Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
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UN Reform Annan Seeks Debate on UN Future
in 'Millennium Report'By Colum Lynch
Washington Post
April 4, 2000
United Nations - Secretary General Kofi Annan today outlined his vision of the United Nations in the 21st century--a world body that would use "smart sanctions" to punish dictators while sparing innocent civilians, enlist corporate help for disaster victims and bring the Internet to the Third World.
The proposals, contained in a 57-page "Millennium Report," represent Annan's most ambitious effort yet to shape the future of the United Nations and put his personal imprint on it. Annan said he hoped the report would stimulate debate among world leaders who will gather in New York for a Sept. 6-8 summit to develop a long-term agenda for the United Nations. It contains recommendations on a dizzying array of issues, from curbing illegal traffic in small arms to reversing global warming.
The report "attempts to present a comprehensive account of the main challenges facing humanity as we enter the 21st century, combined with a plan of action for dealing with them," Annan told reporters. "That may sound absurdly ambitious, but if the United Nations does not attempt to chart a course for the world's people in the first decades of the new millennium, who will?" Annan directed his most severe criticism at the Security Council's use of economic sanctions to try to change the behavior of such states as Iraq and Libya, saying that innocent civilians, not the ruling elite, bear the brunt of the suffering. He said the council should give serious consideration to studies underway in Germany, Switzerland, Britain and Canada to find ways to target leaders rather than whole populations.
The United Nations also should work more closely with the private sector to harness information technology to improve the lives of the world's most disadvantaged people, Annan said. And he warned that governments that restrict access to the Internet--as Malaysia, Cuba and Saudi Arabia have tried to do--"are going to fail." "They are depriving their people, their nations, of great opportunities by trying to limit access to these technologies," Annan told reporters, without singling out specific countries. "They shouldn't waste resources trying to block it."
Annan announced that the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications company, are jointly designing a program to provide round-the-clock mobile and satellite communications to relief workers. The United Nations is also developing a plan to provide 10,000 Third World hospitals with access to up-to-date medical information via the Internet, he said.
Annan urged rich countries to increase their development aid budgets and provide debt relief and market access to poor countries, particularly in Africa. He asked the United Nation's 188 member states to set such ambitious goals as reducing HIV infection rates among 15- to 24-year-olds by 25 percent by 2010; cutting in half the proportion of people, currently 22 percent of the global population, who earn less than $1 a day; and guaranteeing by 2015 that all children will receive an elementary school education. "Unless we redouble and concert our efforts, poverty and inequality will get worse," he told the U.N. General Assembly. "Some of us are worrying about whether the stock market will crash . . . while more than half our fellow men and women have much more basic worries, such as where their children's next meal is coming from."
