DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL SEEKS SUPPORT FOR URGENT ACTION ON MAJOR DEVELOPMENT ISSUES CONFRONTING INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

4 December 2000

Press Release
DSG/SM/119
DEV/2272

DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL SEEKS SUPPORT FOR URGENT ACTION ON MAJOR DEVELOPMENT ISSUES CONFRONTING INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

20001204

Address to Washington, D.C. Group Cites Globalization, Conflict, HIV/AIDS, Environmental Constraints as Challenge of ‘Appalling Dimensions’

This is the text of an address by Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette today to the Society for International Development in Washington, D.C.:

I am very pleased to join you for this important conference on the twenty- first century development agenda, a subject of great importance to the United Nations, and to me personally. Development -- in every sense of the term -- is as important to our founding mission as anything we do. If anything, I believe the lessons of the past fifty years have made clear that any success in halting conflicts and promoting human rights is short-lived unless development truly takes root and gives every individual the opportunity to make the most of his or her abilities. I would like to pay tribute to the work of the Society for International Development’s commitment to broadening the understanding of, and the commitment to, sustainable development. As a forum and as a centre of knowledge, you contribute greatly to what must be a truly global effort.

You have asked me to put the global development scene in a broader context. I am grateful, because it is very much the role of the United Nations to do precisely that. Let me mention four issues which are particularly shaping the context of our development work at present, and indeed are likely to be decisive for the development prospects of almost all countries.

The first and most obvious is globalization, which is transforming all our lives, and especially the scale and nature of economic exchange between different parts of the world. In this new era, people's actions constantly -- if often unwittingly -- affect the lives of others living far away. The benefits are plain to see: faster growth, higher living standards, accelerated innovation and diffusion of technology and management skills, new economic opportunities for individuals and countries alike. Yet a backlash has begun, because these benefits are so unequally distributed, while the costs are borne by all, and because the global market is not yet underpinned by rules based on shared social objectives.

More broadly, for many people globalization has come to mean greater vulnerability to unfamiliar and unpredictable forces that can bring on economic instability and social dislocation, sometimes at lightning speed. There is

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mounting anxiety that the integrity of cultures and the sovereignty of States may be at stake. Thus, instead of leaving billions of people behind in squalor, we have somehow to give the global economy a solid foundation in shared values and institutional practices, so that as well as creating bigger markets it advances broader and more inclusive social purposes.

The second issue is the persistence of conflict. The end of the cold war has not opened an era of perfect peace and harmony. Conflicts continue in many parts of the world -- but mainly in developing countries. Most of them today are internal conflicts, although the recent one between Ethiopia and Eritrea reminds us not to be complacent about the danger of renewed war between States, as well. But whatever their nature, the conflicts have a disastrous impact on the development prospects not only of the countries directly involved but of the entire surrounding region. This problem is particularly acute today in Africa, where many millions of lives and livelihoods have been destroyed in conflicts over the past few decades. Nothing is more inimical to economic growth, or more certain to perpetuate poverty.

The third issue is the worldwide pandemic of HIV/AIDS, whose full and horrendous proportions are only now beginning to be realized. Last week we published a new report on the subject, which the Financial Times aptly summarized as follows: "The statistics are horrifying, the consequences are devastating, and the worst is yet to come".

Nearly 22 million people have died of AIDS since the epidemic started in the late 1970s. Today, 36 million around the world are either HIV-positive or have AIDS. The epidemic is growing at an explosive rate in Russia, but Africa remains the hardest hit. In sub-Saharan Africa, 2.4 million people died of AIDS this year, while an estimated 3.8 million people became infected with HIV, bringing the total number of people living with HIV or AIDS in the region to 25.3 million. For the vast majority of these people, the cost of treatment is far, far out of reach.

In the most affected countries, AIDS is crippling national economies and undermining businesses. In South Africa, for instance, one of Africa's strongest economies, it may cut gross domestic product (GDP) by 17 per cent by 2010. In Botswana, the African country with the highest GDP but also the world's highest HIV rate, the government budget will be cut by 20 per cent over the next decade because of AIDS and the poorest households will suffer a 13 per cent reduction in income. Throughout Africa, AIDS is affecting companies' productivity, and forcing them to spend more on hiring and retraining, as well as insurance and medical care.

And now South and Southeast Asia are threatened, too. The epidemic arrived late there, but the region now accounts for 20 per cent of all new infections. By the end of the year, it will have approximately 5.8 million people living with HIV or AIDS.

Finally, we are increasingly aware of environmental constraints on development. About one-third of the world's population already lives in countries considered to be "water stressed". Unsafe water and poor sanitation cause an

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estimated 80 per cent of all diseases in the developing world, with an annual death toll 10 times higher than that caused by war.

Meanwhile, nearly 2 billion hectares of land -- an area about the size of Canada and the United States combined -- is affected by human-induced degradation of soils, putting the livelihoods of nearly 1 billion people at risk. The direct cost alone, in terms of annual income foregone, has been estimated at more than $40 billion a year. Each year an additional 20 million hectares of agricultural land becomes too degraded for crop production, or is lost to urban sprawl. Yet over the next 30 years the demand for food in developing countries is expected to double.

And the projected rise in the sea level caused by global warming during this coming century will pose threats to hundreds of millions of coastal dwellers, while drowning low-lying islands all together. There, too, it is the people of developing countries, such as Bangladesh or the Maldive Islands, who are least well-placed to protect themselves against such changes.

Such, then, is the context within which we have to tackle development problems today, and it was very much this broader context that world leaders had in mind when they came together three months ago at the Millennium Summit.

1. Anxiety about globalization, and the desire to spread its benefits more widely, ran through almost every speech at that gathering. In their Millennium Declaration the heads of State and government concluded that "the central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world’s people".

* They also pledged to spare no effort to free their peoples from the scourge of war, whether within or between States, resolving in particular to strengthen respect for the rule of law, and to make the United Nations more effective in maintaining peace and security.

1. They resolved to halt, and begin to reverse, the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015, and to provide special assistance to children orphaned by the disease, while encouraging the pharmaceutical industry to make essential drugs more widely available and affordable by all who need them in developing countries.

* And they resolved to "spare no effort" to protect the global environment, adopting a "new ethic of conservation and stewardship" and reaffirming the principles of sustainable development agreed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

Undoubtedly differences of approach remain, particularly between industrialized and developing countries. The former put greater emphasis on human rights, the rule of law and good governance at the national level, while the latter look for stronger evidence of solidarity and a more equitable distribution

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of power and wealth between nations. But overall, the Summit revealed a greater convergence of strategies than in the past.

The goals have been set. The strategies are broadly agreed. But how far will the response of the international community live up to the challenge when it comes to backing good resolutions with real resources and real effort? In answering this question, it is important to understand the term "international community" in its broadest sense. In today's world, global actors outside the public domain have a tremendous influence on the quality of people's lives. Here I am thinking of the business community and its extraordinary reach and resources. But I am also thinking of civil society organizations that are stepping to the fore as advocates, and stepping into the breach where States are absent or unable to provide essential services.

I am thinking of foundations, and the significant increase in private and corporate philanthropy that we have seen in recent years. And I am thinking of parliamentarians, local authorities, scientific associations, educational institutions and many others. As barriers and national frontiers fall away, the global influence of these and other non-State actors has grown. They have become indispensable partners in the search for solutions to global problems.

If we take that broad view of the international community, we see that its response to the challenges I have outlined is quite uneven.

On some issues, particularly those related to peace and security, many governments now show signs of living up to their responsibilities. There is definitely a renewed interest in strengthening the capacity of the United Nations to manage the peacekeeping and related tasks which its Member States entrust to it, particularly in countries which are painfully emerging from conflict. But still too many governments are reluctant to take risks, and to put their own troops into dangerous situations where they expect others to go.

There is also a greater determination to track down and choke off the illicit resources that fuel so many conflicts, such as diamonds in several parts of Africa. This is a good example of partnership: the issue was first spotlighted by a non-profit organization, then taken up by governments in the United Nations Security Council, and is now being actively followed up by the private sector, as the diamond industry seeks to put its own house in order.

A broader partnership is now belatedly taking shape in response to the impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa. National leaders there are at last taking direct personal charge of the issue, and working to involve the whole of society in the struggle, and world leaders too are beginning to understand and address the challenge.

Last January, the Security Council debated it, as an issue of fundamental human security. Donor governments are now making it a main focus of their development assistance. At the grass-roots, non-governmental organizations are doing remarkable work for community-based prevention, mobilization and care. Employers, too, are actively involved both in prevention campaigns and in

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providing care for the victims. And the multinational pharmaceutical corporations have now agreed to preferential pricing of drugs for developing countries.

Much of this, I am proud to say, has come about in response to active leadership from the United Nations. But we should not delude ourselves that we are yet doing enough, given the appalling dimensions of the challenge. That is even truer, I fear, when we look at the broader challenge of development in the context of globalization.

Industrialized countries, even while preaching the virtues of the market to developing ones, have been very slow to open their markets to developing countries' products, while continuing to subject the farmers of poor countries to unfair competition in the form of heavily subsidized agricultural exports. Yet trade, in the medium term, offers by far the most hopeful route to the reduction and eventual elimination of extreme poverty.

In the short term, however, many of the poorest -- especially in Africa -- will need a lot of help before they can do that. They need help to reach the stage where they can produce goods and services the rest of the world wants to buy. They need infrastructure, they need technical assistance, and in many cases they need help in resolving destructive conflicts and rebuilding a peaceful, productive society.

There has been heartening progress in recent months on agreeing more generous terms of debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries. But the resources to finance this scheme are for the most part still wanting. Similarly, almost all industrialized countries continue to fall far short of the 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product which they long ago agreed in principle to devote to official development assistance.

If industrialized countries have not found it in them to be generous in the recent era of unprecedented prosperity, how realistically can we hope that they will do so when the world economy slows down, as it is apparently now beginning to? When it comes to the environment, the situation is if anything even worse. The leaders at the Millennium Summit put their names to a Declaration which says all the right things. Yet few of them paid any attention to the issue in their speeches either in the plenary sessions of the Summit itself or in the more informal round tables which accompanied it. And the breakdown of the negotiations in The Hague the week before last showed a lamentable lack of political will to reach agreement, on the part of the countries that produce most of the carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" responsible for global warming.

I hope and think that on this issue civil society and the private sector are ahead of the politicians. I know that, in many developed countries, industry is making great advances in developing technology which uses energy more efficiently and pollutes the environment less. And both academics and voluntary pressure groups continue to work hard to educate the public. My only fear is that to give

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the issue the political priority it deserves will take a major natural disaster with thousands or perhaps even millions of victims.

Let me conclude by appealing to you all to help us raise the profile of these broad development issues and push them higher up the political agenda. No one disputes, nowadays, that development is first and foremost the responsibility of the developing countries themselves -- their governments and their people. But more fortunate countries like this one have an indispensable role to play, and it is vital that their citizens should understand that. The task of societies like yours has never been more important.

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