ECOSOC Promotes Regional Integration as a Prerequisite for Globalization

              At its substantive session in 2001, held in Geneva during the month of July, among the subjects that merited the consideration of ECOSOC was the evaluation of the performance of the five commissions’ work in their respective regions in promoting inter-regional integration as a step toward globalization. The executive secretaries of the five regional commissions attended the meeting, where discussions focused on the risks that the expanding global markets posed to the economies of the countries that are members of the UN regional commissions.

            “The regional perspective is necessary for global action.” Jose Antonio Ocampo, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, told the ECOSOC conference that “regionalism and globalism” were complementary. Ocampo, who was the current coordinator of the five commissions until the end of the ECOSOC session, told the Council that the “United Nations system as a whole and its intergovernmental bodies had to explore more effective ways for the global and regional aspects of development.” He added that the 1990's had seen the ECLAC region enjoy its best decade for export growth and an increase in foreign direct investment. Nonetheless, overall growth in the region had been slow, job generation was limited and under-employment had grown significantly. What was needed was for small countries to find alternatives to international financial assistance through regional and subregional financial operations.

            Danuta Huebner, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe, said that the best response from the European continent to global challenges was its integration since “integration and international cooperation were guarantors of peace and stability.” Ms. Huebner added that energy would be the principal issue on the programme of work for developmental policies in Europe. Therefore, ECE was helping the strengthening of democracy in countries with economies in transition by strengthening their capacities, especially in their necessary infrastructure, which would allow them to save as much energy as possible.

            Kim Hak-Su, Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, told participants that globalization had widened the opportunities for national development but also had brought risks, and the Asian economic crisis for the 1990s “had amply demonstrated that participation in global markets was by no means a smooth or equitable process.” Mr. Kim added that as part of ESCAP's work, the commission helped to identify and consider various trade and investment policy options and strategies relating to the integration of developing countries of the region into international and regional trading system. As examples, he mentioned the Bangkok Agreement as the first and only ESCAP region-wide trade agreement, and a fairly recent Bangladesh-India-Myanmar-Sri Lanka-Thailand Economic Cooperation pact.

            K.Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, said that along with providing opportunities, “globalization had fueled various anxieties.” He said there was growing inequality, and that volatile, short-term capital flows threatened financial crisis and brought further instability. The key for African countries, he said, was for Governments to promote coordinated trade and industrial development, and to mainstream regionalism into the development process. By moving ahead with the creation of an “African Union”, he added, the continent was taking a historic step to that end.

            Mervat Tallawy, Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, remarked that political instability was discouraging foreign direct investment (FDI). Only one percent of the world's FDI channeled is going into the ESCWA region and all of it targets the oil sector. This, she said, was distorting the allocation of resources in Arab countries. Current growth of domestic product was estimated 4.7 percent, Tallawy said, but that was due to the rise in oil prices, rather than economic vitality. On the social level, she underlined that education and literacy have steadily improved.