UNITED NATIONS: UNICEF Takes Issue with Restructuring Plan

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 5 1997 (IPS) - Tension is rising among U.N. agencies as officials throughout the system wonder how intended U.N. streamlining will affect the independence of highly autonomous U.N. organs devoted to development, children, and other causes.

First to voice offence at the proposed U.N. restructuring this week was Carol Bellamy, executive director of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF). In a speech to UNICEF’s executive board, which has been meeting here this week, Bellamy argued that the agency must maintain a distinct identity from other U.N. bodies if it is to work effectively.

Bellamy said she favoured many aspects of the ongoing U.N. reform process, but she criticised some efforts to integrate the work of various agencies in the field.

Chief among the proposals is one that the executive boards of several U.N. bodies be merged into a central board, similar to that which directs the World Bank system.

That proposal was mooted last week by Maurice Strong, executive co-ordinator for U.N. reform. Strong, who is to present a report on ways to reform the United Nations to Secretary-General Kofi Annan by month’s end, has said that such a merger is necessary to ensure that a maximum amount of money goes into development and not merely into “supporting different layers of overlapping secretariats and boards.”

But for groups like UNICEF, Bellamy responded, the key issue is whether organisations that have worked effectively outside of the central U.N. Secretariat will continue to do so if merged.

“If (UNICEF’s) voice is muted or even stilled, there is a real and present danger that children will become a lesser priority,” she argued. “They will drop down on the list of development and human rights concerns in country after country, just as surely as night follows day. It is as grave and simple a matter as that.”

At issue is the right the specialised agencies have had to run their own country-level operations and deal with leaders in their own capacity. “It is our hope that we can maintain the same degree of specialised knowledge, support, and non-political dialogue in any future structure,” Bellamy told the UNICEF executive board.

UNICEF needs access to the senior political leadership of the countries in which it works, and should remain “strong and identifiable” in these countries’ social and economic dialogue, to achieve its goals in protecting children, Bellamy argued.

The UNICEF chief also contended that the organisation needs to be able to raise funds for “a discrete and unique UNICEF programme.” She warned that “if UNICEF is obliged to seek permission or clearance before acting for children…then this organisation would be a markedly different UNICEF.”

Speaking in Geneva this week, Strong did not rule out chances to maintain the “distinctive nature” of agencies like UNICEF or the World Food Programme (WFP). But he added, “There is a question whether this should be a pretext for complete independence and autonomy.”

The reform programme is based on the idea that many U.N. organs have performed too many similar or outdated functions, and could be phased out with little damage to the United Nations’ work. It is an assumption encouraged by the U.S. Congress, which still owes the world body some one billion dollars in arrears, but is demanding greater U.N. streamlining before it hands over the money.

Ironically enough, it is a U.S. politician — Bellamy was previously head of the New York City Council — who has been first to object. A challenge from UNICEF, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 and is the object of considerable worldwide attention and celebrity support, is particularly tough to brush off given the agency’s prestige.

Other U.N. agency workers have also privately complained that posts created by the 185-nation General Assembly could be placed on the chopping block largely because of one country’s dissatisfaction.

Annan, who is to announce the reform recommendations on Jul. 16, is therefore under pressure both to accommodate agencies which demand their continued existence and to please U.S. politicians capable of denying the world body the very funds it needs to keep going. (The United States is responsible for one-quarter of the U.N. budget and more than 30 percent of its peacekeeping expenses.)

Under the current standoff, some U.N. agencies seem particularly likely to be slashed. Strong pointed Wednesday to the U.N. Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) as one organisation that may already be past its time. “If it is not reformed, it should die,” he said.

Still other agencies face large mergers. Sources here say the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), long a target of Republicans in the U.S. Congress for its advocacy of family planning, could soon be folded into the World Health Organisation (WHO), which focuses on all medical concerns.

UNFPA head, Nafis Sadik, is also running as Pakistan’s candidate in the selection process to replace Hiroshi Nakajima as chief of WHO.

Meanwhile, as Strong pointed out, the increased work that the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) does in addressing humanitarian crises should place it in a leadership role over other agencies in handling emergencies. UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR, and the U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs could be merged to deal with crises under UNHCR’s lead, he said.

Bellamy did not rule out the possibility that her agency’s work in emergency situations could be merged with that of other agencies under the leadership of an expanded Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

But she added that even in such a consolidation of agencies, UNICEF must still take the lead in ensuring child survival and the protection of children in emergencies

. To that end, she told the UNICEF executive board, measures must be taken to ensure that any coordinator of U.N. emergency relief be effective and impartial.