The Key to Successful Development Cooperation

BY JAMES GUSTAVE SPETH

If you think investment banks, the World Bank, and the IMF are the only organizations with a hand in international economic development, you are sorely mistaken. James Gustave Speth reveals the important role that the United Nations plays in international economic development and other fields.

Should the United Nations be strengthened as an instrument for development, particularly in a period of budgetary restraint in countries within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and post-Cold War scepticism of international institutions and “foreign aid”? The case for a stronger United Nations in development cooperation is indeed compelling. Not only is the United Nations needed for successful development cooperation, but development cooperation is needed for a successful United Nations. A Record Second to None Although one would hardly know it from the media coverage, most of the UN’s financial resources and most of its personnel are dedicated to development. Through programs in 174 countries and territories, the United Nations provides substantial resources to developing countries - about $6 billion a year. Surprisingly, the UN’s funds and specialized agencies provide slightly more official development assistance than the Bretton Woods institutions. Moreover, the UN’s funds are providing grants, not credits, so that there is a substantial net transfer of resources to developing countries. The fact that the United Nations is a major supporter of development is no accident. The relationship of peace and development is embodied in the UN Charter itself; the link was deeply rooted in the historical experience of a half-century of world war. Both politicians and political theorists concluded that an enduring peace was one that could only be built on a foundation of expanding prosperity and social justice. In this spirit, the Charter undertook “to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples.” Throughout the Cold War, when the Security Council was often deadlocked, a new United Nations emerged and flourished - a United Nations heavily engaged in operational activities for development, and working with refugees and the internally displaced. It established programs to strengthen democratic governance and human rights and to promote successful economic transitions. The resources of the UN’s programs are heavily skewed towards those countries most in need and towards the most disadvantaged groups in societies, perhaps more so than any other development assistance entity. The great goals for which the international community has worked- peace, democratization, trade expansion, human rights, an end to poverty and hunger, environmental protection, population stabilization- can be realized only in the context of environmentally sustainable and equitable development. The United Nations has a track record second to none in promoting that kind of development. This record provides the most compelling case for strengthening the United Nations in the economic, social and environmental areas. The fundamental reason for improving the UN’s development assistance efforts is not because these efforts are failing but because they are succeeding. The demand for the services that the United Nations provides far outstrips its capacity. Any cost-benefit analysis would conclude that the UN’s successes represent an investment which the international community needs to strengthen. The history of the last half-century of international technical cooperation is a unique endeavor of the human spirit. Countless success stories over the last 50 years constitute the UN’s greatest contribution to human security. United Nations peacekeeping operations have been at the center of recent controversies. The exponential rise in UN peacekeeping over the past few years has sharply altered the public perceptions of the United Nations, eclipsing the UN’s historical role in development. It is appropriate to recall the UN’s successes in human development of the last 50 years. We should remember this almost-forgotten United Nations before the years of leadership and patient efforts are lost.

The United Nations’ Special Assets In addition to its track record, the United Nations also brings special strengths- “comparative advantages”-to development cooperation. One can identify eight such areas of special competence: The United Nations provides a unique forum for raising public consciousness, providing salient information, defining the international development agenda, and building the consensus needed for action. Once forged, consensus is translated into international norms and agreements, integrated into national development priorities, and supported through the UN’s operational activities. Only the United Nations can provide such across the board leadership. The neutrality of the United Nations means that it does not represent any particular national or commercial interests of “donors” generally. The United Nations can therefore provide special relationships of trust with countries and their people and can provide stable, long-term capacity-building assistance free of short-term political or economic objectives. This is very important, since trust facilitates things essential to successful development cooperation, such as candid policy dialogue, cooperation on sensitive matters, and capacity-building for better, more open and transparent governance. The United Nations has a unique delivery capability. The UN’s universal presence means that it has the largest network of country offices and does not overlook any country. Moreover, the UN’s extensive “field presence” is not superficial; its country offices and the Regional Economic Commissions are not liaison offices but rather major centres.

The United Nations is the only complete embodiment of that community of nations.

If we want a United Nations for peace, we need a United Nations for development..

The United Nations emphasizes bottom-up, country-driven programming of development assistance resources, without conditionalities. These facts, plus developing country participation in UN’s governance, ensures ownership of UN’s development intiatives by the parties involved. Ownership, in turn, is essential to sustainability and success. Because of its universal presence at country and regional levels and its grant-based assistance, the United Nations can operate effectively at the inter-country and regional levels. The United Nations has a comprehensive mandate, spanning social, economic and political issues. It can thus support political and economic transitions linked to development interests. In addition to the extensive expertise represented by the specialized agencies, the UN’s program address poverty, jobs, population, children, environment, governance, human rights, women’s issues, drugs, shelter and other critical issues. This breadth is part of the UN’s strong delivery capability. The UN’s programs focus heavily on the neediest countries and on the neediest people within those countries. The United Nations has special strengths and experience in the social or human aspects of development, both with governments and with grasssroots organizations. The United Nations has the capability to mobilize, deliver and coordinate humanitarian assistance and to promote reconstruction and reintegration in post-emergency situations. It can link work in peacekeeping, refugees, relief, and development, and it provides an ideal base for support for early warning and preventive development initiatives. No other development assistance institution can point to such an array of capabilities.

A Growing Need for Multilateral Action As we consider these attributes of the UN’s development work, we should recall that the enormous development challenges confronting mankind require large-scale international cooperation. Almost a third of the people in the developing world live in extreme poverty. Nearly a billion are illiterate. Some 800 million people do not have enough food. The global environment continues to deteriorate. These facts can give rise to cynicism and despair , or they can spur a new commitment to move beyond the inadequate efforts of the past. These problems, and others, cannot be solved by countries acting alone or even in small groups. Poverty and hunger, population pressures, environmental degradation, the condition of children and women, the denial of fundamental freedoms- all present complex and related challenges to the community of nations. The United Nations is the only complete embodiment of that community of nations. Operational support for sustainable human development by the United Nations is the concrete commitment of the community of nations to act in concert to meet these challenges. The United Nations is also essential to help redefine the relationship between industrial and developing countries. Common interests and mutual needs ought to provide the basic rationale for new partnerships and global compacts not welfare. Whatever today’s threats to national security may be, more pervasive are the threats to the human security of people in their daily lives. Problems do not need passports to travel around the globe-and whether we like it or not, a problem in one part of the world can affect us all. International compacts and partnerships must therefore be forged to realize common goals, whether we are focusing on controlling the continuing devastation of the world’s forests or eliminating the world aspects of world poverty. The United Nations is uniquely situated to forge international agreement and understanding and to back these up with development support. The UN’s impartiality and universality are key to forging international agreements (e.g. Children’s Summit goals, Cairo Program of Action, Agenda 21). It is natural and expected that the United Nations should be in the development cooperation business in order to help promote goal entered into under its auspices. Peace and International Security Require Development The UN’s work in development is also essential to the success of the United Nations in its various non-development missions. Most important are the links between development and peace. Many critics of international assistance have not paused to think about the underlying causes of the conflicts in which the United Nations and others are becoming involved. Degrading poverty, diminishing natural resources, and increasing joblessness all feed ethnic and social tensions. It is from this cauldron that crises can boil over. Of 82 conflicts in the last three years-each costing more than a thousand lives- 79 were within nations, not between nations. Ninety percent of the casualties have been civilians, not soldiers. These conflicts require development upstream, not soldiers downstream. They need a strengthening of the UN’s role in development, not drastic cuts in UN’s funding for fighting poverty merely because the global community does not have the foresight to move preventively and is left with the belated option of frustrating peacekeeping operations. The right lesson to draw is to move early, to act preventively, and to land development now instead of later. The United Nations can be an effective force for peace only if it is a strong force for development. The United Nations should be strengthened as a bulwark for preventive initiatives around the globe. It should be made into a stronger human development agency, so that there are fewer internal conflicts and less need for relief and peacekeeping operations. Un-fortunately, while the images of retreating soldiers flashed across our TV screens, we did not see the images of thousands of UN-financed workers immunizing poor children, promoting agriculture and food security, providing safe drinking water or building capacity for countries to better manage their own affairs and participate in an expanding world market. If we want a United Nations for peace, we need a United Nations for development. It is that “other United Nations” that gets too little attention, and too little support. And yet it is the United Nations that matters most in the decades ahead. The United Nations can no longer fight the battles of tomorrow with the weapons of yesterday. Development is also Essential to the United Nations There are powerful ethical and political reasons why the United Nations must keep a balance between its peace-keeping and international security activities and its activities aimed at promoting human betterment and helping people realize their aspirations for decent lives. The moral authority of the United Nations is built in large part on real service to people. This moral authority is more important to the United Nations than its military authority; in the long run and in the short run, moral authority can be very effective. Also, the UN’s moral authority legitimizes its use of military authority, when that becomes necessary. Politically, unless the United Nations is involved in humanitarian work and development work, it will come to be perceived as a global security force and an instrument of the North aimed at keeping the South pacified. Finally, and fundamentally, the United Nations is based on the principle that the world body should reflect the widely shared priorities of nations. And the priority of the majority of the countries and the majority of the people is development. If that priority is not respected in the activities of the United Nations, the political compact that holds the world organization together will crumble. Almost no time passed between the issuance of the UN’s Agenda for Peace and the developing world’s call for a UN Agenda for Development. A Vision Renewed Following the victory in World War II, the United Nations was launched by leaders with a vision of a broader victory- not only victory over aggression and war but also victory over want and despair. They knew that only victory on both fronts could assure an enduring peace. Now, with the end of the Cold War it is time to fully implement this grand vision, and do so with renewed dedication to the goals of the Charter. Let us make the United Nations a strong and effective force for sustainable, people-centered development and build it as a bulwark for protecting the security of people as well as the security of nations.

Mr. Speth, the highest ranking American official at the United Nations, is currently the Administrator of the United Nations Development Program. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale College, and was a Rhodes Scholar and the editor of the Law Review at Yale Law School.