ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL BEGINS TRIENNIAL COMPREHENSIVE POLICY REVIEW OF OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL BEGINS TRIENNIAL COMPREHENSIVE

POLICY REVIEW OF OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT

GENEVA, 5 July (UN Information Service) -- The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) this morning took up a triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities of the United Nations for development, hearing from a series of national delegations contending, among other things, that greater funding was needed for development projects in the world's poorer nations and that further improvements could be made in the way such activities were conceived and managed.

The review came under the portion of the Council's annual substantive session dedicated to follow-up of its own policy recommendations and those of the General Assembly.  The four-week Council session, which alternates each year between New York and Geneva, will conclude on 27 July.

Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, introducing the topic, said the issue was how to connect high-level political activities such as the Millennium Summit and the Millennium Declaration with practical work at the field level, with national needs, and with country-defined, country-driven programmes.

A number of those contributing to the general debate said that despite years of reform of United Nations programmes aimed at improving their efficiency and effectiveness, resources had not increased.  Iran, speaking on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, said the gap between the rich and poor and income inequalities within and among countries had been increasing in this age of globalization, while official development assistance (ODA) had been declining in spite of the fiscal health of many donor countries.

Speakers also said the system for providing development aid needed further improvements so that projects were efficient and "country-driven".

Others addressing the session were representatives of Belgium (on behalf of the European Union), Japan, China, Croatia, Belarus, Brazil, Bahrain, Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Canada, India, Ukraine, Peru, and the Republic of Korea.

The Council had before it a report on the triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities of the United Nations system for development.  Among its conclusions, the report says that the greatest challenge to the United Nations development system at the present juncture is to enhance its capacity to adapt and respond with agility and flexibility to a rapidly changing global environment.  The United Nations cannot be an agent of change without itself changing, the report notes.  The United Nations “development architecture and

culture” has evolved over 50 years incrementally, in response to specific situations and as an extension of political choices of member governments.  It has proved remarkably resilient and has much to be proud of.  The report says that the present triennial review provides an uncommon opportunity to initiate dialogue among member governments on the complex of issues that will define the future of United Nations development cooperation.

      Statements

NITIN DESAI, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, said the review before the Council would also be before the General Assembly in the fall, but the Assembly depended heavily on ECOSOC's judgements in this matter.  Many things had happened over the past three years, including the Millennium Summit and the Millennium Declaration, which strongly endorsed certain key goals related to development.  The issue was how to connect these high-level political activities with practical United Nations work at the field level, with national needs, and with country-defined and country-driven programmes.  

Countries also were deeply concerned about globalization, Mr. Desai said.  They wanted to know how to link into the international economy, and how to have help in doing so.  Monitoring of development projects was essential -- the United Nations had to know how well these projects were working, and what their impacts were.  It was the Council's responsibility to offer policy guidance to decide what priorities should be assigned, and to take an overview of wide-ranging funds and programmes, while also considering such matters as field-level coordination and levels of resources.

Unfortunately, despite years of reform and improved efficiency, there was no apparent increase in core resources available for development work carried out by various United Nations programmes, especially when regional variations were taken into account, Mr. Desai said.  It was a serious problem, and greater commitment from the donor community was needed.  This was the main issue the Council had to confront.

BRUNO VAN DER PLUIJM (Belgium), speaking for the European Union and the countries associated with it, said that the Union supported the efforts of the United Nations to improve the efficiency, consistency and coordination of operational activities for development.  The Union would like to acknowledge the considerable progress which had been made since the creation of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).  The Union considered that, despite its shortcomings, UNDAF remained an instrument rich in potential, particularly as regards implementation of all the international development goals.  The Union saw UNDAF as a promising instrument, and the member States should make efforts to ensure that its potential was realized.

Further, the European Union welcomed the considerable progress made over the past three years with regard to the system of resident coordinators.  One of the current problems in managing the resident coordinator system was the need to rationalize the demands on country teams by the headquarters of the various agencies.  One of the major objectives of the reforms embarked on, including introduction of the assistance framework and improvements to the resident coordinator system, was to improve the quality of operational activities by strengthening coordination, consistency and synergies.

BAGHER ASADI (Iran), speaking for the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, said the gap between the rich and poor, and income inequalities within and among countries had been increasing in this age of globalization, while overall official development assistance (ODA) had been declining in spite of the fiscal health of many donor countries.  Poverty eradication should continue to be the major pillar of operational activities of the United Nations, but indications were that the major factor constraining such a United Nations role was declining financial resources for multilateral assistance and lack of resources at the domestic level.  The situation needed to be addressed and redressed. 

The resident coordinator system needed to be widened and ownership of the resident coordinator function strengthened.  Monitoring, reporting and rules and regulations needed to be harmonized and simplified.  Evaluation and monitoring of operational activities was crucial.

CHA YOUNG-CHEOL (Republic of Korea) said that while globalization and the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution had given rise to a wealth of new opportunities, they had also exacerbated disparities among and within nations and regions.  One of the biggest challenges of the new millennium was the need to address the growing income and digital gaps stemming from those developments and to ensure that developing countries had an equal voice in global decision-making. 

One of the main concerns for operational activities for development was the downward trend in ODA and, in particular, the declining core resources of funds and programmes over the past decade.  The Republic of Korea welcomed the recent introduction of the multi-year funding framework, and it was hoped that it would contribute to the predictable and sustainable mobilization of resources.  Among the agencies, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) had had some success in its recent mobilization of resources, showing a modest increase for the second year in a row.

KOICHIRO SEKI (Japan) said his country believed that aid coordination was important for the effective use of limited resources in programmes for development, and it welcomed efforts made to improve coordination through the common country assessment system, the development assistance framework, the resident coordinator system, harmonization and simplification of rules and procedures, and closer cooperation with the Bretton Woods institutions.  On the other hand, it should be recognized that coordination consumed time, energy and resources, and measures for it, therefore, should be pursued in such a manner that they did not cause counterproductive effects such as increased aid-delivery costs.

At the same time, United Nations agencies should maintain a variety of tools for development cooperation so that they were able to respond to the diversified needs of programme countries.

TINGRONG GONG (China) said United Nations development activities laudably focused on national capacity-building and poverty elimination, and they had achieved many good results through being universal and neutral; United Nations programmes were irreplaceable.  In China's view, such development activities should be country-driven and should conform with the priority policies of those countries.  It was regrettable that core resources had decreased, resulting in a serious lack of financing for development programmes, causing a crippling of aid programmes, compromising progress and effects, and weakening rather than strengthening development activities.

China hoped the United Nations system would make continuous efforts to resolve this situation.  However, efforts to date to make funding predictable, multi-year in nature, and dependable had not borne fruit.  It was necessary to do better in this regard. 

IVAN SIMONOVIC (Croatia) said his country fully supported the Council's call for the heads of United Nations funds and programmes to include in their annual reports to the Council a thorough analysis of problems encountered, and lessons learned, so as to allow the Council to fulfil its coordinating role.  Croatia welcomed the ongoing efforts of the United Nations Development Group to rationalize its architecture and promote greater knowledge management, as a means of reducing meetings and realizing more effective coordination.  It would encourage ongoing dialogue of members of the Group with the Bretton Woods institutions.

Croatia recognized that the UNDAF process and common country assessments played a valuable analytical role in planning activities for poverty reduction.  It also recognized that even though cooperation with governments remained essential for successful development cooperation, the role of autonomous governmental entities and non-governmental organizations was becoming more important.  Croatia also believed that, in addition to emergency relief, development should remain a priority.

IRINA ANANICH (Belarus) said the system of operational activities should be efficient and react quickly, taking national needs and particularities into account, and making efficient use of the limited resources available.  The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in the view of Belarus, was an effective and helpful agency in solving serious world problems relating to poverty and development.  The unique system of resident coordinators was a good channel for linking the national and global levels of development programmes.

The downward trend in the core resources of the UNDPrequired radical steps in response.  Donors should provide the necessary funding required by the UNDP to carry out its valuable country programmes.  The minimum level of resources required should be guaranteed to enable the UNDP to function effectively.  Belarus also supported activities of UNDAF on the issue of HIV/AIDS, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) programmes in cooperation with countries to aid children.

OLYNTHO VIEIRA (Brazil) underlined that globalization posed great challenges to the international community.  While global integration had shrunk distances and created new opportunities, driven to a great extent by the impact of information and communication technologies, globalization had also increased income inequalities within nations and between the developed and the developing world.  The level of poverty had increased dramatically worldwide.  In addition, regional conflicts and the AIDS pandemic had retracted development gains in numerous countries.  Brazil had consistently stressed the importance of promoting coordination among United Nations organizations and welcomed progress made so far in that direction.  However, much remained to be done.

Brazil favoured the focus placed by the United Nations system organizations in the mainstreaming of poverty eradication, capacity-building and gender equality in their activities in the developing world. 

FARROOQ A. ABDULLA (Bahrain) said that over the last three decades a greater understanding of poverty and how to reduce it had been achieved, and United Nations programmes to that end had been expanded; there had also been greater efforts to build infrastructure and improve health care and education to make development possible, to train the poor and to raise their incomes.

Some countries had been successful in reducing poverty and had moved from extreme poverty to being able to provide access to basic necessities such as drinking water and health care; these success stories showed other countries that such advances were possible.  Despite these results, international development cooperation needed greater resources and attention.  The supply of help was far lower than the demand, and new problems had arisen, such as HIV/AIDS, which was having a devastating impact, for example, on many African countries and communities.

SALMAN AL FARISI (Indonesia) said the lack of adequate financial resources for the United Nations operational activities had dominated the international community's agenda in recent years.  Such resources were still far from being put on a predictable, continuous and assured basis commensurate with the increasing needs of the developing countries.  There was no doubt that an uncertain financial base hampered the capacity of the system's development cooperation to meet the challenge of viable development.  Thus, the issue of core resources had become an acute problem, undermining the performance of the operational activities. 

The introduction of the multi-year framework funding was one of the main innovations in financing for development.  Its main purposes were to increase resources and predictability.  However, doubts had arisen as to the ability of that mechanism being able to halt and reverse the trends over the past decade.  With the major donors advocating more reliance on market forces and competition, multilateral financing for development had been greatly eroded.

DER KOGDA (Burkina Faso) said poverty was the most important challenge facing the international community.  The global conferences held in the 1990s had provided a chance for setting the agenda for combating poverty, ignorance and disease, as well as violence, terror and degradation of the environment.  The United Nations was the unique organization best placed to tackle these important issues.  The entire United Nations system and its country teams had come up with the current development assistance framework to produce increased efficiency.  In Burkina Faso, the Bretton Woods institutions were providing about 10 per cent of the ODA received.  Evaluations undertaken of various cooperation programmes in Burkina Faso had found that the focus of the programmes was accurate, but that in terms of execution there were sometimes problems, such as insufficient levels of national capacities and lack of coordination between agencies.

GINETTE LACHANCE (Canada) said her delegation welcomed the focus on poverty eradication, the increased collaboration and synergies within the United Nations system, and the development of new partnerships, including with regional development banks, civil society organizations and the business sector.  It was somewhat disappointing that only six impact evaluations had been funded in time for the current session of the Council.  A positive one was that the United Nations system could assist recipient countries successfully to address core problems such as poverty, and that the key to that success was strong leadership by the government and good interaction with the United Nations system.

Canada was pleased to note that the United Nations system had committed itself to a more explicit and consistent human rights approach.  The same could be said for its support for gender mainstreaming in the formation of programmes and projects.  Despite progress and achievements, the United Nations system should also collaborate more closely, to explore the gender perspective in new and emerging areas such as the place of gender in issues like HIV/AIDS, peace and security, ICT, and financing for development.  Close collaboration was required to ensure that scarce United Nations resources for gender issues were best utilized, and to avoid duplication of efforts.

Canada agreed that regular or core funding for operational activities remained short of the critical mass necessary for effective programme delivery.  The multi-year funding framework might have raised expectations too high, but the decline had been arrested, with a large majority of donors increasing their contributions to core resources.

B.S. BISHNOI (India) said there had been a steady erosion of faith over the years in the operational activities of the United Nations system.  The erosion among donor countries was apparent in the decline in funding provided, especially to the UNDP, which had seen, for example, a decline of some 30 per cent since 1995.  As donor countries saw it, the UNDP took on mostly “soft” challenges and was not attuned to the real needs of programme countries.  This perception among donor nations eroded the faith of recipient countries, since donor countries more and more targeted their aid through cost-sharing or trust funds which, they felt, allowed them to determine more closely the activities which received funding and helped them to control how the money was spent.  Hence, recipient countries saw multilateral aid programmes as more and more a tool for advancing specific donor agendas.

SERKII YAMPOLSKYI (Ukraine) said that since the last triennial policy review, the role of United Nations funds and programmes in strengthening national capacity-building, in carrying out the decisions of the United Nations global conferences and in assisting developing countries and countries in transition in their efforts to respond to the challenges of globalization had been improved.  It was the view of the Government of Ukraine that the UNDP should continue to play a central role in coordinating the activities of the United Nations agencies in that country.  That role was of particular importance with regard to implementation of such multifaceted and long-term projects as the Crimea Integration and Development Programme, and the United Nations-Chernobyl Programme, among other things.

Globalization of the world economy, trade liberalization and technological changes, particularly in the field of ICT, offered new opportunities and posed new challenges.  Thus, it created new dimensions of cooperation between the United Nations system of operational activities and the governments, and demanded more comprehensive and integrated approaches to that end.

JORGE VOTO-BERNALES (Peru) said the United Nations system had the key role in international development programmes and, hence, should keep its eye on global

economic developments that posed problems.  Development programmes should seek to achieve the goals set by global conferences in the 1990s and also set out in the Millennium Declaration.

Core ODA funding had declined dramatically since the end of the cold war.  A preference also had emerged among a small and influential group of donor countries for channelling funding outside the United Nations system and keeping funding arrangements short term.  It would be useful for the Council to have a report on this and other relevant developments.  It was important to improve coordination of development programmes and to strive to limit the transaction costs involved in such programmes for developing countries.

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