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Development: Human or Humane?

Among the innocent pleasures of my childhood was an annual visit to the circus at the Canadian National Exposition in Toronto. In the crush of the midway with its many titillations were the vendors of spun sugar, a great wispy pile atop a paper cone. We called it sweet wind. Whenever the General Assembly tries to lay hold of whirlwind globalization I am reminded of this insubstantial delicacy. Not that the wind at the United Nations is that sweet: it spins around make-believe and frustration. Right words are said about the unique role of universal UN in setting macro-economic policy and shaping equitable development. This is the way it should be; and maybe some day the world will endow a renewed UN with power to regulate, if not generate, the traffic. To the extent that "the UN system" (Mother UN and the Specialized Agencies) is doing this at all, the action is with Bretton Woods-- the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Yet how impoverished the world would be without its UN conscience, affirming that the end of development is enhancing human well-being, eliminating poverty and building peace. And while the UN is indeed on the margins of economic development, its $5 billion annual investment in the social good gives substance to fine declarations.

The developing countries keep the inequity issue alive. Given U.S. delinquency, it was not crazy to suspect that UN "reform" might be a façade for castration: OK for social causes and a weak Security Council, nix to economic development. Ministers of the Group of 77, meeting in New York as the 1997 General Assembly got under way, had this to say:

The reform process should be carried out with the primary objective of strengthening the capacity of the Organization to address development issues and to respond effectively to the development needs of developing countries . . .

The development tasks of the United Nations are of fundamental importance and may not be treated as secondary to its peacekeeping, human rights and humanitarian functions.

In contrast, the G8 (industrialized) 1997 Declaration reads:

Strong international institutions are essential to coordinating global efforts to protect the environment and to achieve sustainable development.

Where is the UN? In discussing UN reform, the G8 emphasis was: scrutinize UN budgets, coordinate, review UN funds and programmes, review the whole UN system. OK, that needs doing, but something important is missing.

The Secretary-General's reforms, approved by the G.A., put more than words behind development. In appointing Louise Fréchette as his Deputy, he has brought in at the top someone with expertise and experience in development. Consolidating three economic and social departments under Nitin Desai should help, although it puts a heavy load on one man. Development policy and operations will surely be better coordinated and focussed in the Executive Committee of the Secretariat Development Group (UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA) under UNDP Administrator Gus Spaeth. Louise Fréchette will oversee a new Office of Development Financing which will try to increase and sustain (make assured, predictable) development support; and administrative savings will go into development, a "development dividend." Development coordination will be extended to the country level under a UN Resident Coordinator in one "UN House" and within one "UN development assistance framework," country by country. All this is being done in a way that will not "dilute or compromise the distinctive character or identity of participating organizations"; and also that will preserve their "individual resource mobilization capacity" (quotes from the Secretary-General's Reform paper). Something for everyone there: coordination for donors, priority for G77. It looks real.

What about resources? The combined development support through UNDP, UNICEF and UNFPA is under $5 billion. At the Rio Conference (Environment and Development) in 1992, governments were challenged to affirm their commitment to contribute 0.7% of GDP for development grants (ODA -- official development assistance). At present only four countries have reached-- indeed, exceeded-- that level: Denmark, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. At this G.A., Ireland and the U.K. promised to come up to the 0.7% target. Canada is not even half way. The current report of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) shows that average ODA fell to 0.25% in 1996. How to increase development aid will be among Louise Fréchette's headaches.

It is encouraging that the World Bank, under James Wolfensohn, is focusing on human development. This is a major shift in Bank policy and it is already happening. This means closer complementary action, especially in countries.

Besides the World Bank's influence on development there is the World Trade Organization which reviews trade agreements and adjudicates disagreements. Here G77 continues to condemn the introduction of labour standards or environmental concerns into trade agreements: imperialist protectionism favouring the "North," they say. Maybe so, but I note that U.S. trade unions are consulting their Mexican counterparts; and all these concerns are built into the European Union. The wealth gap between "North" and "South" is no reason for any country to repeat the evils of western industrialization, child labour and all; or to poison its own people with toxic fumes. But who are we to preach: western (northern) money subsidizes some of this misery, too.

World trade in goods, in information and especially in currency is el niño of our economic weather. Meteorologists do not control: they observe and try to predict. The captains and kings at the World Economic Forum at Davos don't go that far. What do they do? Make deals? The UN needs to be understood and supported by big business; and this Forum is a good place to connect. Kofi Annan made a return visit to Davos in January 1998, as C.E.O. for 185 States. He made an excellent presentation on how inextricable are the UN and global business. "Thriving markets and human security go hand in hand; without one, we will not have the other." Did you know that Mary Robinson went to Davos; and that the Rapporteur of this Forum was Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and the incoming, first woman Director-General of WHO?

A footnote to Davos is Ted Turner's ten-year $1 billion gift for development support. Arrangements are in the works for putting this to good use. Who's next? Rumours abound.

Now to the General Assembly itself. On the table was the "Agenda for Development," a 56-page document completed and approved at last, five years after the G.A. had called for it. It was the G.A. itself, through an open Working Group, that put the Agenda together. Inevitably long and discursive, it assembles received doctrine about shared economic development under UN aegis ("aegis" -- shield, impregnable defense); and consolidates the goals and "strategies" (guides to action) of the six big international Conferences (children, women, human rights, environment and development, social development, habitat). Not very crisp, but the elements for a comprehensive strategy are there. I quote the Secretary-General's Annual Report:

The Agenda for Development addresses not only conventional development issues but also stresses the mutually supportive though complex relationships among development, peace, democracy, good governance and human rights. It affirms the United Nations role in the field of development, and identifies ways of reinforcing the capacities and effectiveness of the United Nations system in that field.

And then there was the report of the Special Session of the G.A. in June 1997 to review progress in implementing Agenda 21: yes, twenty-one big tasks that the world set for itself at Rio 1992. I could not understand why so many summiteers turned up in June, since accomplishments overall are meager and no one brought bags of money. Disappointment. Who's to blame?

With this luggage on the table, the G.A. worked through its ample agenda, forty-three proposals coming from its Second Committee (Economic and Financial). I will touch on those that particularly catch my attention. The first had to do with a two-day "high-level dialogue" about social and economic development to be held during the next Assembly. This will be a first. The President of this G.A. was asked to prepare and organize what should be an important discussion. More important was the G.A.'s return to (these days we "revisit") a perennial problem, financing for development. For some years the G.A. has been talking about a special conference on this subject; and this time it set the wheels in motion for that. Next year a Working Group of the Assembly will be set up to get into serious preparations; and the following year the Assembly is to decide on the form of the Conference-- a Special G.A. session or something else. The G.A. wants a conference of some sort by the year 2001. This G.A. also asked UNCTAD to see how investment could better meet the needs of developing countries; and to see how developing countries could have more influence in setting trade rules. Two special sessions are to be held for fifth-year review of international conferences: in 1999 on Population; and in 2001 on Settlements (Habitat).

As I wind down this section of my report, I bring to your attention two exceptional addresses: one on "Finance and Development", by Professor G.K. Helleiner of the University of Toronto; and the other with the catchy title "Failing Currencies, Recriminations, Who's to Blame?" by Jan Pronk, Netherlands Minister for Development Cooperation. Professor Helleiner spoke to the UN Second Committee: he has a remarkable grasp of what is happening now and how existing international financial institutions work and don't. Veteran Jan Pronk, speaking to his own Institute in the Netherlands, gave a magisterial and passionate world view of where we are and where we are headed. Read them: Annex 3, Helleiner. Annex 4, Pronk.