7:11 AM Jul 12, 1995

UNITED NATIONS: FORMER WORLD BANK OFFICIAL FOR UNCTAD ?

Geneva 12 July (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has offered the job of head of the secretariat of the UN Conference on Trade and Development to Mr. Kara Osman Oglu, a Turkish national and former vice-President of the World Bank, and Oglu has accepted the offer, the Turkish newspaper Milleyet has reported, according to Turkish sources in Geneva.

The UN Secretary-General appoints the Secretary-General of UNCTAD, but this has to be confirmed by the UN General Assembly and traditionally, before making such appointments, the Secretary-General holds consultations with the regional groups -- if nothing else to avoid problems at the General Assembly.

But Boutros-Ghali, in asserting the independence of the secretariat, has developed a different style.

Till last week, Group of 77 delegations in New York and here were complaining that so far there has been no consultations with them and there was not even any panel of names, as far as they knew.

Last week, when Boutros-Ghali was in town for ECOSOC meetings, the African Group had met him and conveyed their concerns over the fact that since April of 1994, when the term of Kenneth Dadzie demitted his office as UNCTAD Secretary-General at the end of his term, no one has been named successor. The post has remained vacant, with Mr. Carlos Fortin of Chile holding the job as Officer-in-Charge, amidst preparations for the next session of UNCTAD to be held in Africa.

According to African delegates, Boutros-Ghali said that he would not agree to the abolition of UNCTAD or UNIDO, and that he had not been able to fill the post of head of UNCTAD because of uncertainties over the post of head of the World Trade Organization and that he would soon proceed to appoint a head for UNCTAD.

The UNCTAD post has been traditionally filled by a candidate from a developing country, and this would have been the turn of one from the Latin American region.

But during the year-long tussle over the WTO top job - with an Italian, Mexican (Carlos Salinas) and an Asian contending for the post -- Boutros-Ghali had been reported as waiting for the WTO election to be cleared before picking a candidate.

The impression that had been left was that if Salinas did not make it to the WTO job, Boutros-Ghali would suggest a candidate from the Latin American region.

And when Dadzie demitted office, the Latin American group had staked its claim, and several Latin American names have been mentioned.

Amidst all these uncertainties, came the report of the Governance Commission calling for an Economic Security Council and for abolition of UNCTAD and UNIDO. This evoked a chorus of protests and outrage from the developing countries and the Group of 77, with Boutros-Ghali assuring them he had no such plans under contemplation.

Meanwhile, there has also been a growing demand for greater coordination between the United Nations and its system of specialized agencies and the Bretton Woods Institutions (who nominally have a specialized agency relationship with the UN) and the WTO which wants no formal relationships at all.

But neither the Fund, World Bank nor the WTO want any coordinating role for the UN.

When Boutros-Ghali, with his top advisor Gus Speth (US national heading the UNDP), had prepared a draft Agenda for Development which spoke of the UN's coordinating role in the economic and social sectors and the BWIs becoming more accountable and guided, the Bank President then (Lewis Preston) is known to have very strongly objected and the passages were modified.

The undertones of this came out at the ECOSOC policy dialogue last week, in the question posed by Gus Speth and the tart response from the Bank President Wolfensohn who said: "I don't want to be coordinated by you."

For much of this decade, the Fund and the Bank have been under intense scrutiny and attack for their Structural Adjustment Programmes and policy advices to developing countries -- both from some of the UN agencies, and even more from academics and Non-Governmental Organizations.

The UN's Economic Commission for Africa itself, both under the Nigerian Adedeji and his successor, Liyachi Yakir of Algeria, had focused on the failures of the SAPs in Africa, and subsequently (under Yakir) about the negative effects of the Uruguay Round.

Several leading NGOs like Oxfam have also campaigned against the SAPs.

The Mexican peso crisis of December 1995, despite the efforts of the IMF and the Bank since then, to project an atmosphere of returning confidence and Latin America and Mexico on the path of recovery, have come under increasing questioning not only among dissenting economists, but even in western media. The Wall Street Journal recently ran a long piece showing how the crisis signals had been there, and known to the BWIs, US Treasury and private investing funds, but had been ignored.

But more than this, the Fund and the Bank have found themselves in an uncomfortable position, with the policy analysis that was coming from within the UN (its ECOSOC division, the ECLAC and other regional commissions) and even more from UNCTAD which has been questioning the macro-economic policy advices.

This was sharply brought out at last week's high-level policy dialogue.

According to some Third World diplomats and observers in New York and here, the Fund and the Bank are trying to use their influence to ensure that the heads of regional commissions, UN's economic division in New York and UNCTAD are persons closer to their orthodox line of thinking, and that this would be the price for their "cooperation" with the UN.

At the ECOSOC last week, the heads of the World Bank, IMF and the WTO made clear that they would not accept any coordinating role for the UN and ECOSOC, but that they would "cooperate" - without specifying what it implies or means.

The President of ECOSOC, Amb. Kamal of Pakistan, at a press briefing this week, spoke of the heads of the Bank and the Fund agreeing to spend a day with ECOSOC members in New York to carry on a dialogue.

But the real question appears to be whether the dialogue is to be on the basis of a uniform orthodox view of economics, or of plurality of views and scope for its public expression and debate within the UN.

Some Third World diplomats, speaking non-attributively note that ECA is now headed by a Ghanaian, who was formerly in the World Bank, while ESCAP is headed by an Indonesian, who was his country's Central Bank head and, in that and other capacities, more exposed to IMF philosophies.

However, others note that while a monolithic, orthodox view, might emerge because of the orientations of chief executives, within the UN system, institutional views have a way of asserting themselves.

A monolithic view from the BWIs and the UN may be comforting to the leading industrial nations, and the BWIs -- and even attract the support of business -- but could result in further sharpening the criticisms and attacks from the civil society and the non-governmental groups.