UNITED NATIONS: U.N. Atomic Agency Seeks Third World Head

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 18 1997 (IPS) - The world’s foremost nuclear energy organisation is searching for a Third World candidate for its prime job which falls vacant in November.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has been headed by Hans Blix of Sweden, is virtually offering the job of Director-General to the developing world.

David Kyd, an IAEA spokesman, says that at the last re- appointment of Blix in 1993, “it was decided that his eventual successor would come from a developing country.”

The former Swedish foreign minister, who is expected to retire in November, says he will not seek further renewal of his contract and wants to return to his home country.

Blix has been the IAEA Director-General for the last 16 years, one of the longest tenures for anyone at the head of a U.N. agency. The all-time record is held by David Davies of Britain who served for 25 years as head of the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) during the period 1955-1980.

The Board of Governors of the IAEA is expected to meet Mar. 17- 23 to choose a candidate who will then be considered by the 124- member IAEA General Conference in September. The candidate will have to get the support of at least two-thirds of the General Conference members, who are mostly from developing countries.

At least six candidates — three of them from the developing world — have tossed their hats into the ring. The three are Egyptian career diplomat Mohamed Shaker, Iranian vice-president and chairman of the State Atomic Authority Reza Amrollahi, and the head of the Zambian National Council for Science and Research Mwindaaze Siarnwiza.

The non-Third World candidates include Ukranian Environment Minister Yuri Kostenko, the head of the Italian Energy Research and Atomic Authority Fabio Pistella, and senior Swiss government official Alec Baer.

The candidate strongly tipped for the job is Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka who chaired the 1995 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But as of last week, the Sri Lankan government had not formally nominated him for the job.

Established in 1957, the IAEA serves as the world’s central intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

The search for a Third World candidate would break a longstanding tradition not only in the IAEA but also among U.N. agencies which are mostly headed by the world’s industrial nations.

Sterling Cole of the United States headed the IAEA in 1957- 1961, followed by Sigvard Eklund of Sweden in 1961-1981, and Blix in 1981-1997.

A 1996 report released jointly by the Ford Foundation in New York and the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation in Uppsala, Sweden, pointed out that of the 155 people who have been executive heads at the United Nations since its inception, the United States has held 25 percent of the jobs.

Washington is followed by Switzerland (7.0 percent), France (6.0 percent), Britain (6.0 percent), Canada (5.0 percent) and Sweden (4.5 percent). The only two Third World countries in the top 10 have been Brazil (3.0 percent) and India (3.0 percent), followed by two Western nations, namely, the Netherlands (3.0 percent) and Denmark (3.0 percent).

The breakdown “thoroughly refutes the widespread canard that ‘the U.N. system is dominated by the Third World majority,’ ” the study says.

The authors of the study, the late Erskine Childers and Brian Urquhart, both former high-ranking U.N. officials, pointed out that citizens from about one-fifth of the 185 member-states have so far filled the 155 incumbencies in the executive head posts since 1946.

The nationals of the United States, Britain, and France have held 37 percent of all executive jobs during the world body’s existence. The study also says that no national of either China or Russia — the other two other permanent members of the Security Council — has held an executive post in the system to date.

All five heads of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) have come either from Western Europe or North America. All seven Managing Directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been Western European, and all nine World Bank Presidents have been U.S. nationals.

All Administrators of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) have been U.S. nationals, with one exception. David Owen of Britain briefly served as a UNDP co-Administrator. Butall four Executive Directors of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have been U.S. nationals, and all 10 heads of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have come either from North America or Western Europe.

An almost unbroken West European monopoly on the leadership of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (six of seven posts until 1993) was broken by the current incumbent, Sadako Ogata of Japan.

As for non-Northern executive chiefs, the heads of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have come from Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Kuwait, while the heads of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) have been from Argentina, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Ghana, and Brazil. The U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) has been headed by a Filipino and a Pakistani.