By Esme McAvoy
A major study of the economic and social impact of the United Nations, just completed, has concluded that ‘people matter and ideas matter’, says the projects co-director, Sir Richard Jolly.
Sir Richard, who has overseen the UN Intellectual History Project, shared some of the ‘untold successes’ of the UN at a Greencoat Forum at the London Centre for Initiatives of Change on 18 May, 2010.
The 10-year project has produced a 17-volume history and a CD-ROM of 79 in-depth interviews of senior UN staff who have made major contributions to UN thinking and action. The project charts the history of the UN’s contributions to economic and social development – the first comprehensive record of the work of the UN in these arenas.
Sir Richard was an Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, holding senior positions in UNICEF and at the United Nations Development Programme for nearly 20 years. He was Special Adviser to the Administrator of UNDP, 1996 to 2000, and architect of the widely-acclaimed Human Development Report. Before this, he was Deputy Executive Director in UNICEF for over 14 years, with responsibilities for UNICEF’s programmes in over 130 countries, including UNICEF’s support to countries in reducing child mortality.
‘We decided ten years ago we should do what had never been done... a history of the UN’s work in the economic and social arenas,’ said Sir Richard. ‘What we’ve seen since 1945 is the attempt to create something like a world governance; to try and recognise that the world is now interconnected and it is vital that there be institutions and agencies that help reach agreement across the geographic boundaries of countries. And our conclusions? People matter and ideas matter.’
The final book* is something of a ‘balance sheet’, weighing up the good and bad of the UN in broad terms – a tough call given the size and scope of the organisation. It identifies key ideas that have changed the world and devotes a chapter to each.
‘We have several ‘F’s to describe the role of the UN and ideas,’ Sir Richard said. ‘Sometimes it has been the Fount, the source of an idea, sometimes it’s been the Font, to bless the ideas, sometimes it’s been the Forum in which it is debated, sometimes it’s been the Fanfare to promote the idea, sometimes it’s provided Finance and sometimes,’ with a wry smile, ‘it’s buried the idea with a Funeral.’
Sir Richard highlighted the critical role of the UN in promoting human rights, written into the United Nations Charter, with the universal declaration on human rights issued just three years after the UN’s founding. It may have been hypocritical at the time, given the racial discrimination that existed in the USA, British colonialism and the Soviet gulags. But what was agreed in hypocrisy has become a genuine tool for protecting people all over the world, Sir Richard said.
A favourite ‘unsung success’ for Sir Richard is the eradication of small pox. ‘In 1966, when small pox was killing something like two million people a year and was seen as a scourge of mankind, the UN proposed the eradication of the disease. It was initially opposed by the director general of the World Health Organisation on the grounds that it was impossible. But certain visionaries got behind it, a number of governments agreed and, after 11 years, in 1979, it was officially declared eradicated.’
Incredibly, the total cost of that global campaign was $300m or ‘the cost of three fighter bombers’. He underlined the great strides made in reducing polio and guinea worm. Yet such achievements aren’t ‘one-off’, isolated cases. ‘Since its beginning, six and a half decades ago, the UN has agreed 50 time-bound, quantitative goals and the majority of them have been considerably achieved.’
Another triumph was the creation of the Human Development Report in 1990 by the Nobel-prize winning economist, Amartya Sen. It was ‘way ahead of the curve’ in changing the criteria by which development is measured, away from economics to a people-centred development perspective.
The first ever ‘Day of Tranquillity’ – a day where all sides agree to suspend hostilities in conflict zones to allow children in the area to be immunised – was dreamed up by another UN visionary, Jim Grant, and successfully implemented for the first time amidst El Salvador’s protracted civil war. Such days have since been successful in many other war-torn areas, including Uganda, Afghanistan and even during the Lebanese civil war which involved negotiation with10 warring factions.
The books identify ‘three UNs at work in shaping policy. The ‘first UN’ consists of the member governments, the ‘second UN’ its staff members, and a third made up of NGOs and other organisations of the wider civil society. According to Sir Richard, ‘When we do see progress, it’s often more because of the second and third UN and often in spite of the first UN wanting business as usual.’
But the book isn’t shy about highlighting where the UN has failed. ‘There were five areas where the UN really was at major fault. One of those was in relation to the weak UN response to the World Bank and IMF’s structural adjustment policies of the 1980s. It was weak and pussy-footing in opposition. It should and could have come out much more strongly.’ Also criticised is the organization’s tragically slow response to the HIV/AIDs crisis, and the failure to reduce the burgeoning wealth gap.
‘We summarised by saying the UN has led the way with many fundamental ideas over the last 65 years, more than is often realised.’
However, the project wasn’t simply a back-slapping exercise but ‘future-oriented’, so both the good and bad identified could serve as lessons for the future. The project underlines the need for the UN to recognise the shift in power towards newly emerging economies such as India and China; to place more emphasis on narrowing global inequalities and, on the issue of security, to shift its focus from States to individuals.
‘The media is very good at saying, “Oh look, the UN has failed again,” Sir Richard admitted. As the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan once said, ‘What does the SG sometimes stand for? Scapegoat.’ ‘It’s very convenient,’ continued Sir Richard, ‘when governments meet under the auspices of UNCTAD or in the Security Council and don’t take any decisions to say it’s a UN failure. It’s not. It’s the governments meeting in a UN body that can’t reach agreement.’
Asked what sustained him, Sir Richard replied, ‘I’m not a religious person but that doesn’t mean I’m not sustained by the richness of humanity and the goodness I’ve seen in all sorts of people. The UN story sustains me. To me, it’s a creation of a vision – a human commitment to create something special and universal.’
The world is very different to the one of 1945 and the advent of the UN. Water and energy shortages, environmental destruction, food security and conflict all loom large, defying national boundaries and requiring an urgent, unprecedented global response. The close examination of UN history by Sir Richard and his team could prove vital in building a UN for the future, prepared for the challenges of the 21st century.
Sir Richard Jolly is Honorary Professor and Research Associate of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. He took part in the Caux Forum for Human Security in Switzerland last year, hosted by Initiatives of Change International, which holds consultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
*Richard Jolly, Louis Emmerij and Thomas G Weiss, UN Ideas That Changed The World (Indiana University Press, Bloomington) 2009. Visit the UN Intellectual History project website to view excerpts and audio clips: www.unhistory.org
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