Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

to institutional changes, as part of the UN-wide examination of organizations. Another important issue that received close attention was a major study undertaken by the Secretariat on industrial restructuring in Asia.

Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has 41 members, including the United States, and 6 associate members, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Its headquarters is in Santiago, Chile.

ECLAC holds its plenary conference biennially, most recently in Caracas May 3-11, 1990. Statements at this meeting revealed a remarkable degree of consensus among member countries on the need for market-based domestic economic reforms. The next session will be held in April 1992 in Santiago.

Economic Commission for Africa

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) was established in 1958 as a regional organization to promote economic development in Africa. Full membership is limited to independent African countries, of which 51 are currently members. While not a member, the United States maintains liaison with ECA headquarters in Addis Ababa, and attends some of its meetings as an observer.

The ECA is charged with promoting the economic and social development of Africa; strengthening economic relations among African countries and territories; undertaking studies on economic development; collecting, evaluating and disseminating economic and technical information; and helping to formulate policies promoting economic development. ECA also provides advisory services to its members in various economic and social fields.

The 26th session of the Commission and the 17th meeting of the Conference of Ministers met in Addis Ababa on May 9–13. The Conference adopted 21 resolutions, including the topics of UN Population Fund technical support; acceleration of economic integration; the Industrial, Transport and Communications Decades in Africa; African participation in the UNCED Conference; women in development; and drought and desertification.

The central issues discussed at the Conference were Africa's economic and social performance in 1990 and its prospects for 1991. A number of other reports were presented-on the Gulf

crisis and African economies, an update on the Lagos Plan of Action, preparations for the final review and appraisal of UNPAAERD and a progress report on the African Alternative Framework for Structural Adjustment Programs.

Although usually present as an observer, the United States did not attend the 26th session.

Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

The Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) was established in 1973. Currently, it counts 14 members, including the PLO. The United States is not a member, although it has previously attended meetings as an observer. The Commission's headquarters was moved to Baghdad in 1981 because of war damage in Beirut; with the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991, headquarters was again moved, temporarily, to Amman. ESCWA is funded by the UN regular budget.

The last (15th) session of ESCWA was held in 1989, in Baghdad. The ESCWA meeting scheduled for 1991 was not held because of war disruption; the next meeting is scheduled to take place in Manama, Bahrain, in April 1992.

Economic and Development Bodies and Programs

UN Development Program

The UN Development Program (UNDP) finances the world's largest multilateral program of grant technical cooperation. The program is financed by voluntary contributions from governments. In 1991 pledges to UNDP totaled $1.03 billion. The United States pledged $109 million, or 10.6 percent of total gov

ernment contributions.

UNDP was established in 1966 (through the merger of two earlier UN programs) as the principal UN mechanism for financing technical cooperation activities. It provides grant technical assistance to developing countries and territories at their request, with increasing emphasis on assistance to the poorest countries and on building national capacity to manage development activities.

Projects funded by UNDP are normally executed by one of the 29 participating technical agencies of the UN system, such as FAO, the UN Department of Technical Cooperation for Development (DTCD), UNIDO, ILO, UNESCO, World Bank or ICAO.

UNDP also directly implements an increasing number of projects through its own Office for Projects Services (OPS). In 1991 OPS executed UNDP-funded projects valued at approximately $173 million. In the same year, it executed approximately $175 million worth of projects funded from extra-budgetary sources such as trust funds, development banks, bilateral donors and recipient governments under management service agree

ments.

UNDP is headquartered in New York. Its Administrator, William H. Draper III (United States), was reappointed on January 1, 1990, for a second 4-year term. A subsidiary organ of the UN General Assembly which sets overall UNDP policy, UNDP's operating policies are established and its programs and budgets approved by a Governing Council composed of representatives from 48 states-21 developed countries (including the United States) and 27 developing countries. The Governing Council reports to the General Assembly through ECOSOC, which elects members to the Council for 3-year terms.

The Governing Council holds regular sessions once a year in June. There is also a brief organizational meeting, as well as a shorter special session in February to deal with special items that come up between sessions of the regular Governing Council. In addition, the Council's Standing Committee for Program Matters (SCPM) may meet between Council sessions. During the year, the SCPM, created by the Governing Council in 1990, began functioning and proved to be an effective governance mechanism in Council oversight of UNDP program activities. The United States has encouraged the Council and the UNDP Secretariat to put all program matters for review before the SCPM, to facilitate the work of and decisions taken by the Governing Council.

In 1991, the UNDP Governing Council provided oversight for the UN Population Fund, Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, UN Volunteer Program, UN Fund for Science and Technology for Development, UN Revolving Fund for Natural Resources Exploration, UN Sahelian Office, and UN Development Fund for Women. The Council provides policy guidance for the DTCD which also executes UNDP-financed projects.

Governing Council

Special Session. The Council met in New York February 19– 22 for its annual organizational meeting and special session. Main decisions taken during the special session related to the

SCPM, Special Program Resources and Support Cost Successor Arrangements.

• Standing Committee for Program Matters (SCPM): Decision 91/2 of the Council's special session set the mandate of the Standing Committee for Program Matters to review all country, regional, interregional, and global programs and projects, as well as program and project implementation, and to deal with other matters relating to program management. It also directed the SCPM to ask the Administrator to arrange up to four field visits per year for Committee members to review aspects of UNDP programs determined by the Committee.

[ocr errors]

Special Program Resources (SPRs): The special session adopted a U. S. initiative, decision 91/3, which requested the Administrator submit to the Council for approval, prior to commitment of any resources, programming documents with detailed information on UNDP plans to spend SPRs in each of 27 subcategories, for which specific amounts were allocated out of the total $313 million available. This amount represented the 7 percent of fifth-cycle programmable resources set aside for SPRs by the 37th Governing Council. The Administrator was asked to present a timetable for submission of these documents to the 38th Governing Council.

[ocr errors]

Support Costs Successor Arrangements: The February Council meeting agreed to a $634 million expenditure ceiling on arrangements to compensate specialized agencies for implementation of UNDP-funded projects.

Debate in the 38th session of the Council, held June 3-21 in New York, centered on a few main issues, including two controversial ones: UNDP's second Human Development Report, which included a human freedom index, and the UNDP Administrator's proposal on senior management structure. There were also tough but eventually successful negotiations on funding of new support cost arrangements for large agencies which implement UNDP's activities. The United States achieved its main objectives. Decisions on budget and senior management structure strongly encouraged UNDP to make optimum use of its administrative resources. The 1992-1993 biennium budget and the report approved by the Council's Budget and Finance Committee (BFC) reflected a serious effort to restrain the growth of the administrative budget, and to make it more understandable to members.

Human Development Report. In 1991 the UNDP published its second Human Development Report. The 1990 report included a

Human Development Index which intended to include but did not succeed in including human freedom as a factor in human development. The United States encouraged UNDP to do more work in this area in future reports.

The 1991 HDR included for the first time a separate Human Freedom Index (HFI). The 1991 report reaffirmed that the goal of human development is to increase people's choices, and added that for people to exercise those choices they must enjoy cultural, social, economic and political freedom. Although the United States and other donor countries had encouraged UNDP at the 1990 Governing Council regular session to include an examination of the relationship between human development and human freedom, the inclusion of the HFI in the 1991 Report provoked a reaction from several countries. They accepted the link between human development and freedom, but argued that the publication of an HFI went beyond UNDP's mandate.

The debate on this issue was one of the sharpest of the regular session of the Council. Donors strongly supported UNDP work on the HDR and the HFI, and succeeded in dissuading less enthusiastic countries from putting a stop to it. The Council adopted a decision affirming that economic growth, together with enlarging human freedoms, is a means to development. The Council also requested the UNDP Administrator convene regional consultations in New York so that specific human development concerns and priorities, especially those of developing countries, are taken into consideration in the preparation of the 1992 Human Development Report and future work by UNDP on the report. Donor countries throughout the debate insisted this report is an independent study not subject to approval by governments.

The plenary debate on the Human Development Report, and the HFI in particular, took on an unprecedented political tone. Breaking Council tradition that countries do not participate in political groupings, Malaysia and Ghana spoke several times for the G-77. While this raises some concerns for future Council meetings, inclusion of the HFI in this year's report had an effect which the United States supports; namely, to broaden discussion of the relationship between human development and human freedom.

UNDP conducted regional consultations in the fall, but several countries still believed after the consultations that their human development concerns and priorities would not be adequately reflected in the 1992 report. Subsequently, countries

« ÎnapoiContinuă »