UNITED
NATIONS - Not to put down UN conferences, summit
or otherwise, and write them off, as many Western
critics do, as a total waste of time and money,
but it's a sad fact that well-meaning governments
have a deplorable habit of not living up to the
promises they make at these international gatherings.
The impression grows that the lofty declarations
and well-meant plans of action that have become
a standard outcome after days of debate and private
bargaining are often not worth so much hard work
and dedication, or even the paper they were written
on.
Perhaps
the current meetings in Johannesburg may break
the mold. But that's what most everybody expected
from the Millennium Summit in New York, which brought
together the greatest assembly of heads of state
or government in history.
Now a progress report
by Secretary General
Kofi Annan indicates
that the goals endorsed
at this conference
also are a very long
way from being realized.
Did many leaders simply
forget their pledges
and return to business
as usual?
Annan is far too gentlemanly
to chide governments
for their failing grades,
and the UN has a tradition
of looking for the
silver lining behind
the darkest cloud.
So Michael Doyle, a
senior UN aide who
briefed journalists
this week on the Secretary
General's report, did
not neglect to mention
what he termed success
in UN peacekeeping
and peace building
in East Timor, along
with signs of progress
made in Kosovo, Sierra
Leone and Afghanistan.
He also claimed there
was considerable progress
within the UN system
toward implementing
the peacekeeping reforms
recommended by a panel
led by former Foreign
Minister Lakhdar Brahimi
of Algeria (now preoccupied
with Afghanistan) and
endorsed by the Security
Council.
For those tens of
millions of people
out there subsisting
on $1 or less per day,
the millennium summiteers
established the goal
of reducing their numbers
by one-half. But not
until 2015. Doyle said
that the international
community is actually
on target to achieve
that result, though
only barely, he added.
Credit
for that goes to
the "exceptional
progress" made
in East Asia, which
compensated for a dismal
lack of improvement,
or even regression,
in other parts of the
world, the Secretary
General's representative
reported.
In
a further bid to
gild the lily, he
called
the creation of the
International Criminal
Court a big plus, while
ignoring its potentially
fatal weakness in the
stubborn refusal of
the United States to
sign on. The New Partnership
for African Development
(Nepad) and the establishment
of the African Union
were hailed as important
achievements. But Doyle
did record that almost
half of the African
population live below
the poverty level.
This remains a "challenge," he
observed mildly.
Meanwhile,
he said, continuing
child and
maternal mortality
rates continued to
be "dreadful." While
the Millennium Summit
set a goal of reducing
child mortality by
two-thirds, at the
current rate the decline
would be only 25 percent,
he estimated.
He called for a rapid
increase in and a more
concentrated investment
in human efforts and
material.
Would greater progress
have been made worldwide
if the events of last
Sept. 11 had not occurred
and fears of further
terrorist acts had
not become so great
a global distraction?
Possibly, but perhaps
not by a huge amount,
given the evident lack
of political will among
many leaders simply
to follow through on
their promises .
An American business
paper recently reported
the hard-to-believe
statistic that the
country with the highest
economic growth rate
last year was a state
in Africa: Botswana.
Kofi Annan paid a
visit there this week
on his way to Johannesburg.
He may have had some
difficulty accepting
the press report. An
estimated 40 percent
of adults in this Texas-size
country are unemployed;
poverty is rampant;
and HIV/AIDS infections
are the highest in
the world.
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