Source: http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2007/070220_Akram.doc.htm
Feb 20, 2007
 
Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York
PRESS CONFERENCE ON AGENDA OF GROUP OF 77 AND CHINA, UNITED NATIONS REFORM

Briefing correspondents at a Headquarters press conference today, the Chairman of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China said 2007 would be an important year for the Group and the entire United Nations system as the world body navigated a host of reform-related issues.

Outlining the Group of 77 agenda for 2007, Munir Akram, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said the Group had been able to maintain a unified view on a number of issues, despite its size and diversity and its growing economic and trade role.  Its diversity provided opportunities for complementarities among its members, some of which were developing rapidly and others still awaiting a breakthrough.  The Group’s broader agenda was to promote equitable treatment for developing countries in the international economic system, which implied influencing policy decisions on trade, finance, official development assistance and technology, as well as to ensure that international institutions, including the United Nations, were responsive to their priorities and concerns.

The Group’s agenda for 2007 could be broadly seen in three parts, he said.  The first included policy issues on which decisions and commitments had been undertaken, especially at the 2005 World Summit, and encapsulated in the Millennium Development Goals and the internationally agreed development goals undertaken at Doha, Monterrey and Johannesburg.  The Group’s first priority was to secure implementation of those development commitments.  While more than 100 developing countries were submitting national Millennium Development Goals reports, it was equally important that development partners inform the international community about their commitment to the Millennium Goals and the internationally agreed development goals.

A second aspect was institutional issues, including United Nations reform, he said, noting that the voice of developing countries was not always heard, for example in the Bretton Woods institutions.  The Group of 77 and China looked forward to greater interaction with the Group of 24 in Washington (a caucus that coordinates Group of 77 positions on development and related matters) and the Group of 8 industrialized nations, where some form of institutional dialogue had to be established.

The third aspect of the Group’s work involved South-South cooperation, the area with the most exciting possibilities, he said.  South-South integration in trade was proceeding rapidly.  Integration at both the regional and interregional levels offered the promise of accelerating growth and development in the developing countries, particularly the least developed countries, landlocked countries and small island developing States.

Regarding United Nations reform, he said it involved two aspects:  intergovernmental reform and Secretariat or management reform.  On the first, the priority for the Group of 77 and China was to secure the two new functions assigned to the Economic and Social Council -- the Annual Ministerial Review and the Development Cooperation Forum.  Another priority was the monitoring mechanism for implementation of the Millennium Goals and the internationally agreed development goals.  The Group of 77 wished to elaborate a matrix circulated by Pakistan two years ago, and outlining development commitments and possible timeframes for implementation, into a mechanism to institutionalize those development targets.  It would also discuss the report of the High-Level Panel on Coherence.

Turning to Secretariat and management reforms, he said three areas were particularly important, including governance and oversight issues.  The purpose of the Secretariat was to implement Member States decisions, not the other way around.  The Group of 77 felt the money should follow mandates, and mandates should not be implemented on the basis of the availability of money.  The Group had, therefore, traditionally resisted attempts to use the budget as a method to determine the Organization’s priorities.

He said the second area of management reform was human resources management -– the whole gamut of recruitment policies, performance evaluation and accountability -– where the Group stressed the quality of staff and their equitable treatment in terms of recruitment, promotion, postings and evaluation.  A third area was Secretariat management practices and principles, including oversight, strengthening of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), the role of the Board of Auditors, procurement reform and the administration of justice.

Asked about a reported confrontation between the Secretary-General and the Group of 77, he said he was aware of those reports, adding that the Group wished to support the Secretary-General.  It also wished to see him succeed and to be seen as successful in the Organization’s operations.  However, the Group had its own developmental priorities and had stressed the need for the Secretariat to give the highest priority to implementation of the Millennium Goals and the internationally agreed development goals.

Regarding the two proposals on the Organization’s restructuring, he said the Secretary-General had modified one of them in light of the Group’s discussions with him in which it had stated that its main concern was the need to follow the established rules and to submit a formal report for the consideration of the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) and the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ).

He added that, on political issues, decisions could be made directly by the General Assembly, a distinction that must be maintained.  As long as processes were respected, the Group of 77 was ready to go along.  On the substance of the two proposals, however, the Non-Aligned Movement, not the Group of 77, had taken a position.  The Secretary-General had agreed to refer the matter of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to the Committee of 34, more formally known as the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations.

Asked whether the Group of 77 was willing to do some mandate reform, as several thousand were useless, he said every group or delegation had its own priorities as to which should be changed or reviewed.  If it were to be a political exercise, it would have to done in political committees or forums.  There had been confusion on mandate review so far.  Was it to change the political nature of the decisions or was it to bring more efficiency?  It would be easier if it was to be an efficiency exercise.

Another correspondent, noting that the Economic and Social Council “passed resolutions and went home”, asked whether that organ was ready to be operational and whether he saw the demise of the NGO Committee as a disgrace.

On the Economic and Social Council, he said the organ had been unable to operate because it had not been allowed to do so.  The influence and power of any organization was directly related to the amount of resources it controlled.  There were now proposals to strengthen the Council and bring in ministerial level participation.  If political leadership used it as a central coordinating mechanism for the international economic system it would become useful, but without that political will, it would face difficulties.  That was part of the implementation problem.

As for the NGO Committee, the Group of 77 had no common position on it, he added.

Commenting further on mandate review, which a correspondent described as one of the “spectacular failures” of last year’s reform process, Mr. Akram said his personal view was that last year’s experience had been to try to build confidence in the exercise, which some had seen as an exercise to change political decisions in certain sensitive areas.  Another second concern was that the process would take resources away from developing-country priorities and reassign them to new priorities.  Some of the older mandates had been addressed and confidence-building measures would be needed in order to proceed with the review.

What did the Group of 77 want the Secretariat and Assembly to do specifically in the next few months? a correspondent asked.

He stressed that implementation was the Group’s priority at the intergovernmental level, adding that other institutional actions it wished to see were the development of a monitoring mechanism and empowerment of the Economic and Social Council through the Annual Ministerial Review and the Development Cooperation Forum.  At the Secretariat level, the Group was looking for the Secretary-General’s support for the intergovernmental processes it wanted to strengthen.  It was also looking for greater responsiveness to its priorities and a transparent approach in promoting reform issues.  Money should follow mandates, he reiterated.

Commenting on China’s membership in the Group while it was a rising economic superpower, he said every organization had a historical genesis and China had been associated with the Group since 1992.  The Group welcomed the fact that China was agreeable to associating with it and saw no contradiction in that country’s growing status, which added to the Group’s strength.  Other members were also growing rapidly, expanding the possibilities for complementarities and regional integration.

On the question of peacekeeping, he said the Department was already preoccupied with the surge in peace operations.  The number of troops on the ground had increased five-fold in the last 10 years and the number of departmental staff had doubled.  Growth in the field must be supported from Headquarters, where the issue was whether the Department was actually geared towards supporting the Organization’s 18 operations.  The Department had proposed five areas for consideration and the Secretary-General’s proposal basically related to just one of them -- organizational structure.  Questions had been raised as to whether restructuring would preserve the unity of command and clarity was needed on some other issues.  The views of the Group of 77 would be expressed when the Committee of 34 took up the matter.

Asked about the difference between the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77, he said the former dealt with political questions while the latter focused on economic issues.  In addition, the origins of the two bodies were different, the Group having been created at the end of the first meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in June 1964.  The Non-Aligned Movement was formed in 1961 out of concern over the accelerating arms race between the Soviet Union-controlled Eastern bloc and the United States-led Western bloc.

To a question about the Department of Disarmament Affairs, he responded by saying that, although small, it was important and that any reconfiguration of the Department must not compromise or change its mandates.

As for whether the Group felt the Secretary-General was listening too much to the United States, the Chairman said conjecture on how decisions had been influenced was a United Nations pastime.  Some rumours were correct and others were not.  Like every other nation Member State, the United States had strong national interests and the Secretary-General tried to respond to the interests of a broad membership, finding ways to reconcile diverse pressures.