By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 9 1999 (IPS)

Mark Malloch Brown, the new head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), says he is taking care not to harm Third World interests while introducing significant changes to the operation of the New York-based organisation.

“We put first and foremost, the interests of the developing countries,” he says. “And while we should debate, push, argue and cajole to make developing countries see where their interests lie, we must never have a breakdown of our relations with them.”

Malloch Brown has been responding to reservations expressed by the 133-member Group of 77 (G-77) over some of his proposed plans to restructure the agency.

In a letter to the new administrator, G77 chairman Samuel Insanally of Guyana warned that any fundamental changes in UNDP’s mandate would be detrimental to the interests of developing nations.

“The Group fully recognises your right, as Administrator, to make appropriate organisational changes within UNDP,” Insanally wrote Malloch Brown.

“We feel, however, that such changes should safeguard the essential characteristics of the Programme and should also be in conformity with the relevant General Assembly resolution which established the mandate and overall structure of the Organisation.”

Addressing his staff this week, Malloch Brown said UNDP was a “development agency of the developing countries. “We are the G- 77’s development agency – not the G-7s,” he said.

“This is our most critical differentiating advantage. We don’t belong to any bilateral donor,” he added.

The G-7, which represents the interests of industrial donor nations, groups together the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada.

Last month some of the developing countries also expressed fears that the proposed “new UNDP” is planning to give undue emphasis to “governance” over “poverty alleviation.”

Some Third World nations have complained that a higher priority for “global governance” may eventually result in development aid being conditioned on multi-party democracy, transparency and accountability: conditions similar to those laid down by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in return for assistance.

Malloch Brown agreed that “what has undoubtedly stirred the most passion is this word governance.” Clearly, he said, the word has assumed in recent months and years a tremendous amount of baggage.

“And the baggage has only been increasing in recent weeks, and I think probably we’re guilty of not being attentive enough to the growing volume of political concern about the word governance.”

If one steps back from the immediate UNDP environment, he said, one can instantly see why the word is evoking so much concern among developing nations.

“From their standpoint, he said, it looks as though we are on the verge of a new structural adjustment, a political structural adjustment, where the political arrangements of developing countries are to be restructured to promote the political economy interests and vision of some strong developed countries,” he noted.

Malloch Brown, a former Vice President of the World Bank, also conceded that, “in donor country after donor country, good governance” is popping up as a criterion for selection. This includes both the World Bank and the IMF.

“So obviously, when a UNDP Administrator, with the dust of the World Bank barely off his heels, starts talking about good governance, there is a suspicion that the final piece of the puzzle has fallen into place, and that they, the developing countries, are surrounded.”

Malloch-Brown said that, if the developing nations think the word “governance” is the wrong word, “then I will accept it…because I am not prepared to endanger what you have all invested so much in developing over the last years and decades.”

Since he took over in July as head of UNDP, Malloch Brown has also complained about declining resources. UNDP’s core income has declined from 1.2 billion dollars in 1992 to about 700 million dollars in 1999.

“The decline in UNDP resources and influence is at least as precipitious as I had feared,” he added.

Under the proposed new restructuring programme, he also plans to decentralise the organisation by shifting more staff to the field.

“I have come to believe that real transformation at UNDP will be achieved primarily through changes in leadership style, accountability, culture, performance and innovative partnerships rather than through changes in structures,” he said.

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