The United Nations is the world's most prominent conscience and catalyst concerning economic and social development. Such development will, to a large degree, determine how the global community succeeds in bridging the unacceptable divide between the haves and the growing number of have-nots. It will also influence whether the remarkable technological advances engendered by the "new economy" are sustainable, that is to say whether these advances will truly benefit all sectors of global society, generating equitable economic growth and ensuring environmental protection for present and future generations.

The United Nations Millennium Summit in September offers a unique opportunity for world leaders to strengthen the mandate of the Organization. Their very presence at UN Headquarters in New York will be a symbol of how the stewards of our collective politics can interact in the common cause of peace and prosperity for all as this new century and new millennium unfold. The gathering, hopefully, will also help sharpen the focus of the 189-nation body concerning the structures needed to help steer globalization.

The phenomenon that is called "globalization" needs to be dealt with in a careful manner. It does not reduce cultural or ethnic differences. People do not think or react in an identical way because they can eat the same kind of fast food in Beijing, Delhi or Paris. In fact, globalization is heightening the need for communities and countries to assert more strongly their ethnic and cultural differences. So we are not seeing the convergence of cultures in a smoothly running global village. The real issue is how to manage diversity in a world of close contact among cultural identities and ethnic practices that will not melt away.

Nor is globalization a panacea for the world's economic ills. We now know that, left to its logic, globalization widens the gap at the national as well as international level between those equipped to benefit from it and those left on the sidelines. In the developed world, technology and finance are the clear winners of globalization, while labour, in the traditional sense of the term, is a loser. So the clear challenge is one of wealth distribution.

Who has a say in defining and discussing the global agenda? As the Seattle (Washington, United States) fiasco showed last November, emerging market economies and developing countries are less and less inclined to accept that globalization should proceed according to the priorities and agenda set only by the United States and Europe. The question is whether we shall be able to create in the coming years a multilateral system for global governance with enough credibility and legitimacy to function as a framework for consensus-building and decision-making.

It is worrisome that in the last few years multilateralism has not progressed. Actually, it is on the wane. Multilateralism has been used in too many cases to provide a convenient cover or international blessing for actions or initiatives designed with only national interests in mind. If it is to work, a truly multilateral system will have to integrate different regional sensitivities, priorities and interests in a way that makes different countries, regardless of their size or economic mass, feel that they have a good possibility of having their say and expressing their interests.

Consider the alternative. Seattle may have been a turning point. The important factor is what happened inside the Convention Center where the World Trade Organization's formal ministerial meeting was held. Up to now, every time a negotiation of this kind was deadlocked, the assumption was that the mere prospect of everybody going back home empty-handed would compel the parties to reach an agreement, unsatisfactory as it might be. This did not work in Seattle, and it will work less and less in the future.

Considerable difficulties to the efforts of advancing global governance can be expected. There is no denying the change of mind-set that trying to put in place the new multilateral structures for global governance requires. But there is not much of an alternative if we want to avoid globalization running amok and becoming a very dangerous zero-sum game.

The United Nations is, therefore, in a unique position to serve as a catalyst for the processes that will make for a more equitable form of globalization. Its mandate has been largely defined in the field of peackeeping. But the Organization can also help to expedite a central goal for our increasingly interdependent world: economic security and prosperity for all.