IN ADDRESS AT UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS POLITICAL LIBERTY VITAL CONDITION FOR LASTING ECONOMIC GROWTH

Press Release
DSG/SM/79

IN ADDRESS AT UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS POLITICAL LIBERTY VITAL CONDITION FOR LASTING ECONOMIC GROWTH

Following is the text of an address delivered this evening by Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette upon receiving an honorary degree at the University of Toronto:

I am deeply honoured to receive this honorary degree from the University of Toronto. I am delighted to have this opportunity to address the student body at a time of extraordinary and exciting change in the world you are about to enter.

I wish to speak to you today about how you can affect those changes, and, in particular, about how you can make them work as much for the poor of our world as for the privileged, as much for those still struggling to attain human rights as for those who are fortunate enough to take them for given. I want you to reflect on what a life lived in the spirit of public service can mean to you and to your world.

You may well think: "Of course she would say this: she is a career public servant." As you have already heard, I have spent my entire career in public service, and I have been privileged to serve both Canada and the United Nations in many capacities. But that also means that I have gained as strong an appreciation of the limits of public service as of its rewards and satisfactions.

When I first started in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs more than 25 years ago, the role of the State was not contested, and public service was a growth industry, much like the Internet industry is today. The opportunities were literally limitless, and my career took me from a position as a 26-year old in our Athens embassy dealing with Canadians in distress to our mission to the United Nations in Geneva to serving as Ambassador to Argentina and to the United Nations.

The freedom to create one's own parameters, the challenge of constant change and the variety of serving both at Headquarters and in the field combined to create a life that was anything but routine or boring. Later on, I was given opportunities as Associate Deputy Minister of Finance and Deputy Minister of Defence where the challenge of management was at the core of my work.

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There I learned the value of knowing how to attract and retain individuals from diverse backgrounds who could bring new life and energy to the task of Government -- individuals like yourselves.

I learned about the importance of allowing dissent and diversity and about the importance of applying prudence in moderation -- lessons that I hope will make public service more attractive and challenging to your generation.

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned was that institutions -- just like individuals -- must learn to embrace change and make it work to their advantage. I am sure that you have felt at times in your own lives a fear of change, an uncertainty about the unknown, an unease about new surroundings and new challenges.

However, what has been true for your lives is also true for institutions: that change has the power to strengthen and renew and revitalize, if only we accept it as a fact of life and make it an ally and not an enemy.

These are lessons that are in no way exclusive to the public sector, but perhaps more pertinent in institutions whose traditional mission more often is about enforcing rules and upholding traditions than about breaking them.

Of course, I understand the attraction the private sector holds -- whether in the new Internet economy or in non-governmental organizations (NGOs). You look around and see a world too poorly managed, with too many living in danger or in need. You want to change it. And you fear that the public sector is too large, too sclerotic ever to produce real change.

I am not so naive as to imagine that you will answer the call to public service simply because you hear worthy speeches from public servants like myself. Nor would I insist that public service is the only way to do public good.

Instead, I will argue that whatever your choice of career -- in the private sector, with non-governmental organizations, or in government -- you have the ability to infuse it with the spirit of public service, and thereby contribute to the common good. What do I mean by this?

While a career in public service may most directly serve the common good, I believe we need a broader definition of public service -- one that embraces the ability to serve the public not only from a government position, but also from NGOs and from the private sector.

Whereas today the New Economy is regarded by many as holding the answers to all our challenges, when I began my career it was believed that government was the answer to all our ills. Just as we have come to understand the limits of what government can do, we must also recognize -- sooner, hopefully, rather than later -- that the New Economy does not hold

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all the answers, and that it needs rules to sustain itself -- rules that only government can provide and enforce.

We have reached the end of government no more than we have reached the end of history.

Indeed, I am convinced that many of the challenges that have arisen since the end of the cold war call precisely for a renewed and re-imagined public sector role -- both nationally and internationally.

It no longer makes sense to draw strict lines between public and private sectors. Increasingly, business and the private sector have come to recognize the importance of a rules-bound society to their commercial success.

They are turning to governments and to international organizations like the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help create the conditions for free, fair and regulated markets untainted by corruption or the absence of the rule of law.

In turn, the United Nations has extended its hand to the private sector in ways hitherto unimaginable, because we understand that we need partners in the private sector if we are to create and sustain the public goods that can benefit people in the broadest sense.

This new understanding of the value of public goods and public service has also been spurred by the effects of globalization. The fundamental recognition that lasting prosperity is based on legitimate politics has been joined by a growing appreciation of the need to maximize the benefits of the market while minimizing its costs in social justice and human poverty.

To do so, regulatory systems must be improved in every part of the world; solid and sustainable safety-nets must be crafted to shield the poorest and most vulnerable; and transparency must be advanced on all sides.

In a sense, it may be said that, in large parts of the world, politics and political development as a whole suffered a form of benign neglect during globalization's glory years. Extraordinary growth rates seemed to justify political actions which otherwise might have invited dissent.

Autocratic rule which denied basic civil and political rights was legitimized by its success in helping people escape centuries of poverty. What was lost in the exuberance of material wealth was the value of public service and importance of politics. And not just any politics: the politics of good governance, liberty, equity and social justice.

The development of a society based on the rule of law; the establishment of legitimate, responsive, uncorrupt government; respect for human rights and the rights of minorities; freedom of expression; the right to a fair trial -- these essential, universal pillars of democratic pluralism were in too many cases ignored.

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If, however, globalization is to succeed, it must succeed for poor and rich alike. It must deliver rights no less than riches. It must provide social justice and equity no less than economic prosperity and enhanced communication. It must be harnessed to the cause not of capital alone, but of development and prosperity for the poorest of the world.

Political liberty must be seen as a necessary condition for lasting economic growth, even if not a sufficient one. Democracy must be accepted as the midwife of development, and political and human rights must be recognized as key pillars of any architecture of economic progress.

This is, undoubtedly, a tall order. But it is one that must be met, and must be met by a new alliance of public and private sectors, inter- governmental and non-governmental organizations all united in the understanding that a sound public sector serves us all equally. And this is where you come in.

Your generation can be the first to successfully bridge the gap between public and private sectors, and serve the public good even while renewing the private sector. So if you end up in the Silicon Valley of the North, remember that you need the rule of law to protect intellectual property.

If you end up on Bay Street, remember that you need well-regulated banking systems and transparent rules to prevent corruption from destroying the ability to create new markets. And if you end up working for Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, remember that organizations like the United Nations are allies in the struggle to secure the fundamental freedoms and human rights of all peoples.

Finally, let me end on a slightly chauvinistic note -- something not often permitted in my daily work at the United Nations. I believe that we as Canadians are especially privileged -- with wealth, with opportunity, and with security. But I also believe that such privilege carries with it an obligation to the world beyond our borders -- to those nations and individuals who were left behind during this extraordinary half-century of peace and prosperity for the West. Go out and make Canada proud, knowing that whatever career you choose, there are more ways than one to serve your fellow man.

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