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POLITICS: Third World Wants Say in Selecting UNDP Boss

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 15 1999 (IPS) - The Group of 77, a coalition of 133 developing nations, wants to be part of the ongoing process to choose the new head of the UN agency that doles out some 900 million dollars annually in development aid.

The Group, which also speaks on behalf of China, is arguing that most high-ranking UN jobs are “donor driven” with little or no inputs from developing nations who comprise more than 70 percent of the UN’s total membership of 185 states.

“We would like to be consulted before some of these appointments are made,” a G-77 member told IPS.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to announce shortly the new Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), described as the UN’s largest single source of grant aid for development cooperation.

UNDP’s current chief, James Gustave Speth of the United States, will leave the agency by June. The only formally declared candidate to replace him is Danish Minister for Development Cooperation Poul Nielson, the nominee of the European Union (EU).

The EU says that it wants to break the 33-year monopoly held by the United States because its 15 members collectively contribute more to the UNDP budget than does Washington.

Despite the EU’s united stand on Nielson, a new name has emerged as a potential successor to Speth: Mark Malloch-Brown of Britain, a vice president of the World Bank. And, according to published reports last week, Annan apparently has “postponed” naming a new UNDP head after the U.S. indicated it favoured Malloch-Brown over Nielson.

The appointment of the Administrator is a prerogative of the Secretary-General and traditionally he consults the UNDP’s 36- member Executive Board, and representatives from developing nations. But some members of the Executive Board, who are also members of G-77, are complaining that Annan has consulted neither group.

According to a General Assembly resolution adopted in 1958, the UNDP Administrator, then designated Managing Director, will be appointed by the Secretary-General “after having consulted with the Governing Council” (the predecessor to the current Executive Board), and subject to final “confirmation by the General Assembly.”

At a meeting of the Group of 77 in Geneva last week, its chairman – Samuel Insanally of Guyana – thanked Annan for his decision to reappoint Ruben Ricupero of Brazil for a second term as Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Ricupero had the blessings of the G-77 for his four-year extension.

Insanally told Annan “May we wish you…the same wisdom and vision when you come to nominating a successor for Gus Speth, an Administrator of UNDP to whom we will be paying tribute for his elightened service to UNDP.”

UNDP is “dear to the hearts of developing countries, and indeed, for us. It is also the face of the United Nations in our countries,” Insanally said.

“Therefore, while we fully respect your prerogative of choice in this matter, we would like to say that your choice of a replacement is of concern not only to donors, but to us as donees (if that term exists), since, after all, we represent UNDP’s clientele and its most interested beneficiaries.”

UN Spokesman Fred Eckhard was quoted as saying last week that “we expect to make a decision in a week or two,” but he has refused to comment about the selection process.

G-77 sources told IPS that “as everybody knows, developing nations are the major clients of UNDP.” “So, it is nothing but right that we be consulted before an appointment is made.”

The source pointed out that in 1994-1995, when then Secretary- General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was called upon to appoint a new Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), he asked the Group of 77 to submit its own nominee for the job.

But the third world nations failed to provide a candidate and with the Europeans divided, the job went to an American, Carol Bellamy, who had strong support from the U.S. government.

All four heads of UNICEF – Maurice Pate, Henry Labouisse, James Grant and Carol Bellamy – have been U.S. citizens.

Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of Bangladesh told IPS that sooner or later the heads of the four major UN Funds and Programmes, traditionally dominated by Western nations, should be headed by Third World nations.

Since 1966, UNDP has been headed by Paul Hoffman, Rudolph Petersen, Bradford Morse, Willian Draper and Gus Speth – all U.S. nationals. The only other non-U.S. but Western national was David Owen of UK who served as co-Administrator with Hoffman.

The third major UN Programme, the World Food Programme (WFP), has also been dominated by the West: A.H. Boerma (the Netherlands), T.C.M. Robinson (U.S.), G.N. Vogel (Canada), J.C. Ingram (Australia) and the current incumbent, Catherini Bertini (U.S.) But unlike UNICEF and UNDP, WFP also had two Third World executive directors: F. Aquino (El Salvador) and Brito Azavedo (Brazil).

Chowdhury said there is a myth in the UN system that the major Funds and Programmes should be headed by donor nations because only Western nationals can raise funds.

But since its creation in 1969, he said, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the fourth major UN Programme, has known only two executive directors, both from the Third World: Rafael Salas of the Philippines and Nafis Sadik of Pakistan.

“UNFPA has done very well and is one of the best run UN bodies,” Chowdhury said.

The United Nations itself has been headed by four Third World nationals: Secretaries-General U. Thant of Burma, Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt and Kofi Annan of Ghana.

“If the UN can be successfully run by nationals of developing nations, why not the UN’s major Funds and Programmes?” Chowdhury asked.

 
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