UNITED NATIONS: U.N. Lauds NGOs for Humanitarian Work

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 14 1997 (IPS) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is full of praise for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for their dedicated humanitarian work in the world’s political hotspots.

“NGOs are often there on the ground even before the international community gives the United Nations the mandate to act,” says Annan.

Addressing a three-day U.N. conference of NGOs which ended Friday, Annan said that NGOs have now become “indispensable partners” of the United Nations – in preventive diplomacy, in humanitarian work, in development and in human rights. The meeting, the 50th in a series hosted annually by the U.N.’s Department of Public Information, was attended by some 637 NGOs from 61 countries world-wide.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard dispelled the traditional notion that NGOs were mostly comfortable resting places for retirees and older people with time on their hands.

“If you looked in the General Assembly Hall, it wasn’t all ‘old ladies in tennis shoes’.” he said. “For the Secretary- General, it had been a major plank of his platform to no longer make the United Nations a distant entity, but to come into direct contact with the people who are helping shape government policies.”

In some of the world’s battle zones, the United Nations is working in close collaboration with several national and international NGOs, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Doctors without Borders, Save the Children, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Red Crescent.

Margareta Wahlstrom of the ICRC said the level of humanitarian assistance worldwide has “skyrocketed” in the past 10 years, reaching about 3.5 billion dollars annually. And more than 75 percent of all humanitarian assistance was delivered by NGOs, she said.

Annan said that on mine-clearance in Afghanistan, the United Nations has been working with six Afghan NGOs, one international NGO and a relief agency from Iran. The Secretary-General said NGOs had also worked closely with the United Nations on human rights issues and in rebuilding post-civil war societies in Cambodia, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Sadako Ogata, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said her organisation had a mandate to protect and find lasting solutions for nearly 23 million people. More than 5,400 staff were posted in 246 offices in 122 countries. Many of her colleagues worked in high risk security areas alongside NGO workers.

But in most situations, Ogata said, NGOs were the organisation’s key partners, with some 400 NGOs implementing 1,200 projects in more than 120 countries at a cost of 264 million dollars in 1997. She said NGOs were among the UNHCR’s most important partners, and called for an enhanced and continous dialgoue with them.

Ambassador Razali Ismail of Malaysia, President of the 185- member General Assembly, said the participation of NGOs in U.N. work is a healthy development and should be deepened.

“Even if I sound extreme, I will make the point that not too many ambassadors will readily acknowledge the expertise and contributions of NGOs,” he said.

“But truly, not only do NGOs deliver more development assistance than the entire U.N. system (excluding the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) but they also provide development, education, and health care services in areas that government and the private sector fail or neglect to reach,” he added.

Techeste Ahderom of the Baha’i Centre, quoted a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which estimated that the total contributions of NGOs to development efforts was some 8.3 billion dollars annually.

Tatsuro Kunugi of the International Christian University of Tokyo, said that Japanese NGOs alone had a total annual expenditure equivalent to a trillion dollars. Japan, he said, is planning to host a world NGO conference in 1999, with a focus on building partnerships between civil society and intergovernmental organisations in the U.N. system.

Ambassador Victor Marrero of the United States said the U.S. government “places a high priority” on the role of NGOs in the work of the United Nations, particularly in the Economic and Social Council and its subsidiary bodies.

NGOs, he said, have made a particularly valuable contribution in the social, economic and humanitarian fields – by providing independent monitoring, gathering information, serving as alternative channels of communications and as providers of services and implementors of programmes.

Since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, he said, civil society has played a key role in all major U.N. conferences. “We believe it is time to examine carefully and in good faith expanding NGO access to the General Assembly and its main committees. The U.S. government has championed this goal,” Marrero said.

But on the flip side, he said, NGOs need to show their representativeness and accountability to establish their legitimacy. “Many fear that standards and tests might lead to a stratification of NGOs, where only NGOs from developed countries could achieve accreditation,” he said.

On the other hand, said Marrero, opening the door for any NGO to participate, regardless of whether they meet basic qualificaitons of representativeness, democracy and legitimacy, would be counter- productive and might eventually lead to dimishing their role.

Striking a similar note of caution, Razali said that while there was merit in keeping the boundaries of relationship porous in the case of non-profit NGOs, the ramifications of association with profit-making or commercial NGOs and Foundations was potentially serious, he said.

The Assembly president pointed out that the universal norms and values of the United Nations could be undermined by newly- mushroomed NGOs which are fictitious fronts for corporate political lobbying.

Ambassador Ahmad Kamal of Pakistan said one of the unanswered questions was how much access should NGOs be given to U.N. meetings and decision-making. “Debate on the role of NGOs was in truth about power-sharing, and the United Nations had so far declined to share power,” he added.