ECOSOC CONTINUES TO HEAR STATEMENTS ON TRIENNIAL COMPREHENSIVE POLICY REVIEW OF OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT

ECOSOC
5 July 2001
Afternoon






United Nations is an Indispensable Partner to
Developing Countries, Delegates Say



The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) this afternoon continued a discussion under its operational activities segment on the follow-up to policy recommendations of the General Assembly and the Council on the triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities of the United Nations for development.

A number of speakers alluded to the progress made during the last three years in strengthening coordination in the United Nations system both in Headquarters and in the field. A United States representative said that strong political leadership in a country and a capable, unified, and well-led UN country team were essential ingredients for the creation of the right environment, one that demanded that all operational agencies saw poverty alleviation as the over-arching goal of their mandates.

The strengthening of the collaboration between the United Nations Funds and Programmes and the Bretton Woods institutions was encouraged by several speakers.

It was the view of Nepal that the majority of the world's population was caught up in a time warp from where one could see the affluence relished by others but had no access to it, as people lived in grinding poverty, illiteracy and disease and had no level playing field to compete.

Several speakers said that the reform of the UN system should respond to the actual needs and to strengthen the mandate of any UN institution and in a manner to achieve its goals; and they said that the reforms should not be costly. Many speakers said that the UN system was an indispensable partner to developing countries in their development process.

Contributing statements during this afternoon were Governmental delegations from Norway, the United States, the Russian Federation, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Nepal, Australia, Algeria and Nigeria. Representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) also made statements.

When the Council reconvenes at 10 a.m. on Friday, 6 July, it will consider, under its operational activities segment, a policy exchange with executive heads of the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Food Programme.


Statements

STEFFEN KONGSTAD (Norway) said his country had actively supported and contributed to the UN system both politically and financially; it strongly supported the UN reform process; the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) as working mechanisms had addressed the challenges for UN reform. Further streamlining and harmonization of programming procedures was welcome, and UN agencies should be encouraged to continue that process. Norway supported joint efforts to improve the functioning of the resident coordinator system; and felt that in crisis and post-crisis situations it was of paramount importance that the field level had consultations with and involved the Office of the Secretary-General and other relevant UN entities.

Strengthening collaboration with the Bretton Woods institutions, as proposed in CCA and UNDAF guidelines, was useful. Overall, the United Nations system needed to achieve greater synergy and impact if it was to succeed in implementing global plans of action and the time-bound Millennium goals.

BETTY KING (the United States) said that a great deal of progress had been made since the last Triennial Review. The United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) process continued to be refined leading to simplification and harmonization of UN procedures, especially programmes cycles. Collaboration with the Bretton Woods institutions was becoming increasingly more focused on substantive issues. While serious challenges remained, the benefits of working together at headquarters and in the field were becoming more pronounced. Greater use of the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and (UNDAF), as well as theme groups in the critical areas of HIV/AIDS, gender, poverty alleviation, education and health and nutrition had the potential to lead to a more coherent policy dialogue with national governments and other partners.

The Triennial report left no doubt that strong leadership and good governance, good policies and accountable institutions, and intensive human and organizational capacity building, were crucial elements in the alleviation of poverty. The report also noted that case studies indicated that given the right environment, the UN system could be highly effective in helping recipient countries to improve the lives of all their citizens by reducing poverty. Strong political leadership in the country and a capable, unified, and well-led UN country team were essential ingredients for the creation of the right environment, one that demanded that all operational agencies, no matter their specialization, saw poverty alleviation as the over-arching goal of their mandates.


Until recently, the UN development system had remained aloof from immediate involvement in post-conflict situations to the detriment of conflict victims and rapid reconstruction. That was now changing under pressure from executive boards, the UN itself, and programme countries. The tools and mechanisms, such as the CCA/UNDAF, the Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal Process (CAP), and the resident coordinator system, were in place to implement a comprehensive recovery strategy.

YURY FEDOTOV (the Russian Federation) said progress had been made over the last three years; the resident coordinator system had been strengthened, strategic instruments such as the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) had been actively introduced; strategic planning had helped link resources with effective technical assistance to developing countries; the voluntary nature of contributions had been preserved; and for the first time in eight years the negative trend in core contributions to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) had been reversed. Further, collaboration had been strengthened with the Bretton Woods institutions.

Still, reform of UN operational activities was far from over; the progress had made it halfway and the coordinating role of ECOSOC in guiding operational funds and programmes remained expedient. The Russian Federation also shared the concern expressed regarding the remaining difficulties in mobilization of core resources. This problem still demanded the close attention of the governing bodies of funds and programmes and of ECOSOC.

BARBARA CANEDO PATINO (Bolivia) said the context of cooperation for development had been changing as a result of globalization; there were benefits and risks to these changes, and countries that did not respond effectively could be marginalized. The hope was that each nation and each people could be empowered to achieve the goals set out by UN summits. However, these goals would be difficult to achieve given the trend in recent years towards a fall-off of official development assistance (ODA), despite the fact that many donor countries had met and even exceeded the goal of giving 0.7 per cent of their GDPs to development aid.

It was true that the main responsibility for development fell on the shoulders of the countries concerned, but the necessary basic resources needed to be provided so that UN programmes could carry out their role with impartiality in keeping with national plans and policies and with the priorities of recipient countries. Better coordination and consistency in development programmes and effective and efficient guidance at the local level together with national responsibility and accountability were necessary for the whole process to work in practical terms. Further attention needed to be paid to natural disaster relief and longer-term responses, as natural disasters had major negative effects on developing countries.

JANA SIMONOVA (the Czech Republic) said that there were currently several analytical and programming instruments in place that had been originated separately by different multilateral development partners. The major challenge of today was to develop the different tools in a way which would make them complementary to each other, avoiding duplications and inspiring new partnerships. They should become effective vehicles for consistent and participatory development strategies at country level that would strengthen synergy and catalytic impact of international development cooperation. The UN system should closely and vigorously collaborate with national governments in formulating the International Monetary Fund's Poverty Reduction Strategy Comprehensive Papers (PRSP) in all developing countries. In so doing, PRSP should reflect UN development goals at country level, while enabling implementation of sector wide approaches. Close cooperation of all relevant development partners, both domestic and international, multinational organizations as well as bilateral donors should flourish both in formulating and implementing PRSP.

The traditional UN pledging conference held annually in November had yielded modest results in recent years. Most major donors had not been able to make pledges, because of different reasons, often concerning the timing of their budget cycles. The pledging conference did not provide an opportunity for result-based considerations. There was also a rather large space for improvement in reporting on pledges made and payments provided.

F. ROHMER (Switzerland) said recent reforms could be termed positive, especially considering the context in which the system had had to operate; it had changed and had become more competitive, responding to new challenges and demands without having sufficient resources. The Millennium Declaration offered a new, broad frame of reference for operational activities; it rationalized various objectives into a coherent scheme and document, and should incite all actors in development to focus their interventions along a common perspective.

More coordination was needed to follow up efforts of the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF); these initiatives had not necessarily led to greater coordination and implementation of development projects; in fact, the demands involved might complicate and slow down such efforts. Flexibility was needed for the framework of development programmes so that each country could shape projects best to meet prevailing needs and situations. Competition was stimulating when it was a question of ideas and concepts, but rivalry could often lead to regrettable situations and undermine multinational institutions in their mobilization of financial resources, and the UN agencies involved in development had to guard against this danger.

MURARI RAJ SHARMA (Nepal) said that the international community was living in a world spinning at two different speeds. For a few well-off, it had been a time of tumultuous change, globalization and explosion in science and technology bringing unprecedented progress and prosperity to them. The majority, however, were caught up in a time warp from where one could see the affluence relished by others but had no access to it, as they lived in grinding poverty, illiteracy and disease and had no level playing field to compete. Democracy had swept through the developing world, giving the people their voice and freedom and raising their expectations. Growing disparity as one saw through the media bred frustration and resentment among people, which unscrupulous elements might exploit to trigger violence and conflicts.

Development, peace and rule of law mutually reinforced each other and should be addressed in an integrated manner. A lasting peace entailed a higher trajectory of growth, stability, freedom and sustainable development that brought improvement in people's lives. Developing countries, particularly the least developed ones, needed increased development assistance, easy access to world markets and higher in technology and stronger institutions.

JACQUI DELACEY (Australia) said his country would provide about AUS$ 79 million in core support for UN humanitarian and development agencies for the 2001-02 fiscal year; its first priority was to ensure that the country's finite development resources were directed to where they achieved the best results, and in a competitive international environment, efforts to improve the impact of programmes and to better measure and report on them was the surest way of maintaining and increasing resources. The various reforms undertaken by the UN were a good beginning, but only a beginning; while Australia recognized that there remained a need to have a sensible balance between core and targeted non-core funding, there was a danger that messages over the growing asymmetry between the two types of funding would scare away non-core funding the UN and many countries had been actively seeking for years. The onus was on the UN system to ensure that non-core funding complemented its core programmes and contributed directly to the goals and targets set out in various frameworks.

There was a clear need to reconsider the pledging conference held each November -- abolishing this duplicative and unproductive conference would be a useful further step in improving the UN's efficiency. Australia for its part strongly supported ongoing efforts to simplify and harmonize procedures in the UN system.

KHEIREDDINE RAMOUL (Algeria) said that the operational activities of development carried out by the Funds and Programmes of the specialized agencies of the United Nations system remained, more than ever, indispensable tools for the realization of the objectives of international cooperation. The developing countries continued to enjoy the multilateral assistance, and the flexible responses of those organizations to their specific needs of developments. It was therefore highly important to preserve and to consolidate the achievements by respecting those cardinal principles which had made the UN agencies partners in the field of development for many decades. In that context, Algeria estimated that the debate undertaken within the UN on its restructuring and revitalization in the economic, social and related areas should take into account those principles.

In the view of the Algerian delegation, any reform should be based on a real need in view of good functioning and effectiveness of an institution in order to allow the accomplishment of its mandate and to realize its goals on which it was created. However, it was observed that often the reform undertaken in the work of the Funds and Programmes did not respond such expectations. For example, the United Nations Development Programme continued since 1994 to be the subject of costly reform.

A. P. E. OSIO (Nigeria) said the United Nations, over time, had been regarded as a valuable partner and major contributor to development and poverty eradication, but these activities posed a major challenge to UN agencies; the importance of poverty eradication made it imperative that consensus and harmony be reached within the UN system on how to attack it, especially at the national level. The United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) had made rapid progress and was either in effect or in development in many countries, and it was engendering greater understanding of the system's role in development and generating opportunities for addressing important development issues and meeting the goals set by major UN conferences.

More information sharing and joint partnerships were needed to develop cooperation synergy. Information and communications technology (ICT) should be harnessed to spur that process along. ICT was a powerful force in itself for poverty eradication. But these wonderful benefits should not be seen as a replacement for schools, teachers, and doctors. Further efforts at education in the ICT field were also essential. The gap between developed and developing countries and between the world's rich and its poor should not be allowed to widen further. Further coordination, harmonization, and efficiency in programmes and programming cycles were vital.

A. ASAMOA-BAAH, of World Health Organization, said it was important that development and planning frameworks be flexible and robust enough to accommodate as many partners as possible, and not only those within the UN system. Tensions involving the increasing obsession with rapid results were at the centre of discernible shifts in funding away from core programmes to targeted programmes, and it was necessary for the UN and its partners to be more clever and to make capacity-building and core funding as attractive and interesting to the media as targeted programmes were.

Investment in health was increasingly being shown to be not only a good thing in itself, but good for economic development; for example there was ample evidence that if Malaria had been controlled 40 years ago, the combined GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa would have been $ 100 billion higher. Finally, there was a gulf between rhetoric and practice on the question of national ownership of development programmes -- as long as unachievable targets and deadlines continued to be pushed down the throats of national Governments, national ownership would be undermined.

ELISABETH MERZ, of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), said UNIDO was developing its response to the Millennium Declaration with a special emphasis on halving extreme poverty by 2015, including through employment creation. For globalization to work for poor countries and people, the benefits of technology, including information and communications techonology (ICT), had to be shared more widely and progress had to be made on environmental and energy issues; UNIDO would give priority to African and least-developed countries to that end. UNIDO shared the concerns expressed about the critical issue of resources and like its sister agencies had seen its budget constantly decrease, putting a strain on its ability to maintain critical mass in various domains; Millennium Declaration objectives would not be met unless increased overall resources were provided.

UNIDO was proud to have been a pioneering specialized agency supporting the development of the new UN Strategic Planning Framework, but as successful as the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) had been, it should be further improved by, among other things, strengthening economic and technological dimensions; fully engaging smaller and non-resident UN agencies; and focusing on continuous learning and best practices. UNIDO also considered regional and sub-regional dimensions to be most significant for economic integration.



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