ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL CONTINUES DISCUSSION OF FOLLOW-UP TO MAJOR UN CONFERENCES

Press Release
ECOSOC/5902

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL CONTINUES DISCUSSION OF FOLLOW-UP TO MAJOR UN CONFERENCES

A special session review of every major United Nations conference every five years was a very demanding process and probably not cost effective, Ado Vaher, Director, Office of United Nations Affairs and External Relations of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICCEF), told the Economic and Social Council this morning.

As the Council met to continue its consideration of the reviews and follow- ups to major United Nations conferences and summits in the economic, social and related field, Mr. Vaher said that while major periodic reviews were necessary, they could take place in high-level Assembly sessions as 10-year events. That would allow time for significant accomplishment, an understanding of developments and new trends and accommodate a comprehensive preparatory process that drew on national experiences.

New Zealand’s representative said the key to a successful review lay in the timeliness and adequacy of preparations for it. A more focused overall approach was essential. The scope of reviews had often been too broad, and the time available too short to thoroughly and consistently address all issues. The five- year review period itself might be too short to adequately assess progress and obstacles, while being too close to the conferences concerned to avoid reopening discussion on the commitments made there.

She it was valuable to utilize that five-year mark as an opportunity for technical or expert reviews by regional or functional commissions. The Council had a key role to play in providing guidance on substantive cross-cutting themes. Where there was a lack of coherence or inconsistency in the consideration of those issues, the Council must bring the different strands together. Contradictory outcomes from different United Nations processes weakened the overall impact and credibility of the Organization’s standard-setting role, she said.

Morocco’s representative stressed however, that reviews should be carried out every five years to ensure that that the political will needed to ensure the success of programmes did not stagnate. Further, the main problem to be examined in the framework of the coordination segment was how to solve the United Nations’ financial crisis. Specifically, there was a need to find solutions to the reduction in financing to the Organization’s funds and programmes.

The representative of the Republic of Korea said the "plus five" processes had considerable shortcomings in terms of their modalities, scope and timing.

Economic and Social Council - 1a - Press Release ECOSOC/5902 18th Meeting (AM) 11 July 2000

Moreover, lengthy and vague outcome documents had further complicated the implementation of conference goals, while recent negotiations on similar issues in different forums had exhausted precious time and efforts.

Canada’s representative said one consideration that had not been highlighted was the impact of the reviews on the standing of intergovernmental machinery. The habit of addressing and managing important questions through special events had taken much of the work of the United Nations out of the agenda of existing intergovernmental machinery, rendering it somewhat redundant and irrelevant. If that machinery was to play a more effective role, then it needed to be overhauled.

Statements were also made this morning by the representatives of Viet Nam, Poland, Australia, India, Colombia, Indonesia, Israel, Russian Federation, Belarus and Pakistan.

Representatives of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) also made statements.

An intervention was also made by the International Movement ATD Fourth World in its capacity as a non-governmental organization with general consultative status in the Council.

The Council will meet again this afternoon to consider the coordinated implementation by the United Nations of the Habitat Agenda, adopted at the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) (Istanbul, 1996).

Council Work Programme

The Economic and Social Council met this morning to continue and conclude its consideration of "coordination of the policies and activities of the specialized agencies and other bodies of the United Nations system: assessment of the progress made within the United Nations system, through the conference reviews, in the promotion of an integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow-up to major United Nations conferences and summits in the economic, social and related fields".

(For background, see Press Release ECOSOC/5900 of 10 July.)

Statements

JILLIAN DEMPSTER (New Zealand) said the key to a successful review, whether at a five or ten-year point, lay in the timeliness and adequacy of preparations for it. The sequencing of reviews to avoid more then one high-level segment in any one year was common sense. Furthermore, sufficient lead-time was required to allow governments to consult domestically and prepare national reports, and as well as for regions to come together as a group and review their own progress and experiences. National reports could also be made more focused to avoid duplication between the different follow-up processes and reduce the reporting burden on small States. Assistance could be provided to governments of developing countries to enable them to meet reporting requirements.

A more focused overall approach was essential, she said. The scope of reviews had often been too broad and the time available too short to thoroughly and consistently address all the issues. There should be more willingness to build on the outcomes of other conferences to avoid duplication of effort. Also, more attention could be paid to agreeing in advance on clear objectives for the reviews, to sharpen the focus of all stakeholders on the task at hand. The five- year review period itself might be too short to adequately assess progress and obstacles, while being too close to the conferences concerned to avoid reopening discussion on the commitments.

She saw value in utilizing that five-year mark as an opportunity for technical or expert reviews by regional or functional commissions. The Council had a key role to play in providing guidance on substantive crosscutting themes. Where there was a lack of coherence or inconsistency in the consideration of those issues, the Council must bring the different strands together, Contradictory outcomes from different United Nations processes weakened the overall impact and credibility of the Organization’s standard setting role.

FREDERICK H. WEIBGEN, Representative of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said as a result of the 1996 World Food Summit, the world community had an internationally-agreed target to reduce by half, no later than 2015, the number of undernourished people in the world. He urged that the target be allowed to retain all of its relevancy.

The FAO estimated that while the number of undernourished people in developing countries had been falling by 8 million per year, such progress was far from sufficient. Achieving the target would require a reduction of at least 20 million per year. Accelerating progress towards that end was the major objective of the World Food Summit follow-up effort. The main responsibility for monitoring implementation of the Plan of Action was assigned to FAO’s Committee on World Food Security, he said.

He said addressing the hunger problem at the national level required accurate and timely information to answer the three major questions concerning the food insecure -- who, where, and why. The World Food Summit had identified a pressing need for more reliable information on areas and populations affected by or at risk of hunger and malnutrition.

The FAO was facilitating a collaborative effort to bring together concerned United Nations system organizations, competent national and subregional institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), he said. In the area of human rights, the World Food Summit sought a more precise definition of the concepts of the right to adequate food and of the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger.

He wished to underline that meeting the target of the World Food Summit would also help to meet the other goals established by the international community. He encouraged all United Nations system organizations to contribute to World Food Security follow-up within their spheres of competence.

LE LUONG MINH, Deputy Director for International Organizations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, (Viet Nam), said the recommendations in the Secretary-General’s report were particularly useful with regard to the role of the functional and regional commissions, the use of national and regional reports and the use of technical assessments as the basis for reviews. Whether future reviews were undertaken in special sessions or by the functional commissions should be decided on a case-by-case basis. It was clear, however, that two or more reviews could not be undertaken in one year, let alone in one month, as had been the case last month.

Five years was too short a time to meaningfully assess implementation policies, he continued. Yet, so far, the plus-five reviews had been useful in determining that progress was very limited and uneven. Nearly all reviews indicated that implementation was hampered by declining the official development assistance (ODA), the debt burden, limited technology transfer and limited market access for developing countries. As pointed out, the problems could be eased. Donor countries could live up to ODA commitments. They could support the building of national implementation capacity and participate in preparing national reports on implementation.

For future reviews and follow-up actions, he said, broad participation at the national and international levels was critical. At the national level, both the private sector and organizations needed to be included in the implementation and review processes. At the international level, cooperation had to be strengthened across the board among the United Nations system and agencies, the Bretton Woods Institutions, the private sector and all other stakeholders.

ADO VAHER, Director, Office of United Nations Affairs and External Relations, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said a General Assembly special session review of each conference every five years was a very demanding process and probably not cost effective. His agency’s experiences suggested that a significant amount of the review of achievements in programme countries could be ongoing, if built into country level programming and evaluation frameworks, with the results provided through regular reports and the Executive Board. A major periodic review was necessary, but could take place in high-level Assembly sessions as a 10-year event. That would allow time for significant accomplishment, an understanding of developments and new trends and would accommodate a comprehensive preparatory process that drew on national processes.

He said 10-year reviews should take place for individual conferences as well as for the integrated follow-up under the overarching goal of poverty eradication. All reviews needed to involve a broad range of stakeholders in a meaningful way. The reviews should also involve national leaders at the highest levels –- their personal commitment to the issues at hand was vital. The sharing of experiences was also important. The outcome of the review process should be brief, as well, and should add to what already existed. Declarations and plans of actions should be concise, forward-looking and action oriented. They should define new challenges and issues, rather than reaffirm existing positions. They should also be relevant to the issues at hand, he said.

JEAN-JACQUES GRAISSE, Assistant Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said while funds and programmes could impose more discipline on themselves to regularly review progress without waiting for five or 10 years, the reviews had provided an opportunity for those organizations to review progress and to correct the path chosen during the conference. The targets set at the conferences assisted in coordinating the responses of the WFP.

The WFP had defined a course of action to break the inheritance of hunger, he said. Ending hunger was essential for poverty reduction. Women were a key player in ending the poverty trap. All WFP programmes were aimed to meet the goals of the World Food Summit.

As one of the ways to tackle poverty, the WFP had invested in education for women and girls, he continued. In related food projects, resources were also used to improve women’s empowerment. There was a direct link between education and malnutrition. Girls who attended school regularly were supplied with food incentives to take home. Women’s literacy, skill-building and empowerment were also supported. Children could not learn when hungry. The WFP had helped children through school food programmes. Two-thirds of the beneficiaries of WFP were women and girls.

In 1999 half of WFP’s expenditures for development were spent in least developed countries, he said and $243 million was devoted to helping the poor through food-for-work projects, school feeding and other projects. The WFP’s assistance in Africa was particularly important. It spent 44 per cent of its 1999 expenditures in sub-Saharan Africa. In order to work towards its goals, the WFP had forged strong partnerships with organizations in the United Nations system as well as with international and local NGOs. Those partnerships worked, he said.

ADAM SKRYBANT (Poland) said his country wished to associate itself with the positions taken in the statement made on behalf of the European Union by the delegation of France yesterday and with the position of the United States, as well. His country believed and wished to stress that regional reviews could take advantage of the institutional machinery of the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE).

He said Poland had always insisted that an analysis of the systemic and economic transformations that had taken place in the central and eastern European countries, the so-called economies in transition, should be also carried out by the ECE.

JACKQUI DE LACY (Australia) said in approaching any review, it was critical that the goals and scope of the review were clear from the outset. The review process should be seen as an integral part of the process -- an opportunity to assess progress in implementation, identify new challenges and map out future strategies. The important role which civil society played must be protected and maximized wherever possible.

It was important that reviews were carried out on a needs basis, she said. The outcomes of many reviews showed that, while successful, they came at a high cost and were time consuming. Reinventing the wheel should be avoided, and value should be added by building on successes of world summits. It was necessary to insure that functional commissions retained the necessary authority. They were the first place for follow-up of the conferences.

A major problem for five-year reviews was that they followed so closely on the heels of the conference itself, she continued. There was insufficient time to be able to demonstrate substantive progress. The best form of review might be to conduct specific technical reviews, clearly focused on the core issues of the conference. The outcome then would be to: identify instances of good progress, based on national reporting of objective and comparable statistics; exchange experiences on constraints encountered; and identify best practices for dealing with those constraints.

VIJAY THAKUR SINGH (India) said it was ironic that at a time when international consensus had been forged through a series of United Nations conferences, the flow of resources to achieve shared objectives had not occurred. The five-year reviews had demonstrated that inconsistency and a marked lack of vigour for cooperating to implement even agreed-upon goals. The paradox was that consensus about actions to reach social goals was accompanied by involvement fatigue. The efficacy of international cooperation was being questioned, and protectionist pressures were undermining market forces under a pretext of social and environmental causes. Further, attempts were being made to shift attention away from building an international enabling environment conducive to development with the financial resources to achieve it.

The five-year reviews had identified those factors as impediments to implementing conference goals, she said. The follow-up to the various conference outcomes and their reviews were the basis for a new impetus to re-energize deliberations that would focus efforts more effectively. Implementation at the national level should continue, while international cooperation was enhanced and strengthened by the three-tier structure already established -- which entailed national and international efforts continuing to implement conference outcomes, while functional commissions continued their thematic multi-year programmes. The Council, meanwhile, needed to continue its coordinating role, while working to involve the entire United Nations system in the follow-up process, including all actors from the specialized agencies, from the funds and programmes to the Bretton Woods institutions.

AHMED AMAZIANE (Morocco) expressed concern at the late publication in all languages of documentation for the Council’s substantive session. That was detrimental to the participation of many delegations. All of the hopes held at the major conferences had been dashed in light of such negative developments as dwindling ODA, the continued degradation of the environment and the growing inequality between countries. While it was an integrated world, it was also one split by several deep divides. In addition, the human suffering of several billion people still could not be stopped.

He said the drop in ODA was unexpected. "We are being told, however, that there is nothing to worry about”, because the flows of private capital had reached several billion dollars. What had not been said was that the same private capital was going to about 15 countries –- those doing well. The other 110 developing countries did not benefit from that capital. Private capital was at the service of the private sector. It was not there to protect countries, since that was not its objective. It should also be remembered that capital flows were also fueled by speculation.

He said that the main problem to be examined in the framework of the coordination segment was how to solve the United Nations’ financial crisis. Specifically, a solution must be found to the reduction of financing in the Organization’s funds and programmes. He also stressed that the scheduling of more than one review per year should be avoided. Above all, that practice reduced the participation of small delegations. Reviews should also be carried out every five years to ensure that that the political will needed to ensure the success of programmes did not stagnate. In a world where the vast majority still lived in abject poverty, the international community could not afford to stay mired in introspection about that poverty.

ANDRÉS FRANCO (Colombia) said the last decade had seen a benchmark reached in United Nations history by the number of major conferences and summits. Difficult negotiations had resulted in consensus documents. The process had become complex, however, and the rigid format of political dialogues at the high- level made the achievement of goals difficult at times.

Responsibility for implementing plans and programmes lay with national governments, he said. However, without national capacity, achieving proposed goals was difficult. International cooperation was fundamental, as a complementary mechanism to implementing the goals. The Council's coordinating function should be strengthened. The functional commissions’ agendas should be prioritized to focus on themes basic to solving the problems of the developing world. The cross-cutting issues should be screened, so as not to produce duplication of effort. Civil society should be included in the implementation and review process, but the Organization’s intergovernmental nature should prevail. Civil society’s participation should add to deliberations, rather than impede them. Dialog between the Council and the Bretton Woods institutions should be further strengthened. In addition, the time had come to approach trade issues and the World Trade Organization.

SLAMET HIDAYAT (Indonesia) said the Council’s coordinating role was important, given the rapid pace of globalization and interdependence. The choice of the meeting’s theme was timely and lent itself to the Council’s coordinating role. He associated his delegation with Nigeria’s statement on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China.

The continuum of the major conferences defined and reoriented the approach to development and the eradication of poverty, and the Council’s coordination role promised to help propel their combined thrust in the service of accelerating the development of developing countries and eradicating the scourge of poverty. The five-year reviews were almost completed and it was timely to review the progress or lack of it of the conferences. Overall, he said, the results had been disappointing. The reviews had highlighted how little had been accomplished.

It was important that meaningful partnerships be established among the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the private sector and other relevant stakeholders so that appropriate decisions and actions could be taken to implement the outcomes of the major conferences. It was also important that all parties involved reinforced the administrative and statistical capacities of the developing countries, in particular the least developed countries, he said.

RON ADAM, (Israel) said the five-year review conferences needed comprehensive review and a major change. In particular, there should be no more five-year review conferences, no more general debates about them in the plenary, no more months of drafting outcome documents and no more unlimited number of participants.

Elaborating on problems with those aspects of reviews, he outlined an alternative. Instead of conferences, a task force would review commitments and report on them. In place of general debates, an opening session would lead off a series of high-level, round table discussions aimed at a specific outcome. Short papers usable for those discussions would replace the now lengthy documents being prepared. The number of delegates and non-governmental organization (NGO) participants would be limited.

Those changes were imperative, he said. A high-level intergovernmental event, such as the 2001 high-level conference on financing for development, required a new arrangement for a tangible outcome.

YU. V. FEDOTOV (Russian Federation) said the justified comments regarding mid-term reviews should not serve as grounds for discontinuing them. They should simply be made more effective, in line with the Secretary-General’s observations in his report. The quality of the reviews and the preparation process should be improved, goals should be clearly defined and new developments should be taken into account. Since the regional aspect of the review process was a key element in preparing for a review, the role of the regional commissions should be strengthened to reflect the regional and subregional dimensions of the review outcome.

Indicators in implementing conference outcomes should continue to be developed, he said. Civil society should participate in the process, within the parameters of a balanced approach in strict adherence to agreed procedures. To solve the most important problems at the national and international levels expediently, only 10-year reviews of post-conference activities should take place. Clustering several conference reviews into a single event should depend on the similarity of problems covered by each conference. Also, review events of conferences should be integrated with future reviews of the new international development strategy currently being prepared.

SUH DAE-WON (Republic of Korea) said the "plus five" processes had considerable shortcomings in terms of their modalities, scope and timing. The wide-ranging coverage of each conference and short time span between them and the review meetings had often prevented a meaningful and effective assessment of implementation objectives. Moreover, lengthy and vague outcome documents had further complicated the implementation of conference goals, while recent negotiations on similar issues in different forums had exhausted precious time and effort.

He said that since automatic and frequent global reviews were not desirable, his delegation believed that each functional commission should undertake a regular review of conferences and summits, and that innovative ways and means should be further explored to make the process more concrete and fruitful.

His country supported the organization of technical meetings and expert groups on specific subjects under the auspices of the functional commissions, he said. Last but not least, the national and regional components of the global review process merited due attention. Special consideration should be given to devising tools, such as improved national reporting systems and measurement indicators, to facilitate national implementation.

ALYAKSANDR SYCHOV(Belarus) said lately there had been an increasing number of international conferences and meetings examining issues of similar content. The idea of clustering closely-related problems within a single review event -- either a conference or a special session -- was certainly worthy of consideration.

Special attention should be paid to the measures designed to allow timely preparation by the Council for review events, including through more active involvement by national governments, he said. Reviews by themselves, were a strong mobilizing factor for national governments, leading to a more detailed analysis of the conference outcomes, evaluation of progress achieved, identification of constraints encountered, as well as directions for further action.

Noting the key role of national information in preparation for review events, he said he hoped for enhanced assistance by United Nations country teams to national governments in analyzing their standing in the follow-up to major conferences. The extensive involvement of multiple stakeholders, including NGOs, private sector and local authorities, was another important factor in providing the comprehensive data needed for efficient preparation of conference reviews.

ROSS HYNES (Canada) said his country strongly shared the view that decisions on when and how to conduct reviews should be taken on case-by-case basis. “We must careful not to be locked into an automatic pattern for major conferences”, he said. In the same vein, he agreed with those delegations who felt that it was important to stagger reviews, so that there was only one a year. Similar thematic matters should also not be clustered into one review, despite the cross-cutting nature of themes. Attention had to be focused individually on a given theme.

He said ways should also be examined to better integrate ongoing follow-up and monitoring of conferences, rather than rely on the use of special events only. One consideration that had not been highlighted was the impact of the reviews on the standing of intergovernmental machinery. The habit of addressing and managing important questions through special events had take much of the work of the United Nations out of the agenda of existing intergovernmental machinery, rendering it somewhat redundant and irrelevant. If that machinery was to play a more effective role, then it needed to be overhauled.

NAVID HANIF (Pakistan), associating himself with Nigeria’s statement on behalf of the Group of 77, said to find the correct answer, the right question had to be asked. The current meeting did not address the problems in a holistic manner. The real question was, why had the conditions of developing countries not improved, despite the conferences. Financial instability was on the rise, environmental degradation continued unabated and the goals of social development remained elusive.

He said the optimism of the major conferences was not there anymore. There was a certain degree of skepticism about the benefits of entering into processes that had led to selective implementation of the targets and goals. In the case of Agenda 21, for example, there had been real progress on sectoral issues, but cross-sectoral issues of particular interest to developing countries had not been addressed. If one was sincere in hoping to revive the confidence and hope of the post-cold-war era, a real commitment to realizing the targets of the conferences was necessary. Time-bound targets were necessary for those sectors that were vital for development.

Reviews should be neither automatic, nor held at arbitrarily selected periods, he said. He proposed the possibility of evolving a trigger mechanism for reviews. Such a mechanism could be based on certain criteria used for evaluating progress in implementing the goals. As soon as it was established that the ongoing trends were either contributing to the agreed upon goals or not, the review process should be launched. The review process should be held at the highest political level. Reviews should be restricted to inter-governmental processes, in order to generate the necessary momentum. The Secretary-General's recommendations would be examined by the functional commissions and he hoped that the proposal for the trigger mechanism would be examined, as well.

STEPHEN BROWN, Director, Social Development and Poverty Elimination Division, Bureau for Development Policy, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said the development process was increasingly recognized as a holistic and thematic one, rather than sectoral. Each of the conferences of the past decade had played an important role in exposing to greater scrutiny the complexities of the development process. The "plus five" process added an important monitoring dimension to the deliberations of the major conferences, but it could lead to a proliferation of indicators.

Speaking from the perspective of a field-based agency working closely with individual countries in preparing for reviews, he said UNDP could work more effectively if the conference process were rationalized with regard to both focus and timing. The Council was in the best position to propose such a rationalization, based on three practical aspects of reviews: the preparation of country reports; the use of indicators; and a country’s statistical capacity. Both country reports and indicators should serve a dual purpose -- for presentation to global conferences, as well as for national use. At the same time, indicators should be developed in order to establish the level of technical support a given country could absorb from donor countries.

DIANA SKELTON, International Movement ATD Fourth World, said human rights should be mainstreamed into the coordinated follow-up to major conferences and summits, by action on both the part of the United Nations and that of civil society. At the level of the United Nations, it was imperative that the Organization not allow itself to be used as a forum for every government to defend its own interest. The follow-up to conferences should not be polarized into conflicting views between developed and developing countries. If such follow-up was to be separated into technical and political levels, both must be carried out in a spirit of co-responsibility with regard to respect for human rights. Every country, rich or poor, should be held to its commitments and respected for its contributions.

At the level of civil society, she continued, the human rights framework required that each and every person be reached. If implementation of conference aims were to be achieved, the most isolated and vulnerable of the world’s citizens had to be included in equal partnership with all others, including those living in the worst forms of poverty. Their voices needed to be heard in the forums and discussions, which now included only academic professors as “experts”. University knowledge had to be supplemented with the wisdom of those familiar with the grass- roots impact of social and economic policies.

In the reviews of conferences and summits, the language called more and more for the voices of the poor to be heeded, she concluded. Yet those people’s voices remained faint and were seldom heard at the United Nations itself. Living in extreme poverty around the world and in the poorest communities, however, they managed to make life livable for themselves, their families and neighbours. The term “expert” should be redefined so that the wisdom of such people informed deliberations.

FRANKLYN LISK, of the International Labour Organization (ILO), said the reviews provided another opportunity to promote a comprehensive and integrated approach to the assessment of the progress made towards the goals of the Conferences, to which the ILO was firmly committed.

The ILO's current work programme was predicated on the principles of social justice and human rights, he said. It was dedicated to improving the conditions of humankind through ensuring "quality jobs", safeguarding the basic rights of workers and promoting equal labour standards.

He said ILO's involvement in promoting the goals set out in the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) had led to adopting three more instruments related to promoting gender equality: The Home Work Convention in 1996; the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work in 1998; and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention adopted in June 1999, which called for international attention for the situation of girls. With respect to Beijing + 5 implementation, ILO’s mandate related to poverty reduction and elimination of discrimination. That had enhanced ILO’s activities.

He said a holistic approach offered the best means of dealing with development problems of unemployment, poverty, discrimination and social policies. The ILO had emphasized the integration of economic and social policies as an operational framework for achieving the employment objective of "decent work" in the face of the formidable challenges posed by rapid globalization.

The ILO's involvement in the review process had led to the belief that to effectively tackle the existing problems of economic and social development, the United Nations system agencies should collectively seek, among other things, to promote the simultaneous consideration of social and economic objectives in formulating development policies. The ILO had used the opportunity of the reviews to reflect on its own approach to development, in particular to creating jobs that were productive and safe, he said.

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