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Multilateral Institutions
The UN turned 60 this week. I am not old enough to recall its formation
but
I did know one of the architects - Jan Smuts. Smuts was one of the
founding
fathers of the League of Nations and when that collapsed in a heap as a
result of the Second World War, he played a key role in the drafting of
the
Charter of the United Nations and was, I understand, one of the authors
of
the preamble to the Charter.
Jan Smuts was one of the great intellectuals of his day, the youngest
Boer
commander in the Boer War and then an outstanding Prime Minister of
South
Africa. He was a member of War Cabinet in the UK during the Second
World War
and received many accolades during his life and afterwards. Had his
government not been defeated in 1949 and the Afrikaner Nationalists not
come
to power in South Africa, it is possible that South Africa might have
avoided the years of isolation that followed his electoral defeat and
then
his death.
Smuts was also the man, who more than any other, helped Britain put in
place
the multilateral organisation that replaced the Empire. The
Commonwealth of
States is very much his creation.
I was only 8 when my Grandfather took me up the hill in Pretoria to
have
coffee with Smuts and his wife "Ouma". Even now I can recall sitting on
the
stoep of the Prime Ministers residence and the fact that Ouma was
dressed in
black from head to toe and wore black "tackies" is a sharp memory. Of
Smuts
himself, I only have a vague recollection. A year later he was out of
power
and five years later my Grandfather died - perhaps of heartbreak at
events
in South Africa as much as anything else.
This week the United Nations lumbered to its feet and tried to reform
itself. The exercise was not a great success and Kofie Annan was
visibly
disappointed. I wondered how Oom Jannie would have felt about the whole
thing and if these huge multilateral institutions that he was so
instrumental in creating have met his expectations.
The sight of Robert Gabriel Mugabe strutting up to the podium this
morning
at the General Assembly and then being allowed to make his usual
rambling
discourse on the failures and evil actions of "Blair and Bush" does
little
to help the UN's image abroad. By now, even his African fan club that
once
found his antics encouraging for their own warped views of the world we
live
in, know the man is a fraud. They all know that Mr. Mugabe is no angel
himself, that he has committed crimes against humanity and may one day
face
justice, that he has destroyed the economy of his country in the
pursuit of
power and has driven millions of his own people into exile and death.
But imperfect as it is - at least it is a forum where leaders can meet
and
debate the issues that confront them. We should not expect much more
than
that or we will be sorely disappointed. We should also not give the UN
much
more responsibility than a talk shop or we will simply waste resources.
The
oil for food programme in Iraq is a prime example of UN incompetence -
corruption and waste littered the tracks of this programme and the UN
came
out of a US$70 billion programme with little to show for it except a
damaged
reputation.
In my own experience I have found many of the UN agencies equally
incompetent and wasteful. The FAO is not achieving anything today,
perhaps
never has. UNICEF makes all the right noises but the plight of children
across the globe does not get any better. Bill Gates has done more for
the
kids of the world than the UN in the past 50 years. One of the main
images
of failed States is that of UN vehicles and men in blue hats. A senior
American official once told me that the degree of failure of a State
could
be measured by the extent of UN involvement. Now I do not know if that
might
signify UN activism or simply that failed States offer a justification
for
UN activity.
I certainly know that there is mounting evidence that much of the work
of
the UN is ineffective and may in fact be counter productive. That is
true of
the World Food Programme, which seems to simply entrench poverty and
dependence on aid flows. The record of the UN in the Human Rights field
is
also disastrous and it does not look as if this has been tackled very
effectively in the recent General Assembly. The old arrangement was a
sick
joke.
The other multilaterals created at much the same time as the UN are
largely
economic and financial - the IMF and the World Bank with their
tentacles
across the globe. They have their critics and the globe is littered
with
monuments to their failed attempts to build economies and stabilize
markets.
Unfinished projects and failed projects probably outnumber those that
have
done what was intended and we all know of such things.
But the question is - if not multilateral, then what? How do we work
together to try and create a better world, a world that offers our
children
and grandchildren a better quality of life. The one thing that the
multilaterals can point to and say, "We did that" is the fact that we
have
not slipped into another global conflagration on the scale of World War
One
and Two. The fact that despite the wild swings in global markets and
currencies, we have not seen the return of the crash in 1929 when world
markets and savings were wiped out and took years to recover.
We also know what works and what does not work and there are no excuses
for
not learning those lessons and applying them to our world as we strive
to
build a future. We know that democracy works, we know that free markets
and
enterprise drives growth and development. We know corruption undermines
all
other forms of progress and is a global disease. We know how to feed
the
world and eliminate absolute poverty. The question we all should ask is
when
will our leaders take effective action to ensure that these lessons are
applied in the way they govern us. Those that break these rules should
know
they defy the world and will not be allowed to strut the stage as if
they
were something else and deserve our respect and recognition.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 15th September 2005
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