By Pera Wells, Secretary General
1 May 2007
The UN Secretary General, Mr Ban Ki-moon, signaled in his acceptance speech that the defining mandate of the UN of the 21st century is to strengthen the inter-state system so as to better enable humanity to address global challenges. In this vision, serving humanity is at the heart of the purpose of the UN. It speaks to the growing focus on ‘human security’, the shift in emphasis from reactive to preventive diplomacy, recognition that the sovereign independence of nation states needs to be qualified by the new international norm of the responsibility of states to protect their citizens from genocide or crimes against humanity, and the practical value given to partnerships with civil society and business.
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The purpose of the World Federation of United Nations Associations is to be a peoples’ movement in support of the United Nations. The recent 38th Plenary Assembly, in November 2006, adopted the Buenos Aires Declaration, which affirms the organization’s belief in a United Nations that supports democracy and is itself democratic. As well a resolution was adopted supporting the establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly as a consultative body within the United Nations system as a voice of the citizens.
The concept of UN social accountability calls for a better balance between the role of the UN in reporting on trends in global social conditions and in assessing the effectiveness of its own actions to alleviate poverty, address human rights violations and promote peace and security.
The UN’s work in producing statistics on social and economic conditions in countries throughout the world is outstanding. Various UN Agencies produce valuable annual reports, notably UNICEF on children, UNHCR on refugees and displaced persons and UNDP on Human Development. We look forward to the Universal Periodic Reviews of the Human Rights Council on the world human rights situation.
The question arises, how can the information set out in such reports be more directly linked to the operational activities of the United Nations, including the revision and re-prioritizing of mandates?
In September 2005 at the World Summit, global leaders resolved to "strengthen and update the program of work of the United Nations so that it responds to the contemporary requirements of Member States". They instructed the General Assembly and other relevant organs to "review all mandates older than five years”. In his report on the follow up of this request, the former Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, acknowledged that “the mandate-generation cycle through which mandates are adopted, funded and implemented, and then considered for continuation, change or elimination, should be re-examined”.
Many points are made about the weaknesses of the system. However, what is missing is any recognition of the value of inviting civil society organizations that are working on issues on the UN agenda at all levels, from the global to the local, to make a contribution to the review process and to the whole mandate-generation cycle.
Another question arises. Could there be a capacity within the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to enable civil society organizations to provide assessments and evaluations of the progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), from the perspective of the intended beneficiaries?
The MDGs have been heralded as a major advance in guiding the global development effort to have set targets and measurable outcomes. However measuring real progress towards these goals remains problematic if the UN does not develop the capacity to take into account the work of civil society organizations to enable people living in poverty to assess and evaluate the impact (objective and subjective) of efforts to achieve the goals on their lives.
There are indications that support is growing for this approach. The report on system coherence states that” cooperation with civil society and the private sector needs to be systematized and upgraded to enable these partnerships to contribute more effectively to the implementation of the agreed development goals”.
And yet another question arises. It is now accepted that peace and security, development and human rights are interdependent. Therefore, how can the UN more properly account for the devastating social consequences of conflict situations and its own role in alleviating conflicts and creating the conditions for sustainable peace and development?
The UN is essentially a political instrument …at the end of the day, the most interesting questions to be answered concern the exercise of its power, how it allocates resources and its role in the search for leaders with the courage to chart a course towards a more democratic, just and peaceful world.