For the U.N., Talk is Not Cheap
Gab-fest a money-spinner for Joburg

By Thalif Deen and Farah Kahn

The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) is costing over three times the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The Rio Summit, described as the largest gathering of world leaders at the time, cost about 15 million dollars -- and change. But the price for WSSD is being put at between 50 and 55 million dollars -- and counting. And the biggest chunk of the bill is being paid by a developing country - host, South Africa.

The host government has paid out 20 million U.S. dollars of the bill, but the figure goes beyond half the total tally if one takes into account that parastatals have drummed up a lot of cash too. The electricity utility, Eskom, the telecommunications company, Telkom and the national carrier, South African Airways are key sponsors, with firms like De Beers and Standard Bank coming to the party as well.

The increased cost of the World Summit is far above the inflationary factor which is usually taken into account in assessing the real costs of U.N. conferences.

Since 1992, the United Nations has hosted a series of mega conferences on key issues: human rights (Vienna, 1993), population (Cairo, 1994), social development (Copenhagen, 1995), women (Beijing 1995), habitat (Istanbul, 1996), food (Rome, 1996), and financing for development (Monterrey, 2001). The United Nations also hosted the Millennium Summit in 2000 in New York.

According to the U.N's Department of Public Information, most U.N. conferences cost only about 1.8 million to 3.4 million dollars each. The only exception was Rio.

Crispin Olver, director-general of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, says the original WSSD budget was finalized at about 550 million rands (about 46.3 million U.S. dollars).

But since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, a higher allocation for security wasfactored into the overall budget. "We want to make sure that our security planning is absolutely water-tight," Olver said.

At a U.N. press conference in February, Olver said that nearly 200 million rands were contributed by the South African government. The rest came mostly from donor nations and corporations.

"If the U.S. wrecks the Johannesburg summit," Daniel Mittler of Friends of the Earth International told Terra Viva, "then they should be sent the bill that the U.N. and the South African government will have to pay for holding the summit."

But the South African government has calculated that it can make 100 billion U.S. dollars in downstream benefits. These include the branding that Johannesburg and South Africa have received at the highest diplomatic levels as well as the marketing the country will get from having tens of thousands of delegates in town for a fortnight.

Meanwhile, the United States and the 15-member European Union have customarily criticized gab-fests for their cost and their lack of achievements. Madeleine Albright, a former U.S. envoy to the United Nations and later Secretary of State, even called for a moratorium on all U.N. conferences "until we have absorbed and acted upon the results of the most recent series".

The United States has also made a strong case for abandoning U.N. conferences, and instead, holding Special Sessions of the General Assembly in New York as a way of avoiding expensive junkets. At least two such Special Sessions have been held in recent years: one on AIDS and the other on children.

While the United States may hate the gab-fests, its delegates do not live humbly. This year, they are holed up at the Hyatt in Rosebank, where average rates are 150 U.S. dollars per night and could have doubled for the summit.

The WSSD has opened up a debate once again on the usefulness of U.N. talk-fests pitting supporters against critics. U.N. Under-Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor, who heads the Department of Public Information, quotes an unnamed journalist as saying that every U.N. conference generates only "more empty talk". The journalist is reported to have asked what difference do these conferences make.

Arguing that it is silence that isolates people, Tharoor says that it is true that many international gatherings are consumed by what T.S. Eliot called "the intolerable wrestle with words and meanings".

But such talk, says Tharoor, "lays down markers, articulates aspirations, identifies common approaches, reveals gaps and helps bridge them. Without talk, there would never be agreement; without agreement, there would be no action".

A former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke disagrees. "Thousands of people gather, spending millions, even tens of millions of dollars. They preach to the converted, hash over longstanding differences, and pass empty and grandiose resolutions."

Holbrooke also points out that the money these conferences cost could better be spent directly on the problem being discussed.

Conscious of this criticism, the U.N. Secretariat last month warned all senior officials to avoid extravagance and splurging in Johannesburg.

"We must keep in mind that this conference (WSSD) is taking place in the midst of a major food crisis in southern Africa, affecting 13 million people," Iqbal Riza, chef de cabinet to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, told U.N. staffers before they flew into Johannesburg last week.

Riza also warned division heads to avoid fielding large numbers of U.N. staff "which could be perceived as an obvious waste of personnel and financial resources". It would be wise, said Riza, "to refrain from excessive levels of hospitality, and any event sponsored by the United Nations should be of modest, even frugal dimensions".

Last week, in a widely circulated email, a former Latin American ambassador to the United Nations and currently a senior government official in his country, complained of price gouging and "unsatisfactory arrangements for WSSD".

"Prices for all services are higher than normal, particularly hotels and local transportation. Delegates attending the three-day, high-level segment only are being requested to pay for all 10 days of the summit, with no exceptions," he added. The former envoy said his country, currently going through a severe cash crisis, couldn't afford to field a big delegation at prevailing prices in Johannesburg.

The mood in the Johannesburg pre-summit has been extremely speculative. Hotel prices have more than doubled; homes are being rented out at exorbitant rates, prompting a warning from South African Tourism chief, Cheryl Carolus that locals shouldn't bite the hand that feeds them. Cell-phone companies have run out of stock.

The former envoy said: "After the U.N. General Assembly decides on the venue for a conference, the organisers may do whatever they like to take advantage of the situation."

South Africa won a bid to host WSSD against strong competition from Indonesia. As a consolation, the Indonesians were given the privilege of hosting the last Preparatory Committee meeting in Bali in June.