support to developing countries, and, at the same time, contribute to a more widespread and effective use of information technology for the system’s own operations, he said. There were many opportunities for productive South- South cooperation that had not as yet been fully exploited and should be supported by the system. The scope for strengthening inter-agency collaboration, including at the country level, was considerable, both in providing support for the development of national information technology strategies and in specific areas of computerization, networking and software development. Engaging the private sector was generally recognized as essential. Among the suggestions had been organizing, through a system- wide network of information technology experts and users, a facility or service available to the system as a whole for both the needs of the organizations and for operational activities for development.

Concerning a review of its own functioning, the ACC had focused on reinforcing a sense of ownership among executive heads of ACC processes, and facilitating continuous communications among them, as well as streamlining the ACC machinery and raising the level of participation in that machinery. The ACC had also focused on the support that the inter-agency machinery provided to the intergovernmental processes, particularly that of the Council.

Other items on the ACC agenda included an assessment of the system’s response to HIV/AIDS, and staff security and safety.

The representative of Austria asked whether the recommendation that the ACC resume its discussion of space activities in the United Nations system had been raised, given the implications of the subject for the environment, relief assistance and communications. Mr. Civili replied that the area was a subject of active inter- agency cooperation. There would be an ACC discussion in the future on the need for the subject, to be dealt within the machinery of ACC itself.

The representative of Belgium asked whether the agenda for the ACC spring session in the year 2001 had been set, saying that he thought it was important to ensure thematic coherence between the ACC and the Council. Mr. Civili replied that while the themes for the spring 2001 session had not yet been determined, the ACC did try to coordinate its focus. He offered as an example the recent discussion on information technology, which had been planned to coincide with the Council’s forthcoming high-level segment on the topic.

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