POLITICS: UN Plans Multi-Million Dollar Project to Boost Image

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 17 2001 (IPS) - The United Nations, which is credited with negotiating some 172 peace settlements and providing humanitarian assistance to nearly 30 million people worldwide, is planning a 60 million dollar project to trumpet its achievements and refurbish its sagging image.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan believes that most of the UN’s successes, including the admirable work done by its humanitarian and development agencies, remain unsung and unheralded – primarily due to lack of publicity.

For starters, the world body is planning to construct a new Visitors Facility at a cost of 50 million to 60 million dollars as part of an attempt to spread the message among the 800,000 people, including 400,000 tourists, who visit the New York headquarters every year.

The project, which will include the construction of a new pavilion and a comprehensive package of interactive multi-media exhibits, will be funded entirely from private sources.

The New York-based UN Association of USA (UNA-USA) has offered to raise the necessary funds to cover the full construction costs of a new building, including an underground corridor linking it to the UN General Assembly building. The proposal, which has already been reviewed by the Secretariat from both the programmatic and financial viewpoints, will be subject to approval by the General Assembly.

Originally conceived by the Better World Fund, a US-based non- governmental organisation (NGO), the proposal is designed to increase the number of visitors to UN headquarters and raise the quality and effectiveness of the Organisation’s public information efforts.

The project is also intended “to improve the image of the United Nations without detracting from resources devoted to the Organisation’s core programme of activities”.

Justifying the project, Annan says that “the activities of the UN system and its many significant achievements are not always known to the public”.

“This has an impact not only on public opinion about the United Nations, but also, in some instances, on the policy stances adopted by decision makers,” he says in a report to the 189-member General Assembly released Monday. Annan points out that the activities of the UN system and its many other achievements are at times perceived as being “ineffectual, achieving few practical results”.

“Both of these public perceptions illustrate the need to bolster the Organisation’s public information capabilities in the 21st century to provide a holistic view of the role, work and achievements of the United Nations system and to engage the public’s understanding and support for the Organisation,” he adds.

The proposal for the multi-million dollar project comes at a time when right-wing Republicans in the current US administration are unfairly critical of the United Nations.

John Bolton, a nominee for the post of US Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, once said that the United States is not legally obligated to pay the United Nations even though it is a full-fledged veto-wielding, permanent member of the Security Council and a founding father of the world body.

“When the UN levies assessments on the United States, Congress is fully within its rights to pay them, ignore them, or do anything in between. The US should fulfil those and other treaty-based commitments when it is in the national interest to do so, and when others are meeting their commitments as well,” he argued.

Jesse Helms, a Republican Senator and chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has continued to attack the world body on the mistaken assumption that the United Nations threatens US sovereignty.

Helms has also said that the world body is not only over-staffed but also characterised by waste and mismanagement. He wanted the UN bureaucracy cut by 50 percent and the budget by 75 percent.

Helms has warned the United Nations not to aspire to “power and authority over nation states” with itself “as the central authority of a new international order of global laws and global governance”.

The United Nations has responded by saying that this is a total misconception of what the Organisation stands for. The world body is what its 189 members, including the United States, want it to be.

In his report, Annan says that organisations of the UN system have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize five times, and six individuals have won the award for work either in association with, or under the aegis of the United Nations – facts which have not received due publicity.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1981; the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 1965; the International Labour Organisation in 1969; and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in 1988.

The prize was also awarded to: Cordell Hull, a former US Secretary of State for his leadership in establishing the United Nations; Lord John Boyd Orr, first Director-General of the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation, a UN agency; and Ralph Bunche, the UN Mediator in Palestine.

Other notable UN recipients include: Lester Pearson, President of the seventh session of the UN General Assembly, particularly for his role in the Suez Canal crisis; Dag Hammarskjold, the second UN Secretary-General; and Sean MacBride of the UNHCR for assistance to European refugees.

According to Annan, the United Nations has deployed some 50 peacekeeping and observer missions to date, and has negotiated about 172 peace settlements. Additionally, it has enabled people in over 45 countries to participate in free and fair elections where it has provided electoral advice, assistance and monitoring services.

Currently, the UN system also provides assistance to over 19 million refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide. The UN system also constitutes the world’s largest source of technical assistance and provides humanitarian relief assistance to nearly 30 million people each year.

Some of the UN’s successes have also been in areas of critical importance such as education, the environment, population, health, social development and women’s and children’s rights.

POLITICS: UN Plans Multi-Million Dollar Project to Boost Image

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 17 2001 (IPS) - The United Nations, which is credited with negotiating some 172 peace settlements and providing humanitarian assistance to nearly 30 million people worldwide, is planning a 60 million dollar project to trumpet its achievements and refurbish its sagging image.
(more…)