United Nations Daily Highlights 96-10-17

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From: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.org

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Thursday, October 17, 1996

HEADLINES

• UN Secretary-General says International Day for Eradication of Poverty poses challenge to international community.
• United Nations offers countries in transition development services, UN Secretary-General tells Symposium in Germany.
• UN Secretary-General expresses condolences to families of Guatemala City tragedy.
• Commitments made at World Summit for Social Development constitute new international contract to achieve social development, General Assembly is told.
• United States official says although ratification of Chemical Weapons Convention has been withdrawn from consideration in United States Senate, ratification process will soon resume.
• Sanctions and external debt must be considered in determining capacity of member States to pay their dues, Administrative and Budgetary Committee hears.
• Developing countries should have stable and non-discriminatory access to technology, Economic and Financial Committee is told.
• Action needed to assist those who suffered long-term effects of atomic radiation, Special Political and Decolonisation Committee hears.

In a message to the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) seminar with the theme, "Global Hunger and Poverty: Dimensions and Solutions", Dr. Boutros-Ghali said people were faced with a daily struggle to overcome the burdens of famine, disease, civil strife and war in too many parts of the developing world.

"The eradication of hunger and poverty requires constructive and concerted international action. The world's poorest countries cannot address these problems in isolation", he said, adding that the UN had made the assault on poverty a priority. He said the urgent need for new policies and new initiatives had dominated all UN world conferences on development issues held over the last five years.

The Secretary-General said poverty alleviation could help reduce dependence and stimulate new demand for products and services in even the poorest countries. He said the world should ensure that commitments made in international fora are translated into practical advances on the ground, adding that "we must lift the millstone of debt from around the neck of the poorest countries".

Meanwhile, the Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), James Gustave Speth said the UNDP had targeted poverty eradication as its top priority, and was engaged in a coordinated effort by the UN system to help governments attack its root causes and harsh consequences.

He said the Agency now spends nearly 90 per cent of its core resources in countries with 90 per cent of the world's poorest people. "We have committed the full force of all our energies to the gravest human challenge of our time, an effort which will also galvanise and energise the various efforts of the UN around a great and just cause," he said.

The global observance of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is aimed at promoting public awareness of the conditions and causes of poverty and the need to eradicate such destitution in all countries.

"We should not forget that economic transition was not inspired by economic considerations alone. It was a complex movement involving social, political, security, humanitarian, cultural as well as economic aspects," he said.

He said United Nations, through its country offices, offers to countries in transition services related to development, economic liberalisation, political and information support and assistance with integration into the international system.

"The world is embarking on a new transition, even as we live through the transition that characterised the end of the Cold War. This new transition is one from a North-South system where a growing gap separates States and peoples, to an era of international cooperation for development and a new multilateral diplomacy of development," he said.

Ambassador Somavia said those commitments had paved the way for a new era of cooperation based on the security of the individual, adding that the United Nations had taken such steps as revitalising the Commission for Social Development, establishing inter-agency task forces to coordinate follow-up and enhancing relations between the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions.

Speaking on behalf of the European Union and Associated States, the representative of Ireland, John Campbell said the Summit participants had agreed that development was not solely a matter of economic growth. He said development also required democratic governance, empowerment of individuals, social justice and the equitable distribution of wealth and income.

However, to eradicate poverty, financial resources must be mobilised, bearing in mind the commitment by donor countries to contribute 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNP) to official development assistance (ODA), he said.

The representative of Costa Rica, Emilia Castro de Barish, speaking for the Group of 77 developing countries and China, said that while the resources and the organisational ability to eradicate poverty existed, the political will to pursue that goal through a partnership was lacking.

She appealed to all member States to honour their commitments, particularly with respect to the provision of adequate resources, to ensure full implementation of the goals of the Social Summit.

While calling upon the United Nations to coordinate and support follow-up efforts, many speakers acknowledged that the primary responsibility for setting social development goals rested with national Governments.

The Director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, John Holum, said the United States was actively engaged in destroying its chemical-weapon stockpiles. He added that efforts by States parties to the Biological Weapons Convention to elaborate a compliance protocol would succeed if they remained resolutely focused on the task at hand: preventing deadly diseases from being used as instruments of terror and war.

The representative of Algeria warned that the forthcoming entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention without ratification by the United States and the Russian Federation weakened it considerably. Maximum participation was needed to meet the conditions for international security, he said.

Speaking on the scale of assessments, the representative of Libya said sanctions had resulted in losses to his country of $18 billion from 1992 to 1995, in addition to their human and psychological impacts. Furthermore, his Government also faced problems of acquiring foreign currency to pay its dues to the United Nations and other organisations as a result of the economic sanctions imposed on Libya.

Brazil's representative emphasised that the external debt burden adjustment should be maintained as an integral part of the scale methodology, adding that the negative impact of external debt on member States' capacity to pay could not be denied.

Speaking on the Secretary-General's proposals on the savings from the 1996 - 1997 programme budget, the representative of Ireland, speaking on behalf of the European Union and Associated States, said he agreed with the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) that the Organisation's programmes should be reviewed in order to avoid a general deterioration in those programmes and any adverse effect on the priorities of the United Nations. That review, he said, should be part of the forthcoming discussions on the draft 1998-2000 medium-term plan.

He said proposals for setting up technology transfer rights banks and the building up of information networks to provide environmentally sound technologies should be pursued.

A representative of the World Bank told the Committee that during 1996 funds disbursed by the Bank amounted to $19 billion, an increase of nearly 5.5 per cent from last year. During the same period, the Bank and its soft- loan affiliate, the International Development Association (IDA), had together committed more than $21 billion allocated for 256 projects. The largest allocation went to electric power, transportation and agriculture.

An official of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reporting on the recent annual meeting of the Fund and the World Bank, said an initiative had been adopted to ensure that heavily indebted poor countries could attain a sustainable debt position over the medium term.

He said the initiative encompassed total external debt, including, for the first time and in a comprehensive manner, multilateral debt. The Fund's contribution to the initiative would be within the framework of its Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility.

The Committee's reports had served as a basis for the drawing of national and international standards for protection against the harmful effects of radiation, according to the representative of Ireland.

Egypt said there were nuclear installations in the Middle east that were not subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection. That, he said, affected the lives of millions in the region.

From the United Nations home page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.org

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