DEVELOPMENT: New UNDP Chief Looks for Weapons to Fight Poverty

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 1999 (IPS) - Mark Malloch Brown, the new Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said Friday his appointment reflected a measure of the new partnership between the agency and the World Bank.

“In a rapidly-changing and globalising world, the mission of UNDP must continue to evolve,” Malloch Brown said. “The problems of poverty and inequality persist. We need to find new weapons to fight old wars.”

Malloch Brown, a British national who previously held the post of Vice President for External Affairs at the World Bank, said there had been “striking progress” in the coordination of the activities of the Bank and UNDP in recent years.

“It’s a work in progress…based on the comparative advantage of the two agencies,” he said.

Malloch Brown he would push ahead with that coordination in his new post by building on UNDP’s credibility with developing nations as a grant-giving agency, and would also try to reduce the decreasing trend in aid to the developing world.

Commenting on the decline in official development assistance (ODA) from donor nations he said ‘We have to reverse that (trend)…we have to excite political support for certain achievable political objectives.”

The UN General Assembly formally confirmed Friday that Malloch Brown would replace the outgoing UNDP head, James Gustave Speth, on July 1. Speth praised the choice, calling his successor “an individual of great integrity and vision”.

Many officials, including UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said that Malloch Brown’s selection was a sign of the increasingly close ties between the UNDP and the Washington-based World Bank.

“It seemed vital to me that we establish a close working relationship between UNDP and the World Bank,” Annan said in announcing Malloch Brown’s appointment.

Annan argued that Malloch Brown has succeeded in “upgrading the Bank’s presence in Europe and in attracting funds from donors” and added, “I am sure he will strengthen UNDP’s relationships with all its donors in a similar way.”

The secretary-general also praised the administrator-designate for his work in recent years to support the UN reform process.

Malloch Brown’s appointment, however, was marked by some controversy after the European Union (EU) threw its support behind Poul Neilson, Denmark’s minister of development cooperation.

The United States – which has dominated the selection process for UNDP administrators – reportedly pushed for an alternative candidate and, according to UN sources, Annan shared that preference.

Malloch Brown “has more competence and more heft” for the job, said one US official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We definitely made our views known about our preference.”

Despite reports that some EU member states were upset that their joint candidate lost his bid, Malloch Brown’s ascendancy has put a European at the head of the UNDP for the first time since British national David Owen shared the top job with Paul Hoffman of the United States at the agency’s inception.

Since then, four subsequent administrators have come from the United States, including Speth, who is leaving UNDP to become dean of Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

When Speth accepted his second four-year term two years ago, Annan said, he informed the secretary-general that he intended to leave after six years at the helm of UNDP.

“He said…that six years would be enough for him to complete what he set out to accomplish,” Annan said.

Shortly afterward, the EU – which collectively takes on more responsibility for funding the development agency than the United States – began lobbying for a European candidate for the top spot.

Both sides have seemed to find an acceptable choice in Malloch Brown who, before joining the World Bank, worked as the lead international partner in a communications firm, the Sawyer-Miller Group.

His work brought him into contact with US corporate chiefs and the heads of foreign governments. Malloch Brown, however, insisted that he had “never been a candidate of governments for anything.”

That qualification also applied to his new posting: No government, including Britain (which, as an EU member, supported Neilson), had formally backed his candidacy.

Some UN officials privately wondered how Malloch Brown’s appointment will affect the relationship between the World Bank, which is a lending agency operating by banking rules, and UNDP, which has always emphasised the need for development. “I wonder if this will be a merger,” one official mused.