Press Conference by United Kingdom’s Minister of State for International Development

The United Nations must be prepared to make efficiency gains in the next five years to free up funds to better respond to the world’s needs, said Gareth Thomas, Minister of State for International Development of the United Kingdom, addressing journalists on priorities for a more effective international humanitarian response.

Speaking at a Headquarters press conference this morning, he said the Organization stood to face several challenges at once in the coming years, in its bid to help nations achieve the Millennium Development Goals, while simultaneously supporting peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts in conflict areas and tackling the consequences of climate change.

Mr. Thomas said his Government had recently pledged £4 million to support the United Nations system of Resident and Humanitarian Coordinators, a group of individuals who oversee the Organization’s development activities and are charged with management of the United Nations country teams worldwide.  The British Government, which believed that the talent pool for Coordinators should be widened, was also supporting an initiative by non-governmental organizations to put names forward for consideration.

The £4 million pledge took place amid the release, today, of a pre-budget report to Parliament by the British Government, which reveals a rise in the country’s aid budget, he said.  That rise reflected a recent comment by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which he reaffirmed the country’s pledge to achieve its target of allotting 0.7 per cent of national income to aid, by 2013.

But, Mr. Thomas warned that among the world’s donor countries, some had already reduced the amounts they planned to allocate for aid, with more nations likely to follow because of pressures from the global economic slowdown.  Under those circumstances, the United Nations must examine ways to save money by reducing back office functions, to be re-allocated for use in the frontline.

“Many developed and developing countries are having to make tough choices and find efficiency savings in order to respond to the global crisis.  Britain has found a 5 per cent efficiency savings last year -- we expect to do the same this year and next year.  Many other countries are making the same decisions.  Why can’t the UN commit to a similar scale of efficiency savings over the next five years?” he asked.

Responding to one journalist, Mr. Thomas said one idea was to examine the possibility of a single procurement agency, through which United Nations agencies could procure their needs together.  He also noted that, under the “Delivering as One” scheme, United Nations agencies were able to realize £1 million in savings in Tanzania, and suggested that under a coordinated programme of work, that success could be replicated across the wider United Nations system.

In addition, with the world’s attention drawn to the Copenhagen climate change conference, Mr. Thomas was asked to comment on recent developments in Denmark, including on the leak of a “Danish text” that would have participants agree that money for climate change mitigation and adaptation be handled by organizations other than the United Nations.

He offered no comment on the text itself, but stressed that organizations such as the World Bank and regional development banks also had a role to play in overcoming the effects of climate change, alongside United Nations agencies, provided there was a clear division of labour and no overlap.  At the same time, activities related to climate change should be phased into normal development efforts.  It was already figuring in talks between the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development and the countries it was working in.

Mr. Thomas was also asked to comment on his praise for Nestlé UK, whose Kit Kat chocolates would be Fair Trade-certified in Britain beginning in 2010, although Nestlé had faced controversy in the past for its marketing tactics in developing countries.  He stressed that, under the Fair Trade deal, cocoa farmers from Côte d’Ivoire earned additional money on top of the agreed price of the cocoa bought by Nestlé, to be used for development purposes.  At the moment, the United Kingdom was pursuing the goal of doubling the number of supermarket goods sourced from Africa.

Asked to comment on the decision by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to hire a national from Costa Rica to the post of Associate Administrator, even as African nations argued vigorously that the post should be filled by an African national, he said all continents should be represented at senior positions, based on merit and appointed through a transparent process.

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For information media • not an official record