ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL HOLDS PANEL DISCUSSION WITH UNITED NATIONS

REGIONAL DIRECTORS TEAM FROM LATIN AMERICA, CARIBBEAN

 

(Reissued as received.)

GENEVA, 11 July (UN Information Service) -- The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) this afternoon held a panel discussion with a United Nations Regional Directors team from Latin America and the Caribbean on the effectiveness of the United Nations development system at the regional level.

Denis Aitken, Representative of the Director-General for Partnerships and United Nations Reform of the World Health Organization (WHO) and moderator for the discussion, said the regional dimensions of United Nations work were very important, and there was still much work to be done to recognise this.  Regional cooperation teams were important in all regions, but all organizations needed to join them, in order to provide full coverage at every level.  The team presenting today was the example quoted across the world in this regard.

Valdrack Jaentschke, Vice-Minister for Cooperation of Nicaragua, said each country had to shoulder the primary responsibility for its own development.  The gap between rich and poor was greater and wealth needed to be created to reduce poverty.  As seen in the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, poverty had been decreasing in Latin America in 2006.  Great parts of the population had nevertheless been excluded from economic growth.  Economic and social development must be maintained at the heart of the United Nations deliberations.  The fundamental characteristics of the United Nations activities must be of universal nature.  The effective participation of developing countries in decision-making must be strengthened, in order to move to a more inclusive system.

Jose Luis Machinea, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), said that, as the Secretary-General pointed out in the triennial comprehensive policy review report, the coordination and regional agencies needed to be improved, and the situation of Latin America and the Caribbean was an example of good practice.  At the regional level, ECLAC was engaged in consensus building with the inter-Governmental bodies, policy dialogues and exchange of best practices, a forging of strategic alliances for advancing the United Nations agenda, as well as analytical backup for country regional teams.  There were a number of challenges, one of which was dialogue and coordination with other agencies, including those of the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions.  Substantial progress had been achieved in recent years in several areas.

Rebeca Grynspan, Regional Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said national priorities identified by national actors were important; ownership was needed also in the implementation.  Enhancing that process was a key element in enhancing effectiveness.  Four pillars had been established.  First, a strategic programme support should strengthen the performance of the United Nations country teams.  Second, regional action plans needed to be defined.  They prioritised integrated support.  Four critical Millennium Development Goals were prioritised in the region.  Third, accountability should be improved through the provision of support, oversight and quality assurance.  Finally, training, information and knowledge sharing were the fourth pillar.

Marcela Suazo, Regional Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said the regional directors’ team recognised that part of the challenge facing them was to work in a region defined as a middle-income region, and yet which was facing challenges and working to overcome these with the help of various agencies, including the Millennium Development Goals.  Joint and coordinated work was a sine qua non condition, not only at the regional level, but also for the country teams.  Several of the regional agencies had joined to produce a joint plan on how to implement the Millennium Development Goals.  There was a need to respond to the mandate of the General Assembly within the framework of the triennial review.

Nils Kastberg, Regional Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said with regard to the building of regional ownership, that all the Governments of the region had agreed to eradicate under-registration at birth.  UNICEF was there to generate knowledge and accountability on what the countries of the region needed to achieve with regard to the children.  So the challenge was to make the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals a reality at the local level.  On the question of emergencies, the central emergency fund of OCHA could only be accessed once the emergency occurred.  But there were some types of emergencies that would occur every year.

Among questions and issues raised by speakers during the discussion was whether the true measure of success of a leadership structure was not the support of those who would be affected, namely people and the Governments concerned; what were the crucial factors that had been important in the progress towards the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals in the Latin America region; that better governance was essential to make progress by the developing countries in achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and not just on the regional but also on the national level; and what was the reason for the fall in official development assistance (ODA) to the Caribbean, and whether there was a need for the international community to reassess its criteria used for determining the allocation of ODA.

Speaking during the discussion were the representatives of the Philippines, Belgium, Colombia, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Haiti, Panama, Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Bolivia, Mexico, Sweden and Canada.

The Council’s next meeting will be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 12 July, when it will hear the introduction of the Secretary-General’s report on the triennial policy review and of the 2007 comprehensive report on the financing of operational activities for development, and hold a general discussion.

Opening Statements

DENIS AITKEN, Representative of the Director-General for Partnerships and United Nations Reform of the World Health Organization (WHO), serving as moderator, said the regional dimensions of United Nations work were very important, and there was still much work to be done to recognize that.  Regional cooperation teams were important in all regions, but all organizations needed to join them, in order to provide full coverage at every level.  The team presenting today -- the UN Regional Directors from Latin America and the Caribbean -– was the example quoted across the world in that regard.

VALDRACK JAENTSCHKE, Vice-Minister for Cooperation of Nicaragua, said that, as the international community recommitted itself to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable economic growth and sustainable development, each country must shoulder its primary responsibility for its own development.  Halfway down the road, it was a good time to evaluate how efficient the organizations had been in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.  There was a lack of symmetry and a lack of fair trade.  The gap between rich and poor was greater.  And wealth needed to be created to reduce poverty.  According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), extreme poverty had been decreasing in Latin America in 2006 and a few countries in the region had attained the goals set.  Great parts of the population had nevertheless been excluded from economic growth.  Despite the encouraging economic figures, there were still problems.

For Nicaragua, he said, the reality was not encouraging.  According to ECLAC, if Nicaragua was to achieve the goals, it had to maintain a growth rate above the average rate it had achieved between 1990 and 2002, as well as to improve the distribution of income.  One could not just wish to reduce by half the poverty rate.  There had to be a revolution in ideas for Nicaragua to change.  The first step had to be taken by the people of Nicaragua.  National leadership was the basic condition.  The practice of splintering of aid -- multiplying the number of initiatives undertaken by each agency -- also had to be abandoned.

Economic and social development had to be maintained at the heart of the United Nations deliberations, Mr. Jaentschke said.  The fundamental characteristics of United Nations activities had to be of universal nature.  The effective participation of developing countries in decision-making also had to be strengthened, in order to move to a more inclusive system.  Nicaragua urged the United Nations to support national regional efforts to eradicate hunger and illiteracy.  It was also necessary to increase the predictability of aid flows and that aid had to be assigned to the countries.  Reducing duplication led to better coordination.  Latin America and the Caribbean were committed to actively continue working within the reform process of the United Nations.

JOSE LUIS MACHINEA, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), said the coordination of regional agencies needed to be improved, and the situation of Latin America and the Caribbean was an example of good practice.  The regional commissions had two main roles:  as regional outposts of the United Nations system to promote the development agenda at a regional level; and as part of the regional structure to promote regional cooperation as determined by the intergovernmental bodies and in coordination with different institutions at three different levels -- regional-global, regional, and regional-country.

At the regional level, he said, ECLAC was engaged in consensus building with the intergovernmental bodies, policy dialogues and exchange of best practices, a forging of strategic alliances for advancing the United Nations agenda, as well as analytical backup for country regional teams.  There were a number of challenges, one of which was dialogue and coordination with other agencies, including those of the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions.  However, Mr. Machinea noted that substantial progress had also been achieved in recent years -- there had been regional coordination meetings every year, and those had allowed for coordination of activities and in some cases the formulation of common positions on certain topics concerning the United Nations system.

He said ECLAC was providing analytical support for several agencies of the United Nations system, and it was using the system synergies.  That had been possible because of the will on the part of the regional directors of the United Nations system to make that feasible.  How to avoid a lack of coordination and duplication in the provision of technical cooperation remained an issue, and how to enhance the productive development perspective at the country level remained a challenge.  There was a need for a balance between social policies and productive policies, Mr. Machinea concluded.

REBECA GRYNSPAN, Regional Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for Latin America and the Caribbean, said the region was characterized by middle-income countries, but was at the same time the most unequal region of the world.  Sixty per cent of the region’s poor lived in its high-middle income countries.  That had an impact on the development agenda.  As Regional Director, she sought to enhance cooperation at the regional and country level.  To enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the United Nations system, activities had to be refocused into strategic ones.  In the light of the international declarations, the effectiveness of United Nations’ development assistance would be enhanced by a common agenda and common leadership.

National priorities identified by national actors were important; ownership was needed also in the implementation, Ms. Grynspan said.  Enhancing that process was a key element in enhancing effectiveness.  Four pillars had been established.  First, a strategic programme support should strengthen the performance of the United Nations country teams.  Second, regional action plans needed to be defined.  They prioritized integrated support.  Four critical Millennium Development Goals had been prioritized in the region.  Third, accountability should be improved through the provision of support, oversight and quality assurance.  Finally, training, information and knowledge sharing were the fourth pillar.  There were working groups for each of those pillars.  With regard to some results, the Millennium Development Goals had been positioned on the political agenda of the region.

Technical support had been given to national Millennium Development Goals reports, Ms. Grynspan said.  Disaggregated data was very important in Latin America and the organization was working very hard on that issue.  Key strategic guidance had been given to Colombia and Haiti.  Guidance on the accountability of HIV/AIDS had also been provided.  For the first time, a joint review appraisal of the Resident Coordinators had been carried out.  On the challenges, the first one was co-location.  The establishment of a United Nations Regional Hub should facilitate the provision of coordinated interagency policy advice.  Another challenge was to provide the required substantive and operational support.  More capacity support had to be given to the United Nations pilot programmes and South-South cooperation needed to be strengthened in the region.

MARCELA SUAZO, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said the regional directors team recognized that part of the challenge facing them was to work in a region defined as a middle-income region, and yet which was facing challenges and working to overcome them with the help of various agencies, including in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.  Joint and coordinated work was a sine qua non for that work, not only at the regional level, but also for the country teams.  Several of the regional agencies had joined to produce a joint plan on how to implement the Millennium Development Goals, and that team met at least four times a year.

She said there was a need to respond to the mandate of the General Assembly within the framework of the triennial review.  There was also a need for accountability, assessment and feedback procedures at a national level which would allow for achieving better results, Ms. Suazo said.  Support for the strategic programming included two levels: guiding the country teams where the regional directors had focused on the link between development, security, human rights and others in order to meet national priorities; and comprehensive programme support, prioritizing the Millennium Agenda with the conviction that those Goals would have an impact on a sub-national level.

Ms. Suazo noted that an important example of cooperation and coordination was the support that the team was providing to the Coalition of First Ladies and Women Leaders in Latin America against the feminization of HIV/AIDS in the area.  The main objective of this coalition was to provide information, prevention and treatment for the problem in order to obtain an active response in the region against that scourge.  An interagency regional study had also been carried out on progress towards the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals -- this year it would be on health and nutrition.  Interagency support and coordination in situations of crisis and emergency were also a vital challenge.  The regional directors team in the region was committed to carrying out coordinated and consistent work, to strengthening the abilities of the country teams to respond to the different needs in the national context, and to delivering firm and tangible results.

NILS KASTBERG, Regional Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for Latin America and the Caribbean, said all the Governments of the region had agreed to eradicate under-registration at birth.  In the framework of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the feminization of the pandemic had been tackled.  Reductions were also starting to be seen in mother-to-child transmission of the virus.  All those were examples of regional ownership around the Millennium Development Goals.  A second aspect was building regional solidarity within a South-South collaboration.  Brazil had been an exemplary country in the field of AIDS for such collaboration.  For its part, for example, UNICEF allocated $400,000 a year for human development in Costa Rica.  A minimum level of resources had to be retained to provide a relevant share to public policies.  Presence was also important to maintain those public policies.

UNICEF was there to generate knowledge and accountability on what the countries of the region needed to achieve with regard to children, Mr. Kastberg said.  Brazil could achieve the Millennium Development Goals, but that could mask the fact that the goals were not reached for indigenous people in the country because they would disappear in average figures.  So the challenge was to make the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals a reality at the local level.  On the question of emergencies, the Central Emergency Fund of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs could only be accessed once the emergency occurred.  But there were some types of emergencies that would occur every year and should be prepared for.

Discussion

In the discussion following the presentations, speakers raised a range of questions and issues, including whether the true measure of success of a leadership structure was not the support of those who would be affected, namely the people and the Governments concerned; was the very good cooperation that apparently existed at the regional level reflected at the country level; whether there was any evidence to show that better results had been achieved because of improved cooperation and collaboration; and whether there had been any savings and elimination of duplication due to working together.  A concern was raised that there was still a lack of awareness on the part of the international community of the importance and urgency of achieving the Millennium Development Goals in the middle-income countries, and it was asked how the United Nations system thought it could support those countries, and how it would make that support tangible.

What were the crucial factors that had been important in the progress towards the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals in the Latin America region, a speaker asked, referring to political, economic and management factors.  Better governance was essential to make progress by the developing countries in achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and not just on the regional but also on the national level, another speaker commented.  How was the coordination with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean placed within the regional leadership structure with regards to other United Nations agencies having a presence in the region, a speaker asked.  There was a flagrant disparity between countries in the region, a speaker said, asking how coordination was organized within the region since there were so many different problems being faced.

The presence of regional agencies and offices strengthened the countries at a wide range of levels, including national and regional, a speaker said.  What was the reason for the fall in official development assistance (ODA) to the Caribbean, another asked, and was there was a need for the international community to reassess its criteria used for determining the allocation of ODA?  What assessment mechanisms were envisaged to measure the impact of the programmes mentioned?  Programmes that were highly positive with regard to marginal social sectors could build greater confidence in society.  The main challenge was how to include inequalities in the national development plan, a speaker said, and wondered if the panellists could provide more information on that topic.

Concluding Remarks

Mr. JAENTSCHKE said that, after he had heard the first reactions from countries, he did not want to be the one to burst the bubble, but he wanted to mention that the region had some very serious problems.  The majority of the countries of the region continued to be poor.  There were tremendous challenges.  A consensus reached on a minimum did not mean that everything could be solved.  In a cooperation assessment one could not measure the endeavours of the countries.  The substantive problem was development and not the effectiveness of aid.  There was also a trend of micromanagement.  There was a terrible challenge lying ahead.  Resources should be directed to fight poverty and hunger.  The whole topic of development in the middle-income countries should focus on the large amount of poor people in the region.

Mr. MACHINEA, said that over the last four years, things had been going well on a number of levels.  The region had changed due to the increase in growth and income, which had generated and created employment. There was also a better quality on average of the social programmes of the past decade, which had a much better quality than previous programmes.  In terms of coordination, middle-income countries faced particular problems, and those included coordination on the country level, the country-global level, and the country-regional level.  There had been some major achievements in coordination at the country level, and at the country-regional level.

Mr. Machinea observed that the situation in Latin America was certainly not the worst as far poverty was concerned, but that it was also not the best as far as its economy was concerned.  The overall picture was not too bad, and perhaps that was at the crux of the problem.  It was a case of problems faced by middle-income countries.  The idea that middle-income countries should solve their problems alone was true to a certain extent.  However, 60 per cent of the poor in the region were in the middle-income countries, and 50 per cent of extreme poverty was also found in those countries.  The question of access to international markets played a crucial role here.  Either the Doha Round had to be successfully concluded or it would be necessary to invest in middle-income countries.  ECLAC ensured the coordination of its efforts with those of other agencies working in the same countries.  It was important to highlight the there was truly a spirit to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and coherence of the work among regional actors.

Ms. GRYNSPAN, UNDP Regional Director, said there were two realities regarding structure and how contact could be maintained with Governments in the region.  There was a regional dimension, where UNDP was working hard to build up partnerships.  Spaces were opened up for encounters among different organizations, also including civil society.  At the same time, one could not lose sight of the fact that the most intensive part of the relationship with Governments was at the local level.  So country team efforts were supported to maintain their contacts with regional Governments.  The issue of savings and duplications was very relevant.  It had been asked whether cooperation between the teams at the regional level were as good as those at the country level.  UNDP could not be satisfied with the progress so far, not in the region and not within the system.  There was still a long way to go.  But when messages were passed through the country-teams, progress could be made.

Specific problems were being discussed with the country team to improve the situation, Ms. Grynspan stated, and an extra effort was being made at the country-team level.  The relationship between the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) Guidelines provided quality assurances.  UNDP was trying to tap into the knowledge that was available within the United Nations system.  There was also a much better coordination now with the non-resident agencies.  However, there were no real evaluations of the changes so far, so a much more effective system needed to be established in that regard.  There were obstacles at the regional level that UNDP could not solve itself, such as the different information technology systems, rendering the work at country level more difficult.  Another issue was that Caribbean challenges needed to be better integrated into the Latin America agenda.  One could not be complacent about the successes achieved because many challenges still remained.

Ms. SUAZO said there was no perfection, but there was a commitment, a willingness and an aptitude, and the United Nations system had been making an effort for a long time to strengthen the capacities of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean and to assist Governments and civil society there to respond to development priorities.  The Managua Declaration had joined the voices of Latin America and the Caribbean to share the priority frameworks in the region, and to initiate a dialogue.

There were challenges, both within the country teams and within countries, but the aptitudes should be shared, and that was what was being sought through meetings with country teams so that the regional coordinators could also know what the priorities were within the mandate of agencies and how they could contribute to the country teams.  The presence of the United Nations system in the region -- whether to collect data or to carry out advocacy for topics that might otherwise be neglected -- should not be ignored or underestimated, Ms. Suazo concluded.

Mr. KASTBERG said the issue of gender, the exclusion of indigenous people and institutional capacity building must all be taken into account by country teams in the region.  Strategies for disaster reduction were in place.  UNICEF was trying to work together with four countries on that issue.  With a little amount of money, major issues could be tackled.  Regarding the crucial issue of middle-income countries and development assistance, the criteria concerning so-called graduation of countries (to middle income status -- thereby cutting off aid flows) needed to be changed and the concept of graduation itself needed to be reviewed.

Assessment of the Resident Coordinator system sent a sign of accountability, Mr. Kastberg said.  On strategic support on the country team level, UNICEF was reviewing what issues were taken into account and which were being left out.  UNICEF was also coordinating on some measures with the Red Cross.  UNICEF would be working together with other organizations on birth registration and HIV/AIDS, among others.  UNICEF and ECLAC also had a very good working relationship with each other.  In that connection, a joint UNICEF-ECLAC report would be presented at the end of the year on three specific Millennium Development Goals, including reducing maternal mortality.

Mr. AITKEN, moderating the discussion, said that, for WHO, it was impossible not to observe the regional dimension.  Regional approaches could be quicker, while still taking into account the differences between countries.  The regional dimension in the United Nations was a fundamental which the WHO did not see changing.

IDRISS JAZAIRY ( Algeria), Vice-President of the Council, said in concluding remarks that all present were glad to see the way the United Nations Development Team was working together, and had appreciated the importance of their joint efforts.  The theme this afternoon had been the effectiveness of the United Nations Development System at the regional level, in particular with regard to the Latin America experience, and due to the very nature of this discussion it was long on process and short on outcome.  There was a need for another session to examine how this unity between the different United Nations bodies and international mechanisms could work to make the situation change.  The report showed that progress in the field of gender had been very rapid in Latin America.  In particular, he wondered how the grouping of efforts in this case had been instrumental in achieving potential; if that question could be answered, that approach could be used in other regions, such as Africa.  The problems the Latin American and Caribbean region was confronting today were those that others would be confronting tomorrow, and its experience was relevant in that regard.

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