TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL ASHA-ROSE MIGIRO

AT UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, 1 MAY 2007

 

The Deputy Secretary-General:  Good morning ladies and gentlemen.  I am very pleased to see you this morning.  I know that a good number of you had wanted to exchange ideas with me, but I thought I should take this opportunity today to come here and to get to see you.  I would have wanted to get an informal meeting, but the schedule did not permit it, so here I am.

I will start by, of course, telling you what I have been doing.  You all know that I took office close to three months ago now, thereabout.  Since I took office, I have been working on my priorities and responsibilities, focusing mainly on the areas of development, management issues -- both internally and within the broader United Nations reform -- and doing other activities or duties, as given to me by the Secretary-General.

In as far as the reform agenda is concerned, I have been working with other senior system colleagues to move forward that agenda, in particular the system-wide coherence.  I have been consulting with Member States.  I have had occasion to exchange ideas with the President of the General Assembly and UN colleagues, to prepare the Secretary-General’s report on system-wide coherence, which has now been presented to the General Assembly.  Following that, I will be leading a process of consultations with Member States on how to take forward the recommendations that were made by the High-Level Panel.  I intend to have sort of a light structure to coordinate the views of the Member States, to coordinate the response from within the UN system and to consult again with the process that the President of the General Assembly will have put forward to the Member States.  I have also worked in the areas of internal management and human resources by interacting with Member States to get their feel of what we intend to do, and leading other processes internally.

In the area of development, I have been part of the thinking that aims at revitalizing the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  You will realize. Ladies and gentlemen, that we will soon reach the mid-point to the Goals.  It has been felt that, because of the lagging behind, particularly of some countries, it was important to give more push, to give more profile, to the MDGs.  In this regard, I have been undertaking an advocacy role with members and with fora I have been able to attend.  And we think this is important if we are to see the results obtained towards 2015.

But, on the other hand, I have just come back from a trip.  I was first in Geneva, where I attended the Chief Executives Board Meeting, and thereafter travelled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and also to the Republic of the Congo.  While in DRC, I had occasion to see what our operations are and to interact with [the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC)] and the United Nations country team.  But I also could see the efforts that have been made by the country having done the elections, which were the first in 40 years.  And I got to see the challenges they are facing there in the area of strengthening the process of democracy, issues relating to security and the like.

Then, I travelled to Congo-Brazzaville, where I attended an annual regional management meeting of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).  This was a bit unique, in the sense that it was the first time that all coordinators from sub-Saharan Africa were meeting there.  And, once again, here, the major point was finding ways to scale up the implementation of the MDGs and seeing how the United Nations could continue supporting this process.

So I had a very productive meeting there, but also I met with the political leadership and some women’s groups.  In both countries, I think I got to see what the United Nations was doing and what more we can do to help the internal processes there for development.

This is briefly what I thought I could share with you.  Do you have any questions on what we have been doing and particularly this trip?

Question:  I would like to welcome you here on behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA).  I’m George Baumgarten, the Treasurer of UNCA.  We had the pleasure of meeting just briefly right out here in the hall a month or two ago.

Based on what development goals you see for these two specific countries, was it your impression that Mr. [Joseph] Kabila and Mr. [Denis] Sassou Nguesso are on the same page with you, and do they have at least largely similar dovetailing development goals for their respective countries, and are their projected means of achieving them, in your opinion -- to the extent that you have formed an opinion on this -- realistic?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  Well, the two countries have sort of different types of challenges at this point in time, although, by and large, they should be the same, as developing countries.  The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a very big country, with a very big population, which was sort of without a real, proper system for the past 40-42 years, until they had elections.  So they are having to face the challenge of putting, first of all, systems of governance in place.  But, on the other hand, this is a poor country, so they have no infrastructure.  Basic social services are almost not in place, and there are security issues as well.  So they have these challenges, and the challenges are fairly huge.

The President -- President Kabila -- seems to acknowledge this and, in my meeting with him, he told me that his Government was really bent on paying attention to the various challenges that they have.  But, at this point in time, they’re struggling with putting systems of governance in place and with issues relating to security, although they have, of course, basic needs -- medical, schools and all -- are also a problem.

But they also see the need to work with the United Nations.  The United Nations, of course, has done some work there, particularly in relation to development, so the President and the leadership of the country expressed the wish to continue working with the United Nations, so, in that regard, we can say that we are on the same page.

In Congo-Brazzaville, they are also preparing right now for elections.  It is a country that was also afflicted by conflict, but they are stabilizing now.  The United Nations also has been doing a lot of work there, particularly in the area of development and governance, and again, I met with the Prime Minister.  I was scheduled to meet with the President, but, at the last minute, we sort of were hurrying to get out, so we couldn’t meet him.  But the Prime Minister also did assure us that they were working together with the United Nations in a very smooth way and that they had the same vision that we had, particularly as relates to the Millennium Development Goals, because we were discussing this as a common vision that was agreed to by Heads of State and Government, and there are some sort of a compact.  So we all agreed that this was an area on which we should focus our attention and look for resources around.  So, in that regard, I can say yes, we are on the same page.

Question:  Let me just follow up.  I’ve been to both these countries, or at least I’ve been to Brazzaville and Kinshasa, although it was some years ago.  In theory, one would expect that Kinshasa, which is a vastly, vastly larger city -- a couple times the size of Brazzaville in population -- would be more developed, things would work better, infrastructure would work better, hotels would be better, things like that.  In point of fact, it was just the opposite.  I did an article, actually, on the ferry from Brazzaville to Kinshasa.

In Brazzaville, not all the streets were paved, but things worked, which is kind of what happens in the former French countries, as opposed to the British countries or, God help us, the Belgian or Portuguese countries [inaudible background remark].   Did you find that this was somewhat still true, that there was a disparity in the infrastructure or the way things worked, or is it somewhat more equal now?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  No, these are two different countries.  And, if you compare the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Congo Republic, the Congo Republic was relatively more stable and more structured in terms of governance, whereas the Democratic Republic of the Congo was not.  In fact, it is a surprise that you go to Kinshasa and find that there are paved roads.  The buildings are still intact in a country where there was almost no investment in development, even in infrastructure.  But that is only Kinshasa.  Other parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as you might know, are not that reachable.

Question:  I’m sort of interested in your style and approach.  It seems to me, so far, it’s all very conciliatory and you’re on the same page as everybody, and so forth.  But, on two particular cases, do you think it is time to talk out, take a stance against the Gambian President’s claim he can cure AIDS himself and kicking out any kind of United Nations people who suggest otherwise?  And, two, do you think it’s time for the United Nations to take a… basically, there was this effort under Kofi Annan to create some kind of mediation, or whatever you call it, on the Zimbabwe situation.  Mugabe rejected him, and then I’m not sure, there was some kind of curious role that was never clarified for your former President, President [Benjamin] Mkapa, but is it time for the United Nations again to get involved in the situation in Zimbabwe and to start taking a little more proactive stance there as well?

The Deputy Secretary-General: About the Gambian President, I think the position was made very clear by UNDP there, that there was no scientific proof that this could work.  Yes, the representative was asked to leave, and she left.  But the question of having a cure is a question of science and whether it has worked, and this is where really the problem is.  That has not been proved and it is on this basis that the comment was made.

Question:  You’ve got an insane President who claims he can cure AIDS by some kind of mumbo-jumbo technique, and the United Nations position is that there’s no scientific proof and that’s it?  And he booted out the UNDP guy who’s trying to actually create some kind of… is that really it?  Is that as far as the United Nations goes on this?  I’m kind of surprised.  It strikes me that, well…

The Deputy Secretary-General:  Well, the United Nations did show that this was not something that was very pleasant for the United Nations, but, on the other hand, I don’t think that there is a way that one can force somebody’s presence there.  This is a Member State, and it has been engaged on this issue.  The Secretary-General has shown that this was not something that would be very useful in the process of working together with the countries.  So that is as far as, I think, the United Nations can go.

This probably might not be the first time that somebody is asked to leave, not only coming from the United Nations, but probably from other organizations.  It is a question of understanding between the country and the Organization, and if there is some sort of discomfort, that is normally made known, although it may not be the right way to go when there is a difference, because people could always sit together and talk.  But this didn’t happen in the Gambia.

And, as far as the Zimbabwe issue is concerned, we know that there have been a number of initiatives to deal with the Zimbabwe issue.  I think the last is the one that was taken by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the United Nations, of course, will be following this closely to see what the process will lead to.

As to former President Mkapa, yes, President Mkapa initially, I think, was asked to mediate and that didn’t move, as didn’t the attempt by the former Secretary-General.  But the United Nations and the Secretary-General, in particular, is following very closely what is happening there.  The need is to see that the country stabilizes and the economic situation is addressed, because, here, it is the people who are largely affected, and the initiative of the Southern Africa Development Community is something useful that should be given a chance.  This is what the summit came up with, that they should be given a chance to deal with the Zimbabwe situation.

Question:  In your visit to Kinshasa, did you receive any indication that, in the wake of the elections, there has been any increase in [foreign direct investment (FDI)] prospects for Kinshasa, in other words, companies coming in to try to take advantage of the situation and develop the country’s natural resources?  Is there any sign of that yet?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  Well, I didn’t get a feel that there was a surge of FDI coming in.  But definitely, there are companies there that are doing some activity particularly in as far as the mining areas are concerned.  There are companies doing that.  There is also hope that, as the country stabilizes, there will be many companies coming to invest there, because it is a country that is really rich in minerals of all types.  And I think that is the purpose.

When I met with the President, he told me that he was working to ensure that the conditions are, you know, appropriate for investments to come in, because they needed that, particularly in their bid to revamp the infrastructure of the country and to create jobs.  So he had these hopes that companies would be coming but I didn’t feel like there was a surge of companies that are currently investing in Kinshasa or in the [ Democratic Republic of the Congo] generally.

Question:  Just to follow up, did he indicate with any specificity what he was doing to try to create a better environment for them?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  No, we never got to discuss that.  We never got to discuss that.  We talked mainly of the MDGs and he expressed his wish to see the UN working even closer with the Government and also the question of security sector reform.  These are the major areas that we discussed.

Question:  Hi.  Welcome.  With regard to the Chief Executive Board meeting that you attended in Geneva and also the system-wide coherence proposal, we are told that, well, prior to that Chief Executive Board meeting, both leaders of UNDP, Mr. [Kemal] Derviş and Mr. [Ad] Melkert, had both said that they were going to propose to the UNDP Executive Board to try to bring UNDP in line with the Secretariat in making internal audits available to Member States or members of their Executive Board, and also, more recently, we talked about, you know, having a separate ethics office within UNDP, having a whistleblower policy and actually making financial disclosures of the high officials of UNDP.

I think none of these have yet taken place.  So I’m wondering two things.  Did this question of audits… did Ban Ki-moon or yourself tell the Funds and Programmes to improve disclosure of audits at the Chief Executive Board meeting; and also, if, in system-wide coherence, UNDP would be the lead agency, what’s going to be done on these issues that just arose here earlier in the week, about financial disclosure by the heads of UNDP, having an ethics office and sort of bringing the whole reforms that have taken place at the Secretariat in place at UNDP?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  About the accounts of the funds and programmes, yes, this issue was discussed because it is in the context of transparency and accountability.  I think this stems from the fact that Members have been wanting to get to see this.  It was raised.  I think the process is still being looked at.  There are governing procedures, but they have to be looked at before that is done.  In general, that was something that was very much welcome because everybody, of course, respects these principles of accountability and transparency.  Member States have a right to get to know this, so they want to look at the governing procedures at the moment to see how this can open up to make this possible.  It is something that will be discussed because, even the different agencies, I think, have different procedures and regulations.  But it is something that was discussed and quite welcome.

The UNDP becoming a lead agency in the context of the system-wide coherence, this is a proposal that has been made in the report, but, right now, all the proposals, the suggestions, are being discussed.  There has been concern that “are you going to make the UNDP the lead agency”?  This is something that has not been decided upon.  It is part of the entire mechanism.  If we are going to have the UN delivering as one, who will be at the top?  At the same time, there is a need to have a firewall, so that the programmes are on their side and the lead part is on its side.

It has not been decided that it is the UNDP that is going to be [the lead].  I know that there is a country or two, which I got to know before I came here, where even the resident coordinator was not a person who came originally from the UNDP; she had come from one of the funds and programmes.  So this will be seen in the whole package of reform, and then it will be, of course, proposed who is going to take the lead, what will be the criteria to say that this one should take the lead, but no one single agency has been picked up.  yes.

Question:  Just to follow up on that, because of your role in terms of development, all these issues that are around UNDP and the Democratic [People’s] Republic of Korea, the North Korea audit, a lot of people have had questions about whether, what the Secretary[-General] is doing to make sure that the auditors can actually get into North Korea to look at the books of the UNDP programme there that has now been suspended and they’ve left the country.  Is this something that you’re monitoring?  There was a 90-day time limit that Ban Ki-moon put on the audit that seems to have now expired.  What can you say about how the audit will be taking place and whether the auditors will get into North Korea or not?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  Yeah, there is an external board of auditors that has been given that task.  I believe it will do the job, you know, of getting this audit looked at.  But this is not something that we would really want to be monitoring at this point in time, because this is a board that knows its job.  It is doing its work and it is advisable to wait until they have come with their recommendations or observations and recommendations.  Yeah.

Question:  In these two meetings, s there anything that surprised you at all -- positive or negative -- in what you heard, particularly from President Kabila?  Was there anything that stood out or was it all kind of very agreeable?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  Well, the meeting I had with Mr. Kabila, what really stood out is the resolve that they have, because this is a country that has been in some sort of difficult situation if you like in terms of conflict, in terms of development challenges and so on.  But the resolve that he had in addressing these problems and being particularly open to working with the international community, I should say.  This is something that I thought was, you know, quite remarkable, and a challenge to us to see how best we can continue to forge this working together with a country that is just emerging from conflict and facing huge responsibilities.

Question:  Anything relatively unconventional about security that he mentioned?  What was the overview?  What were some of the things he said about security?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  Well, about security, he indicated the need to push the process of integration.  Because this is a country that has had, you know, different groups, armed groups; so to continue with the process of disarmament, integration, reintegration, settlement, but also to deal with the issues of internally displaced persons.  These are the things that we talked about, and the need for the UN to continue to work and for the UN also to act as a bridge with other international interlocutors to address this problem.

Question:  Yes, concerning UN reform, under UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga was appointed as a Special Envoy and several others from different regions of the world.  Does Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon intend to appoint any special envoys on UN reform?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  No, I am not aware of that.  I am not aware of whether he has this intention; although, of course, the question of reform concerns almost everybody within the system.  I am not sure he will pick anybody in particular.  But, of course, all of us are, you know, working around the reform agenda and probably he has a lot of input both from internally and from the intergovernmental process, as well.

Question:  I just wanted to stand back a little and ask you about how you understood your position in terms of what kind of a podium it gives you to say things in terms of the potentially high-profile nature of these issues.  Previous people have used the Deputy Secretary-General in different ways.  Louise Fréchette was relatively quiet; Mark Malloch Brown was relatively noisy.  You obviously have a very sort of diplomatic -- maybe from your background and regional sensitivities -- way of… to describe the situation in DRC as somewhat difficult.  Clearly, it’s best to have an approach to talking about these things.

But, I’m wondering how you see yourself developing your role in terms of using the podium it offers you.  Are you going to fight passionately for anything you strongly believe in?  Are you going to right any wrongs?  Are you going to try and bring justice to any injustices?  Because in all you’ve talked about so far, I haven’t heard any indication that you believe there’s any injustice or anything wrong or anything that needs to be changed; everything seems to be about process and getting on with each other.  And maybe that’s the way -- pragmatically -- that you have to do things.  So I’m just interested in how you see yourself developing in this position.

The Deputy Secretary-General:  The agenda that I hold very close to me, and that I will work on very passionately, is development -- development in various perspectives.  The Millennium Development Goals will be the focal point that we will divert our energy to.  And that also has collateral areas, like the issues of financing for development, aid for trade -- these I will deal with.  But the whole question of reform -- I believe reform is very important for carrying forward the development agenda.  Because reform is about making the United Nations deliver more efficiently, deliver better, and also making good use of resources.  This will be an important point in my work.

But there are other areas, particularly those that afflict developing countries -- coming from a developing country myself -- issues relating to HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria.  These are the things that I will give importance to.  And gender equality -- all these are important aspects of development.  And I will use the podium to advocate these.

Question:  If I may follow up.  In terms of what you’ve learned so far -- and the Secretary-General’s been asked the same question on a number of occasions -- what, have you learned, is the fundamental difference between a Deputy Secretary-General and a Foreign Minister in the way you can go about things and what leeway you might have to push things you believe in or not?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  While being Foreign Minister, I was dealing with, say, policy at the country level, bringing it to the global level.  But now I’m at the global level, so I will be advocating the global agenda, although, of course, it will also have a relationship to my work, because, at that particular time, I was dealing with different Governments, different countries, and it’s almost the same now; we’re dealing with the membership.  But this position is probably even wider and carries more responsibility than the position of Foreign Minister.

Question:  To follow up a little bit on what Mark said; how about a couple of tough questions, then?  In your view, does what’s going on in Darfur qualify as genocide?  And, in your view, was the US invasion of Iraq a violation of the United Nations Charter?  Was it a legal war?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  As to whether what is going on in Darfur is genocide, genocide has its own elements, and those have not yet reached that point.

Question: What about the Iraq war?  Legal or illegal?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  With regard to Iraq, the US did seek the mandate of the United Nations, but, of course, that didn’t really get the support of the United Nations.  As to whether it’s illegal, I’m not yet in a position to say so.

Question:  I don’t know if it’s a similar question, but, right now, in Somalia, there are many people that are saying that the United Nations, by siding with the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and not providing guidance, may be complicit in the killing of civilians by that Government.  I’m wondering, even if you’re in favour of development, whether there are times where the United Nations system needs to pick and choose which Governments – I’m thinking of Uzbekistan, Mark’s question about Zimbabwe.  Some people think there’s a model of development where the United Nations just works with whatever Government’s in place, and whatever they say goes.  And some people say that even the development arm should be used to, either publicly or behind the scenes, nudge for human rights or greater openness.  Or, in the case of the Gambia or North Korea, Japan had said a country that is violating Security Council resolutions shouldn’t get development aid, only humanitarian aid.  What’s your philosophy of development as it relates to Governments that some people see as despotic?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  I haven’t really gotten your question very clearly.  You were talking of the Transitional Federal Government?

Question:  Yes, in Somalia.  There’s a memo from the European Commission saying that they themselves may be complicit in war crimes, because that’s a Government that’s been firing into civilian areas, and it said anyone that shoots at us from those neighbourhoods, we’ll shoot at the neighbourhood as a whole.  There’s a press release upstairs by human rights experts of the United Nations system expressing great concern about what the TFG, in particular, is doing in Somalia.

So, I’m wondering, in the development arm, what’s the United Nations development approach to Somalia?  And also, in other countries where concerns arise about what the Government is doing, what’s the role of UNDP or the Secretariat’s development arm in working with such Governments?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  The TFG is a Government, of course, as you rightly know, that came out of a process that was really brought together by countries of the region, and for which the United Nations gave support in a bid to have the country stabilized.  And the development challenges there will be dealt with in the context of what the United Nations does, together with the indicators that would make the United Nations go in there.  But, because it is also a country that is in conflict right now -- it’s not that safe -- that will be taken into account.  But the United Nations, of course, will have to look at the development aspects of that country.  So that will be something that the United Nations will have to do.

Question:  In Zimbabwe, there’s a controversy about UNDP sponsoring a human rights commission with the Mugabe Government.  We had a briefing earlier in the UNCA Club of [non-governmental organizations] from Zimbabwe saying UNDP should not be supporting that human rights commission, that they themselves as civil society are against it, but UNDP is nonetheless doing it.  So I guess that’s what I’m saying: is it development at any cost?  Are Member States, Governments, right, no matter what they say, or is there a place in the development agenda to make these distinctions?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  But this development is about the people; it does not always target the leadership, which is normally held responsible in such situations.  Development is about dealing with the people.  In the meeting that we had in Brazzaville, I had occasion to speak with the UNDP person in Zimbabwe, and he told me that they were working very, very well with civil society to address the needs of the time -- particularly the development aspects, which really targeted the people.  And he told me that the programmes there are going well and that the work of the United Nations there was very much welcome.

So I think we cannot run away from these challenges simply because there is a regime that we are not in agreement with.  So I think we’ll continue that work of the United Nations.

Question:  To follow up on Matthew’s question, though, is there some sort of protocol?  Are there guidelines by which you get into that complex scenario?  Are we actually aiding and abetting a regime -- a rogue regime, let’s say -- at the cost of the people?  Even though we’re trying to help the people, we’re perpetuating the regime?  Is there some sort of formula that’s examined here, or some meeting in which -- in the case of Zimbabwe, for instance -- you’re going to get some people at UNDP sitting together and actually debating, are we on the right strategy here?

The Deputy Secretary-General:  No, there’s no protocol in the sense that the mandate of the United Nations is very, very clear.  And, once the United Nations is in a position to discharge this mandate, we will do so without compromising the basic principles.  So this is what the United Nations is going to do.

Deputy Spokesperson: Thank you very much.  I’m sure the DSG will have other opportunities to speak to you in the future.

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