The United Nations and Development

I am here in New York this week as leader of the European Parliament’s delegation to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, and am grateful for the opportunity to share some thoughts with you today about the United Nations and about international development.

I was born in Sri Lanka to a family of Rajasthani descent, but I now have the honour to represent 7 million English people in the European Parliament, working on a daily basis with French, German and Spanish colleagues, and more recently with Czechs, Poles, Lithuanians and others. The Parliament represents 430 million people of 25 member-states.

I am Chairman of the Europe-India Chamber of Commerce, and am Ambassador Without Portfolio for Sri Lanka. I am a Christian, but I am also Chairman of the EU-Indonesia group, developing good relations with the largest Moslem democracy in the world. I hold British and Sri Lanka citizenship, I speak Singhalese and English, and have a French-speaking wife from Mauritius.

I was endowed from birth with the legacy of the ancient civilisations of the East, and in later life I was adopted by one of the great civilisations of the West, which itself gave birth to these United States. As chairman of the British Conservative Party’s Bow Group, and a Member of the United Kingdom Parliament I forged close links with the Congress of the United States in the 1980s and 90s, some of whose members remain friends to this day.

The tasks faced by the UN are immense, and if it cannot deliver, then people will look elsewhere for solutions.

What for example are the great killers of our modern world? Those instruments of death and destruction which destabilize our populations, create terror and confusion and lead to unsustainable development. The great killers are: AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, diarrheic diseases, hunger, lack of potable water, international terrorism, civil wars generated by diamonds, oil, and water, and sustained by misuse of small arms in almost all cases, land mines left over from previous civil wars, poor governance leading to massacres and genocide as we have seen in Darfur and then of course unforeseeable natural disasters like the recent Tsunami and pandemics of the kind now expected with Asian flu.

These are all the legitimate concerns of the United Nations, because the collective interest is the national interest and mass deaths in one part of one continent will have an impact on the whole globe.

Essentially, the UN needs to be able to anticipate and not merely react, and frequently react too slowly, as has indeed been the case in the past. Technology and modern science empower us to project, predict and be able to anticipate a situation, which is going from bad to worse. It should never come as a surprise. However, all too frequently the international community is incapable of anticipating the tragedies that have unfolded in front of our eyes. So, what we do; we do but it is often too little and too late. Too little, too late could be the epitaph of the United Nations. It is incapable of anticipating because it is too bureaucratic, too unwieldy and too unaccountable.

The power to anticipate requires a long-range planning unit within the UN structure. Staffed by people who have a multidisciplinary background in being able to analyse and predict trends and transient shifts in the geopolitical environment in sufficient time to alert the Security Council.

The Role of the Public Sector and the Donor Community

Aid Delivery and Transparency

In the European Parliament I have focussed my efforts on Development, where I serve as coordinator for the majority party on the Development Committee, and as author of the Committee’s Report on the European Union’s fifteen billion dollar Development Budget.

Some of my more recent tasks include working for the effective distribution of aid given to the Tsunami-affected areas. I was actually in Sri Lanka in December 2004 when the Tsunami hit the coast, and I witnessed the devastation and human suffering that it caused. I convened meetings in the European Parliament on my return with Ambassadors from all the affected countries, together with NGOs, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, and many others, to address what has been accomplished and how we could improve aid delivery and support.

This experience has made very clear to me not only the excellent work, which some development professionals do, but also how great is the need for more efficient and transparent delivery of aid to the people who desperately need it. The generosity of so many peoples and governments was astonishing – and yet, more than three months after the disaster there are still hundreds of thousands of people living in tents, fishermen with no nets or boats and unable to support what was left of their family.

From the aid budgets of the world, far too much money is lost, wasted, or simply stolen by corrupt officials and politicians, and all too often the efforts of volunteers are frustrated by customs officials, police, and others. I have discovered that in some places goods donated by aid agencies could not leave the port or airport because import duty was being demanded!

Poverty Reduction

Politicians and NGOs talk frequently about aid in global sums, which sound impressive, but what is really happening to the money donated by us as taxpayers and as individuals? How much is being wasted or stolen? How much remains unaccounted for and why? Are funds being spent on luxury items for expatriate aid workers, further distancing them from those they intend to help? To what extent are the intended recipients really benefiting from aid funds?

We need now to

• Increase alignment of aid with partner countries’ priorities, systems and procedures, strengthen their internal capacities, their national development strategies and associated operational frameworks.
• Enhance donors’ and partner countries’ respective accountability to their citizens and parliaments for their development policies, strategies and performance.
• Eliminate duplication of efforts and rationalise donor activities to make them more cost-effective. Also reform donor policies and procedures to encourage collaborative behaviour
• Define measures and standards of performance and accountability of partner country systems in public financial management, procurement, fiduciary safeguards and environmental assessments, in line with international best practice.
• Commit to taking concrete and effective action to address the failure to provide more predictable and multi-year commitments on aid flows to committed partner countries.

Corruption and lack of transparency erodes public support, impedes effective resource allocation and diverts resources away from activities that are vital for poverty reduction and sustainable economic development.

Now for the first time, internet technology has made it possible to bring transparency into the raising of international aid funding in the donor countries and the delivery of aid in the recipient countries. Some Governments and NGOs have websites, but they rarely give enough detailed information. The internet could bring the citizens of developed countries, as taxpayers and as individual donors, closer to the people of the recipient countries and to the purposes for which the aid is being provided.

A closer involvement by citizens will create a new driving force for the effective delivery of aid, and for holding governments and NGOs accountable

The Millennium Development Goals are important, and it is the purpose of the conference at the UN this week to take stock, five years on, of the progress we have made. In the year 2000, the 191 United Nations Member states pledged themselves to the achievement of eight goals, which, if realised will drastically improve the lives of millions of people living in developing countries. The Millennium Development Goals focus on basic issues such as the eradication of poverty, the availability and improvement of education, and the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Often, even the simplest things can make a huge difference. For example, giving children their own small bar of soap and teaching them to wash their hands before meals, can save millions of children from dysentery and other fatal infectious diseases. Likewise, mosquito nets are very cheap, but they will save millions more from malaria. Solutions like these are described as “quick wins” and I have included these in my Development Budget Report for the European Parliament.

Education - a Priority for Poverty Reduction.

We must invest in children, by first preventing discrimination on grounds of gender, race, and socio-economic factors. We must focus on education and healthcare - for education creates knowledgeable and motivated people. It is through the aspirations of educated people that the free market and competitiveness thrive. In short, education makes economic sense. Likewise, basic healthcare ensures that children will enjoy a standard of living that allows them to take part in education and as adults to become assets to their nation. A child’s right to education is non-negotiable.

Child Labour is the very antithesis of these goals, and is still found in far too many countries. By this I do not mean light work in the family farm or business, which does not adversely affect the child’s health or education. I am referring to hard, full-time work often under dangerous conditions, which deprives the child of a chance for education and a real future. In my opinion, Child Labour is a form of slavery. One of my heroes is William Wilberforce who campaigned for an end to adult slavery, and like him I am committed to campaign for the abolition of child slavery.


The Role of the Private Sector in Reducing Poverty

I am not in favour of giving anybody handouts, but people do need to be assisted to stand on their own feet. Too much lending and too many grants to governments have encouraged statism and been detrimental to entrepreneurial activity. Countries should not borrow or spend irresponsibly expecting debt relief in the long term. Sustainable development requires a healthy private sector, which alone can generate tax revenues for public services.

Corporate Social Responsibility - or CSR - is big business. This is the direction, which all successful 21st century businesses will have to take in order to survive in an age of globalisation. Only five years ago, the words "corporate social responsibility" showed up in around 50 company reports on an Internet search engine. Today, thousands of companies display the implementation of their newly developed ethical codes and socially responsible projects.

CSR is about companies moving beyond a base of legal compliance toward integrating socially responsible behaviour into their core values, recognising the sound business benefits of doing so. Since businesses and the challenges they face differ widely, government interventions need to be carefully considered, well designed, and targeted to achieve their objective. Supporting the efforts of the private sector through their CSR programmes is an important function of aid funding.

Another way of promoting sustainable development is through the support of flourishing Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME’s) which in developing countries are often family businesses. These businesses generate the most employment and they are the foundation for future economic growth. As they are owned by local people or locally-based expatriates, they are less susceptible to the whims of overseas decision-makers and more responsive to local market conditions.

Such companies usually lack access to capital, and when they do have access, the terms are often impossible for them to meet. Working capital is now less of a problem in many countries but investment capital in the range of 2,000-250,000 US Dollars is difficult to find. Below $2,000, micro credit can help; and above $250,000 the venture capital funds are interested. The Dutch Government is already addressing this issue, with their PSOM programme, which provides 60% of capital investment up to 800,000 Euros, for pilot projects in many developing countries.

I support the right of all people to pursue entrepreneurship, which brings individual freedom and reduces poverty. There is a clear and indisputable link between poor countries and the lack of capacity to do business in them. In some of the poorest countries in the world it takes one year to open a new bank account and two years to register a new company. The bureaucratic hurdles faced by the poor are astonishing, and keep the cycle of poverty in motion. Bureaucracy is the mother of corruption, and to abolish corruption it is essential to reduce bureaucracy.

The private capital market can provide most of the necessary funds when the Rule of Law and protected property rights are in place and the regulatory barriers are removed. It also demands financial accountability.


Human Rights, Humanitarian Intervention and the Enforcement of Law

Civil strife and gross violations of human rights, especially in Africa, are the principal obstacles to our development objectives. One civil war can undo decades of development effort. It is therefore essential to give our full backing to the work of the international criminal courts and to make it clear that anyone, and especially those in senior positions, who commits or cause to be committed crimes against humanity will be personally called to account for his or her actions.

Which leads me to the development of the concept of humanitarian intervention. Humanitarian intervention, of course, restricts the sovereignty of independent states, but we are now altering albeit very slowly the Treaty of Westphalia of 1684 which established the modern state system.

Previously national governments were responsible only for inter-state obligations, but the new approach creates a set of norms designed to regulate a government’s relations with its own population. The idea began to spread that governments could be judged as legitimate or illegitimate in terms of internal, as well as external behaviour. Internal despotism, as well as external aggression could cost a given government its right to rule , as was the case in Yugoslavia, and also arguably in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This principle has gone even further in Europe, for by accepting the European Convention on Human Rights, the Member-States of the Council of Europe (not just the EU) have recognised a long and detailed list of rights which their citizens can assert even against their own governments, and those very governments have submitted to the right of the European Court of Human Rights to judge them. If this can happen in Europe, then why not in Africa or Asia? The people of those Continents deserve no less, and in my many contacts with politicians and diplomats I sense an acceptance of the need for such a system for their own people.

Indeed in 1998, 120 sovereign states from all Continents of the world created the International Criminal Court, and gave it the right to judge them in case of gross violations of the human rights of their own people. I am aware that the United States is uneasy about this court, but I welcome the fact that the United States supported the Court by withholding its veto when the Security Council acted under Chapter VII of the Charter to refer the situation in Darfur to the ICC in March 2005. Even though this was a situation within the internal affairs of Sudan, the Resolution required the Sudanese government to cooperate with the Court.

I also support the Special Criminal Courts for Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and Yugoslavia. These courts too are playing an important role in ensuring that some of the world's most notorious criminals are brought to justice.

Oil, Water and future wars

It is no coincidence that the UN has chosen to address the issue of water. Factors such as pollution, scarcity, competition and the poor distribution of water pose one of the greatest threats to peace in the future. Perhaps the greatest threat is competition for oil, and the developed nations need urgently to invest in alternative ways of propelling motor vehicles and generating electricity. The technology is there but the economics are wrong.

I would also encourage Member-states, especially in the developed world to make a much more determined effort to find efficient means of conserving and utilising water in the developing countries to prevent future “water wars”

Water, sanitation and human settlements are closely interlinked and we have the primary responsibility to ensure access to safe drinking water, basic sanitation, and housing. We should as a priority support institutional and regulatory reforms, capacity building, technology transfer and resource mobilization to increase access to safe drinking water in urban and rural areas. This can be done by providing technical assistance to water utilities, community-based organizations and small-scale water service providers to strengthen their technical and managerial capacities and accountability, by the formulation of water investment plans and by support their financing through a range of mechanisms, including the following:

• Improving water governance through institutional reforms;
• Forging public-public and public-private partnerships;
• Facilitating information exchange and knowledge sharing;
• Risk mitigation and disaster reduction;
• Protection and rehabilitation of catchment areas and critical ecosystems;
• Effective management of shared water resources.

The UN Secretary-General

And what of the Secretary-General? He is the Chief Administrator of the Organisation and he must accept responsibility to ensure that it is managed in accordance with the very best management practice and that it gives good value for money and is fully accountable. It is necessary to have a fair representation of all regions of the world among the staff of the Organisation, but appointment to responsible positions from any particular region must be on merit, and no member of staff or member of a UN peacekeeping force should expect to be protected by diplomatic immunity if they abuse their position.

But the Secretary-General is more than an Administrator – he is the public face of the United Nations, and it is to him that the people of the world will rightly look when problems need to be solved. He is not a dictator, he is not a line manager - he has limited powers so he must above all be a consensus-builder. This is not a job for a bureaucrat – it is a job for a politician who has been democratically elected , and perhaps it is time for someone who is not steeped in the culture of foreign relations, and especially not in the culture of the UN. He can of course engage whatever specialist help he needs.

All the prestige and influence of the United Nations are at the disposal of the Secretary-General, but he must have a sensitive touch. Above all he needs to remember that his job is not about institutions - it is about people. He is the servant of the people of the world whether they be rich or poor and whether they be weak or powerful. He must work with their governments and the international institutions which they have ordained, but he must never forget that his overriding purpose is to achieve so far as he can, conditions in which individual men and women can live in peace, and develop and enjoy their human potential to the full.

It is essential therefore that the Secretary-General should like people, and if he is fortunate they will like him in return.

We have an enormous task ahead of us - a task that can only be accomplished by cooperation and unity. A unity that comes from diversity; but one which recognises that the collective interest is the national interest.