12:15 PM May 29, 1997

UNITED NATIONS: WHAT DOES THE UNITED STATES REALLY WANT?

Iqbal Haji*

New York, May (TWN) -- Flattering headlines and stories notwithstanding, the crux of the US problem with the UN was hardly touched upon during the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's recent "triumphant" visit to Washington. The core of the US demand is this: cut the economic work of the UN, which still consumes a substantial portion of the UN's regular budget, and transfer the resources to the "law and order" functions.

Without a clear understanding of this issue of central importance to the US, there is no amount of restructuring the UN can undertake that will satisfy the sole superpower. It is important to understand the US and to deal with the matter.

In the post world war period, under the visionary leadership of the US itself, structures were put into place that would spread economic growth and development throughout the world: first to the war-ravaged European countries, later to the developing world.

A balanced approach in the UN-peace and security on the one hand, and economic progress on the other -- was a manifestations of this sound orientation. The UN's work in the economic area, global in scope at first, later almost exclusively Third-World-oriented, flourished beyond all expectations, and was fuelled by a dramatic increase in aid from the rich countries.

The cold war rivalry between the USSR and the US also helped create a "competitive" atmosphere in which seducing loyalties of the developing world was a major foreign policy objective.

The powers-that-be in the US now have a very different view.

They regard the developing world either as basket cases (hence the emphasis on "humanitarian aid") or as competitors for global markets and hence a threat to their economic security. Either way, helping the Third World countries to develop their economies makes less sense to many in the West.

The US sees no reason to support the UN's hard-core economic functions that touch upon vitally sensitive issues like global macro-economic policies, international trade, finance, the monetary system, transnational corporations, and technology. The US would rather deal with these issues through institutions (WB, IMF, WTO, OECD, BIS) that they dominate and which conform to their ideology.

The US is perfectly happy to support "soft" issues in the UN such as the environment, social policies, gender, equality, drugs, and many others. These are now increasingly crowding out the economic issues in the UN. As noted above, the US is extremely interested in strengthening the "law and order" functions of the UN, mostly as regards the developing world.

As for the rest of the world, they prefer to deal with it more or less outside the UN, for example, through NATO, OSCE, etc.

The US increasingly wants to use the UN to disarm the Third World, to outlaw and punish "rogue states" and fundamentalism, counter the drug trade, impose Western concepts of human rights and democracy, fight "corruption", but not the corrupters, and prevent money laundering.

There seems to be no recognition of this basic issue, including here (within the secretariat), and even less on hoe to deal with this central problem. The entire emphasis presently has been (at least until December 1996) to pacify the US by seriously weakening the economic functions of the U.N.

Significant progress has already been made in this direction e.g., by mediocre appointments, meek Secretariat documents, emphasis on social and environmental issues, and by giving increasing voice in the UN proper to the voluntary donor-funded bodies as against the assessed funded organs--the latter is a crucial distinction). Surreptitiously, key economic issues have been taken out of the UN; the OECD now conducts economic talks with major developing countries.

The BIS is now slowly incorporating important developing countries into its activities.

This erosion of the UN has to stop. The SG has to convince the major Member States--the US is not alone in this respect, but is certainly the leader--that this is an extremely short-sighted way to construct a new world economic framework. The Secretariat has simply not done a good job of convincing the West, especially the US, that spreading world economic growth requires global economic cooperations and dialogue.

The SG needs to explain patiently to the West that their own long-term economic prosperity now depends crucially on strengthening the economies and hence the markets in the developing world; that this requires massive investments in the developing world's infrastructures, in industrialization, and in creating global supervisory and monitoring frameworks centred in the UN. An emerging "global" economy requires a global framework. The UN is it.

Only if the West can be convinced of this will it use the UN. Herein lies the key to the financial problem, convince the West to make a constructive and extensive use of the UN for global purposes, not to view the UN simply as an instrument to "deal with" the developing world. Launch interesting and forward-looking initiative to persuade the West to use the UN more widely and more effectively. The money will follow.

(* Iqbal Haji is a senior staff member of the UN in the Economic and Social division. The article appeared in the publication, UN Staff Report, Vol. 22, No. 3, March 1997).