Envoys fight to keep Annan's reform package on track

By Mark Turner
September 12, 2005 
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f841d8ce-2329-11da-86cc-00000e2511c8.html

Exhausted United Nations diplomats were yesterday struggling ahead of Wednesday's summit of world leaders to avoid the collapse of an ambitious reform package spanning human rights, development aid and the world body's own internal management.
European ambassadors, who have broadly endorsed the wide-ranging package of reforms proposed by Kofi Annan, the embattled UN secretary-general, were trying to act as a bridge between the US, on the one hand, and a vocal group of middle-income developing countries, such as Egypt and Pakistan, on the other.
The US is pushing for fundamental reform to the way the UN is managed, by moving executive control from the General Assembly to the secretariat, but with tighter oversight and auditing.
But Washington has resisted language that would oblige it to increase international development aid, seen by the developing world as a quid pro quo for support over UN reform.
Washington's demands for a wide-ranging overhaul of the organisation received a boost last week after Paul Volcker, who heads an investigation into the oil-for-food programme in Iraq, found evidence of massive mismanagement in the UN system. Mr Annan, who came in for damning personal criticism in the Volcker report, has also thrown his weight behind the US reform push.
But a group of countries led by Pakistan fear that Washington is cynically using the oil-for-food findings to dilute their influence. They claim it is not the vehicle that is broken, but the driver that is compromised.
Any move to shift control away from the General Assembly, they say, would in effect hand more power to the US.
The same middle-income countries are also resisting the creation of a streamlined and powerful human rights council and oppose language on terrorism that they say could undermine the right of resistance to illegal occupation.
UN officials say the main problem is that these countries have little to gain from promised increases of development assistance, which would target only the world's poorest countries.
But they have much to lose from tougher international standards on human rights, protection of civilians from atrocities, and a dilution of influence.
As a result they have proved even more intransigent than the US, which has received the brunt of criticism. By comparison to these countries, the US are angels, said one European diplomat.
Despite its tough talking, the US this week made limited concessions on development, with a formula that now allows reference to the UN Millennium Development Goals to end poverty by 2015 and language supporting the internationally agreed rich countries' aid target of 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product.
Whether those concessions are enough to win the support of the majority of poor developing countries, who could then force the spoilers into a corner, will determine the ultimate success of Wednesday's summit.