U.N. - REPORT OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL ON
THE WORK OF THE ORGANIZATION - 1998

II. Cooperating for development

73. The challenge of development remains paramount in a world where one fifth of humanity is forced to fend for itself on a meagre dollar a day, one third of all Africans are not expected to survive past the age of 40, nearly 40 per cent of women in developing countries are illiterate, and more than half of South Asia's children remain underweight at age five, while the ongoing Asian economic crisis may thrust some 50 million people in Indonesia alone back into poverty. These stark realities persist despite the fact that the past half-century has witnessed one of the longest periods of economic expansion in history.

74. Yet the volume of external aid to developing countries has declined steadily throughout this decade, and now stands at 0.22 per cent of the GDP of the industrialized countries - only 0.19 per cent for the group of seven major industrialized countries, which includes the richest among them. Moreover, donor countries are increasingly earmarking aid, with no guarantee that their aid-giving preferences match the needs of recipients. Foreign direct investment has not compensated for the decline in aid; in 1997 all of sub-Saharan Africa received a mere $3 billion, and South Asia $4 billion. Meanwhile, many developing countries, including some of the poorest, remain subject to the crushing burdens of external debt.

75. The total development assistance made available by the United Nations is a relatively modest $5.5 billion per year. Despite its limited resources, however, the United Nations has unique advantages as a development institution. Its comprehensive mandate, spanning economic, social and political domains, enables it to devise and enact intersectoral approaches to development cooperation; to link emergency assistance with longer-term development concerns; and to ensure that peace processes and efforts to achieve domestic political reconciliation are supported by and, in turn, complement progress towards development. In addition, the Organization's diverse institutional roles permit it to speak coherently across the entire spectrum of development cooperation, from normative to analytical, policy and operational activities.

76. My programme of reform begun over the course of the past year builds on this institutional capacity, and has already yielded practical results in the development area. The Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs was established early in 1997 to promote policy coherence in all economic, social and related activities of its member entities. Chaired by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, it includes the relevant Secretariat units, the regional commissions, the United Nations University and the appropriate United Nations research institutes.

77. The Executive Committee has addressed a number of cross-cutting challenges. For example, it has drafted a proposal for utilizing the Development Account for consideration by Member States. It has initiated a long-term project to streamline the development indicators that are produced and used by the United Nations as well as by non-United Nations entities worldwide, and to ensure the consistency of their meaning and interpretation. The Committee also commissioned a review of all flagship reports in the social and economic sectors and has begun to work with the United Nations Development Group on the linkages between normative and operational activities in the field of development. Cooperation is also under way with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other United Nations entities to provide substantive content to the concept of the right to development.

78. The United Nations Development Group, comprising the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Food Programme (WFP) and other relevant operational entities, facilitates joint policy formulation and decision-making on development cooperation issues. New management tools are enhancing collaboration and the harmonization of procedures.

79. Perhaps the most significant innovation at the country level has been the creation of the United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks. Developed jointly by United Nations country teams under the leadership of the United Nations Resident Coordinator and in close collaboration with Governments, they permit a new strategic approach to the implementation of goals agreed to at United Nations global conferences and of national development priorities, and make it possible to address in an integrated manner the many dimensions of poverty eradication. A year ago, the United Nations Development Group initiated a pilot phase to test the process in 18 countries; in two pilot countries the interface between the Development Assistance Framework and the World Bank's Country Assistance Strategy is being explored with the aim of fostering a strategic partnership between the two institutions. The pilot projects are now being evaluated and the lessons learned will inform future Development Assistance Framework processes.

80. The Development Group has strengthened the Resident Coordinator system, which UNDP funds and manages. New selection procedures have been established that are intended to increase the number of resident coordinators appointed from the wider United Nations system as well as the number of women serving in that capacity.

81. The designation of United Nations Houses at the country level - combining all United Nations programmes, funds and information centres in common premises - will contribute to a greater sense of community and common purpose among United Nations staff while also yielding increased efficiencies and, in many cases, reduction of costs. In 1997, United Nations Houses were officially designated in Lebanon, Lesotho, Malaysia and South Africa. It is expected that some 30 additional common premises will be designated as United Nations Houses in the near future.

82. Greater cooperation now exists between the Executive Committees on Peace and Security, Economic and Social Affairs and Humanitarian Affairs on issues including sustainable development, post-conflict peace-building, emergency relief operations, linkages between humanitarian assistance and development cooperation and the advancement of human rights.

83. These institutional innovations better serve the needs of Governments that count on the United Nations as a development partner.

Eradication of poverty

84. Guided by the outcomes of its major world conferences of the 1990s, especially the 1995 World Summit for Social Development, the United Nations has made the eradication of poverty a central cross-cutting goal of its activities. In May 1998, the Administrative Committee on Coordination, comprising the executive heads of all United Nations entities, adopted a statement of commitment for action to eradicate poverty for the system as a whole. Its main purpose is to seek better coordination and greater cooperation between the various elements of the United Nations system, including the Bretton Woods institutions, and to agree on a shared strategy addressing all of the key dimensions of action against poverty.

85. During the past year, the United Nations assisted some 100 countries with the preparation, formulation or implementation of national anti-poverty programmes. Reviews of existing strategies point to some key areas for improvement; there is, for example, the need to broaden the scope of action against poverty beyond the traditional social-sector and welfare approaches; to address such critical issues as access to productive assets; to encourage a more inclusive dialogue between the State, civil society and the private sector; and to target resource-poor communities and asset-poor households.

86. A substantial share of UNDP resources - some 26 per cent of the total - is now devoted directly to poverty reduction. UNDP assistance includes support for poverty mapping, assessments of national capacity for poverty reduction, setting national goals and targets, public expenditure reviews, reviews of policies, administrative structures and procedures, and resource mobilization.

87. In the belief that the eradication of poverty requires specifically targeting the social sector, the United Nations has given high priority to the implementation of the so-called 20/20 initiative, launched jointly in 1994 by UNDP, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO). It was proposed under that initiative that Governments and external donors each allocate 20 per cent of their budgets to basic social services. UNICEF and UNDP are providing increased support to reviews of country-level social sector expenditures.

88. Achieving the eradication of poverty also requires that the feminization of poverty be reversed. Accordingly, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has supported pilot projects designed to strengthen women's economic performance. Efforts to increase women's access to credit, training and technologies so as to enhance their income-generating activities are also being supported. UNIFEM has played a pioneering promotional role in ensuring that the policies and programmes of microcredit institutions take gender issues into account. UNICEF programmes address the challenges of women's empowerment by enhancing the capacity of women's organizations and business associations to negotiate on economic issues, and by providing economic literacy materials to women.

89. Poverty is a major cause of hunger, but hunger also causes and perpetuates inter-generational cycles of poverty. Relieving hunger is the first step in breaking those cycles. In 1997, WFP devoted 93 per cent of its development food assistance to the poorest communities and households in low-income food deficit countries, more than half of which was deployed in least developed countries. WFP projects seek to enable the hungry poor to reach a level of subsistence at which they can sustain themselves and thus participate effectively in mainstream development programmes.

90. The World Food Programme has also carried out "vulnerability assessment mapping" in 22 African, 8 Asian and 2 Latin American countries. This exercise identifies the geographic distribution of poverty and food insecurity, and helps ascertain their underlying causes together with the appropriate programmatic responses. To ensure that the poor have sustained access to food, WFP targets some 60 per cent of its development resources directly to women and involves them in the management of food distribution and in decision-making.

91. Major steps have been taken to include respect for human rights and dignity as a core element in anti-poverty strategies, and to ensure participation by the poorest in their communities' decision-making processes. At its most recent session, the Commission on Human Rights appointed an independent expert to evaluate the relationship between the promotion and protection of human rights and extreme poverty. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights strongly supports mandates that increase understanding within the United Nations system of the intrinsic linkage between development, democracy and human rights.

Social development

92. In the area of social development, a broad array of normative and policy-level activities are under way. Preparations have begun for a review conference in the year 2000 to assess the implementation of the accords reached at the 1995 World Summit. UNDP has finalized a World Poverty Report, which documents progress towards the implementation of the Summit's goals, as well as the remaining obstacles.

93. The General Assembly has designated 1999 the International Year of Older Persons; by this means, the Organization hopes to enhance the participation of older persons in their communities. In August 1998, at the other end of the generational spectrum, the third session of the World Youth Forum was convened by the United Nations in partnership with the Portuguese National Youth Council at Braga, Portugal, and the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth was hosted at Lisbon by the Government of Portugal in cooperation with the United Nations. The United Nations has also worked to promote the participation of disabled persons in society. Some 70 countries have now adopted legislation or established programmes to advance that end.

94. Health and mortality, and their relations to development, were the special theme of the thirty-first session of the Commission on Population and Development. The Commission called for more reliable and improved data on mortality, for action at national and international levels to determine the causes of the increased mortality noted among adults in some countries, and for increased efforts to lower mortality and improve health. Preparation is also under way for a special session of the General Assembly to follow up on the International Conference on Population and Development, which will be held from 30 June to 2 July 1999.

95. The lack of equality for women and violations of their human rights remain major impediments to development, democracy and peace. Preparations have begun for the high-level review to be conducted by the General Assembly in June 2000 of progress made in the implementation of the decisions of the Nairobi and Beijing World Conferences on Women. Concerted efforts are needed to attain the goal of universal ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women by the year 2000 and to strengthen its enforcement mechanisms.

96. At the operational level, UNICEF and its partners help to focus worldwide attention on issues affecting children: the many millions who suffer from malaria and malnutrition; the plight of those who serve in armies or work at hazardous or exploitative jobs; discrimination and violence against girls and young women; the nearly 600,000 adolescent girls and women who die needlessly each year from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth; the terrible toll that HIV/AIDS takes on young people; the many unmet needs of adolescents; and the widening gap between rich and poor.

97. During the past year, UNICEF devoted increased attention to strengthening community involvement in matters concerning children and families. This has been the key to success in raising the number of girls enrolling and staying in school. UNICEF programmes have been expanded to reach not only infants and young children but also adolescents and youth.

98. When reliable information is put in the hands of decision makers, supportive action on behalf of children and women becomes more likely and more effective. Accordingly, UNICEF has developed, in collaboration with several other United Nations agencies, a low-cost, fast and reliable household survey method, the multiple indicator cluster survey, a technique for building national capacity to track progress for children. These surveys have been carried out in 60 countries to date.

99. In 1997, UNFPA devoted approximately 85 per cent of its total resources to basic social services, mostly aimed at the poorest and most vulnerable segments of the population. Essential activities included sexual and reproductive health education; improving adolescent reproductive health practices and tailoring them to specific country and subregional situations; providing assistance to reduce maternal mortality; providing emergency assistance in refugee situations; and supporting HIV/AIDS-prevention activities in some 132 countries. UNFPA funding also supported population and development strategies and advocacy work. A set of indicators has been developed to help measure the progress, performance and impact of programmes in the Fund's core programme areas. This represents a significant first step in measuring the effectiveness of its activities.

100. Gender issues remained a cross-cutting concern of all UNFPA-supported programmes. Gender equality is also of concern to the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), which is promoting equitable access to housing, land and credit, and more broadly to the decision-making process in human settlements management. Through education and advocacy, UNIFEM contributes to strengthening the leadership skills of women in governmental and non-governmental arenas, and it trains women's organizations to monitor and promote the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

101. Within the United Nations Secretariat, the Organization is responding vigorously to its mandate to achieve gender equality. Progress has been made in increasing women's representation in the Professional ranks; at the senior levels (D-2), the proportion of women increased from 16 to 22 per cent. A more stringent system has been introduced to ensure that senior managers are held accountable for achieving the 50/50 gender distribution in the Professional categories mandated by the General Assembly.

102. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) seeks to build worldwide commitment and political support for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS through advocacy based on technically sound and up-to-date analyses. UNAIDS issued its latest Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic this past June, just prior to the twelfth World AIDS Conference. UNAIDS also supports improved access to, and use of, the best and most effective practices at the national and community levels. The Programme has made great strides in joint planning and programme coordination with other agencies and in forming partnerships with host countries as well as civil society actors. At the same time, paradoxically, explosive HIV growth continues in most regions of the world, and the prevention gap is widening between rich and poor countries. As a result, life expectancy rates at birth are declining in some developing countries to levels not seen since before the onset of industrialization, and gains in child survival rates are evaporating.

103. Fully two thirds of the people infected by HIV/AIDS worldwide are in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to the tragic costs in human terms, the burden on already overstretched health and social facilities has been immense. The disproportionate impact on the young and on people still in their most productive years of employment adds to the direct economic costs and further diminishes the pool of talent available to societies.

104. In 1997, it was estimated that some 12 million people worldwide had already died of HIV-related causes; 30 million were living with HIV/AIDS; and 5.8 million were newly infected - some 16,000 new infections every day. These statistics were rendered all the more alarming by the fact that in many industrialized countries the perception prevailed that the "AIDS crisis" was over. Combination antiretrovirals have come into widespread use in the developed world over the past two years, but because they are so costly and difficult to administer they remain inaccessible to most people living with HIV in the developing world and in countries with economies in transition.

105. The examples of Thailand and Uganda show that HIV rates can be reduced significantly by strong prevention programmes. Uganda has cut its HIV infection rate by more than a quarter, and Thailand by almost 15 per cent - reductions that compare favourably with those in industrialized countries. Stopping new infections is ultimately the best way of averting the devastating impact of HIV and success hinges on using a careful mix of tried-and-tested prevention methods. Some of these methods are extremely costly in terms of political capital, but they are essential if anti-poverty gains are not to be overwhelmed by this savage virus.

Sustainable development

106. The mutually supportive link between environmental protection and regeneration, on the one hand, and development and poverty eradication, on the other, has been stressed at least since the adoption of Agenda 21 at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. It was reaffirmed by the General Assembly in June 1997 at its special session devoted to appraising progress achieved since 1992. The Administrative Committee on Coordination is taking steps to translate agreed policy measures into activities of the United Nations system, especially at the country level.

107. Following up on the 1997 Kyoto Conference (third session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), UNDP and the Global Environment Facility are supporting some 100 developing countries in the preparation of national situation reports. This $2.2 million project has already attracted $1.2 million in donor financing. It seeks to encourage the formulation of enabling legislation to respond to this major global challenge. It will also promote exchanges of information and knowledge among developing countries through South-South linkages. The initiative is the most recent in the UNDP $30-million-plus portfolio of climate change enabling activity projects. UNDP has published Energy after Rio: Prospects and Challenges, a report on the relationship between energy and development, which presents an analysis of the sustainable energy strategies that will be needed to meet Agenda 21 objectives.

108. Because half the world's population now lives in cities and towns - and an estimated two thirds will be urban in 2025 - the sustainable development of our planet will more than ever depend on our understanding of urban problems and on the ability to craft and implement effective responses to them. The Habitat Agenda, adopted by the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) in 1996, provides the strategic guidance for this effort. As recognized in the Agenda, success in meeting global environmental challenges depends on the effective management of urban problems.

109. The Sustainable Cities Programme, a joint effort of Habitat and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), supports urban management at city and national levels through capacity-building and networking. The Programme is active in more than 20 cities and has produced a series of policy guidelines that are used in many countries. Habitat also provides the secretariat of the Urban Environment Forum, a global network of cities and international programmes committed to improving the urban environment.

Fostering investment and growth

110. A key challenge for the international community is to help the poorest developing countries, especially the least developed, to build the capacities that enable them to become more effectively and beneficially integrated into the global economy. Debt relief, additional aid, better trade opportunities and more favourable terms of trade are required to facilitate this process.

111. The development of Africa remains a matter of the highest priority. I addressed the challenges of promoting durable peace and sustainable development in Africa in a major report to the Security Council in April. I urged the leaders of African countries that have been afflicted by cycles of conflict and lack of development to create a positive environment for investment by, among other measures, adopting the practices of good governance and instituting economic reforms. I urged the international community to do its part by converting into grants all remaining bilateral official debts for the poorest countries and to ease the conditions of access to multilateral facilities for the heavily indebted poor countries.

112. The growing marginalization of some countries in the world economy has been a major concern for the United Nations. Such countries typically exhibit high dependence on commodities. The declining importance of primary commodities in world trade appears to foreshadow a continuation of the long-term erosion in the prices of primary commodities relative to those of manufactured goods. Without success in diversifying their economies, therefore, these countries are likely to find their relative position continuing to worsen. The policy analyses conducted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development on such issues as commodity diversification, risk management and electronic commerce suggest new ways for small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries to diversify their participation in international markets.

113. UNIFEM has been promoting women's participation in the trade and investment sectors. Studies on the impact of trade liberalization on women workers were undertaken this year in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In addition, support was provided to women cash crop producers to assist them in forming cooperatives to increase their incomes and their bargaining position in the international economy.

Supporting good governance

114. Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development. By good governance is meant creating well-functioning and accountable institutions - political, judicial and administrative - that citizens regard as legitimate, through which they participate in decisions that affect their lives, and by which they are empowered. Good governance also entails a respect for human rights and the rule of law generally. Support for good governance has become an increasingly important element in the development-related work of the United Nations.

115. The support of UNDP for good governance focuses on strengthening parliaments, electoral bodies and judiciaries. UNICEF provides support for the revision of national laws in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, training parliamentarians and law enforcement officials, and generally integrating children's rights into the political and legal fabric of States.

116. Good governance is integral to the work of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention. A world free of drugs and drug lords cannot be created without strengthening national judicial and law enforcement systems. At the field level, the Office assists efforts to reduce demand for and production of illicit drugs, and provides technical assistance to law enforcement agencies in the fight against drug-trafficking. For example, the Caribbean Coordination Mechanism convened by the Office in Bridgetown, Barbados, explored ways to strengthen drug control cooperation in the Caribbean region, including maritime cooperation, harmonizing legislation and creating effective measures to counter money-laundering.

117. Supporting good governance, especially through strengthening national judicial systems and policy frameworks, is also essential to the promotion of reproductive health and gender equality. This past year, UNFPA provided assistance to Governments and sponsored workshops and advocacy efforts to further these aims.

118. The contribution of WFP to good governance focuses on capacity-building at the community level, aimed at enhancing the access of poor and crisis-affected households to food. The main means to this end is advocacy that the right to food be treated as a fundamental human right, the achievement of which is closely linked to women's empowerment.

119. The Department of Economic and Social Affairs has given priority to collecting and disseminating basic data on governance and public administration, so as to assist policy formulation and the development of long-term strategies in Member States. The Department has also fostered the exchange of information on practices and policies in the area of public sector reform.

120. Credible elections are a core ingredient of good governance and the process of democratization. Over the course of the past year, the United Nations continued to provide electoral assistance and to assist in strengthening national institutions for better management of the electoral process. Since August 1997, the United Nations has received long- and short-term electoral assistance requests from Armenia, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Lesotho, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Swaziland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Togo. The United Nations also helped to coordinate and support international observation of the National Assembly elections held in Cambodia on 26 July 1998.

121. Meeting our commitment to enhancing economic and social development, particularly in countries in the greatest need, is an increasingly challenging task. Our agenda is expanding, yet our resources are declining. Effective cooperation among the various elements within the broad United Nations family of organizations is an imperative that we will pursue with determination. Achieving our goals will also require the strong support of Member States.

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