The United Nations, NGOs and Global Governance

Table of Contents

• FOREWARD
• OVERVIEW OF THE CONFERENCE DEBATE
• INTRODUCTION
• THE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
• THE DEVELOPMENT AGENDA AND COOPERATION, CONFERENCE FOLLOW-UP, AND UN-NGO COLLABORATION
• WHITHER THE UNITED NATIONS?
• NGOS AND GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
• THE GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AGENDA AND DEMOCRACY, EFFECTIVE ADVOCACY WORK, AND THE ECOSOC REVIEW ON NGO ARRANGEMENTS
• STRENGTHENING UN-NGO COOPERATION: VIEWS FROM THE UN SYSTEM
• THE UN, NGOS AND GLOBAL GOVERNANCE: CHALLENGES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
• CLOSURE
• Annex I: PROGRAMME
• Annex II: LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
• Annex III: LIST OF ACRONYMS

THE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

Panel Presentations

Betty Plewes (Canada) said Canadian development NGOs, active at the international level, are concerned with several key issues on the international agenda: how to make the international system and the UN more coherent and effective in achieving sustainable human development; ensure governments respond adequately to the challenges of achieving sustainable human development; tame the destructive forces of the free market and promote global social and environmental equity; and build a new system of global governance and define the strategic role of NGOs in strengthening global civil society.

Dramatic changes are taking place in Canada's politics. In the post-Cold War period, the country has become overwhelmingly concerned with domestic issues, particularly the economy and national political unity. Canadian development policy retains a number of positive features, including a strong commitment to multilateralism, and a pledge to allocate 25% of Canadian overseas aid to meeting basic needs. More opportunities also exist for NGOs to enter into dialogue with the government. On the other hand, the government's efforts to reduce its budget deficit have cut the aid budget disproportionately.

In the recent official review of Canada's foreign policy, unprecedented emphasis was given to Canadian jobs and prosperity. Canada's trade and commercial interests are eclipsing the humanitarian internationalism that previously provided the framework for foreign policy. Bilateral aid is receiving priority over multilateral aid, and contributions to the UN and World Bank are likely to be cut back. Public support for development cooperation, while not disappearing, is softening.

Canadian NGOs consider the situation to be serious. Large cuts in government financial support to NGOs have been devastating, particularly for development education work and provincial and thematic NGO coordinating bodies. Government policy towards NGOs is becoming more directive and less sensitive to NGO goals and approaches.

Many development NGOs in Canada were built around the aid budget, but this budget could disappear altogether. Canadian NGOs are reflecting on their role, their relations with government, and their resource base. Their priorities will probably be to strengthen public support for development cooperation while developing strategies for more effective collaboration, particularly in advocacy work on national aid and cooperation policies.

John Clark (United Kingdom) said a crisis is indeed looming in the traditional role of Northern NGO donors as conduits for official development assistance. At the same time, the good governance agenda, the key theme of the international development community in the 1990s, is opening up an exciting agenda for NGOs since it emphasizes the political elements of development: accountability, transparency, pluralism, rule of law, and public efficiency. Traditional ways of thinking along left-right and North-South lines cannot capture this new agenda. The positive changes taking place at the World Bank are a result of the good governance agenda and its emphasis on transparency, accountability and the right of people to seek redress. In preparing its country assistance strategies, the Bank will now seek to include dialogue with civil society organizations.

NGOs, influential agents of civil society, have been advocating many of the Bank's reforms. As a result of their experience, NGOs have developed a social analysis and understand the complex political economy of development. But this increased influence brings increased responsibilities, and in taking up the good governance agenda NGOs face a number of challenges. Their advocacy work must be based on accurate information and objective analysis. Since public support for development is eroding due to constant emphasis on failed development attempts, NGOs should illustrate some of the things that could be achieved and advocate better development.

A strength of the NGO community is its capacity to link micro- and macro-levels of development and bring grassroots experiences to international development debates. However, too much international NGO networking and advocacy work is top-down in nature; NGO work should be linked more closely to grassroots experience. In the past, development NGOs used the slogan "Think globally, act locally;" in today's globalizing world, it is equally appropriate to use "Think locally, act globally."

Magdi Ibrahim (Egypt) said it is difficult to establish a real articulation between the international development agenda identified by UN world conferences and the reality in the South. There has been a shift at the international level from investing in development to responding to conflicts emerging from socio-political unrest and situations of extreme poverty. This has led to cultural, ethnic and religious extremism. While the UN cycle of conferences emphasises social needs and rights and environmental sustainability, many parts of the South must give priority to the impacts of globalization, an unmanageable debt burden, structural adjustment policies, and reduced state investment in vital social sectors. The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) provides some space for views from the South on these economic and social realities.

Civil society should help shape national development strategies. Often, public authorities in the South consider people's initiatives a threat, rather than a component of, their development strategy. NGOs should be seen as complementing, not competing with, national development strategies. NGOs should cooperate and develop partnerships, particularly with local authorities; but NGOs should not allow themselves to be used by the state as low-cost alternatives to service and welfare delivery. Nor should NGOs allow themselves to be donor-driven and risk losing their voluntary spirit. The reality of work in the South does not allow for a sector-by-sector approach.

Carmen Rosa Balbi (Peru) reiterated the problem of contradictory principles and goals adopted by UN world conferences, such as the World Summit for Social Development (WSSD) on poverty eradication, employment and social inclusion, and the economic and social realities of Peru.

Poverty has increased in the face of structural adjustment policies and financial conditionality. Peru has been expanding its traditional exports, which has created high gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates. However, this has not created jobs in a country where 50% of the work force is employed in the informal sector. More than half of Peru's 23 million people live in poverty, and attempting to promote their social integration into the current pattern of development is wishful thinking. Liberalization of the economy has eroded the government's ability to take decisions in these areas. NGOs are trying to ensure that economic growth supports and promotes social development and the eradication of poverty. Peru has resources to invest in social development, but this requires a new pattern of development and new priorities. NGOs must use the declaration adopted at the WSSD to raise awareness about social issues and hold governments accountable to their commitments.

Mervat Rishmawi (Palestine) said that in the context of the struggle for Palestine, it is impossible to separate human rights issues from development issues. Development is the realization of political, economic, social and cultural rights. Progress in achieving development facilitates the realization of human rights, while progress in realizing human rights contributes to development. These two agendas--development and human rights--are brought together by monitoring government expenditures and performance in areas with established rights, such as women's equality, health, and education. Despite its commitment to the indivisibility of human rights, the UN's development and human rights approaches are fragmented, and there is clearly some resistance to coordination among different UN bodies.

International NGOs have paid considerable attention to the work of the UN Commission on Human Rights. Yet few NGOs attend the meetings of the human rights sub-commissions and committees, and there is not enough coordination and consultation between those that do attend and other national NGOs. Nor is there enough follow-up to the various conferences and policy decisions. NGOs could do much more to explain to the public the commitments undertaken by their governments in conferences, conventions, and treaties. National NGOs that do engage in follow-up may find themselves trying to move things forward on the ground in isolation from governments that do not honour these commitments.

A more comprehensive approach is needed to tackle the current development and human rights agendas. NGOs should consider establishing reverse conditionality in their relations with donors. They should also use the UN system more. The ECOSOC review on NGOs must maintain access to the UN for any competent national, regional or international NGO that has a relevant contribution to make to the substantive deliberations of the UN.

Nelcia Robinson (St. Vincent and Grenadine) spoke of the contributions made by the ICPD and the Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) to women's equality agendas at the national level. At both these conferences, the Women's Caucus played a very influential role. In Cairo, NGOs were a key force behind defining family planning within the broader context of women's reproductive rights. Combined with the adoption of policy measures to address the twelve central areas of concern voiced at Beijing, these two conferences represent a comprehensive commitment to change.

At the national level, NGOs must advocate and monitor government implementation of the conference agreements. In addition, NGOs should share information and educate communities about commitments made by their governments. Seventy per cent of the world's poorest people are women, but achieving their equality requires the involvement of men, and a higher profile for youth. A key issue for national NGOs remains how to gain access to official resources for conference follow-up without being co-opted or diverted from their mission.

Discussion

Following the panel presentations the floor was opened for discussion. What follows is a summary of the observations, viewpoints and recommendations made in the discussion.

While NGOs in the United Kingdom are campaigning against cuts to the national aid budget, they remain optimistic that the sustainable development agenda can continue moving forward. In Germany, aid is being cut back, with priority being giving to bilateral over multilateral aid. German NGOs question the value of participating in the big international conferences, and are concentrating their efforts at the national level. In December 1995, German development NGOs set up an assembly called VENRO (Verband Entwicklungspolitik Deutscher Nichtregierungsorganisationen) to develop joint positions and policies for development advocacy work targeted at the federal government.

In Switzerland, where the aid budget is also being cut, Swiss NGOs are likewise concentrating their efforts at the national level, and working to improving direct cooperation with NGOs and other social groups in the South.

In the United States, communities have suffered their own version of structural adjustment for 15 years. During that time, the US domestic social budget has been destroyed. The priority for many NGOs and community groups now is to build a progressive movement over the next 20 years from the grassroots up. They have used Agenda 21 to develop a widespread concern about sustainable communities and to link experience and work at the national level with the debate on sustainability at the international level.

In Norway, government support for NGO work remains strong; the WSSD resulted in new kinds of dialogue between NGOs and the government. Electronic communications are being used to strengthen collaborative NGO work.

Should Northern NGOs bear some responsibility for the decline in their governments' support for development? Have they been too kind in accommodating governments, while forgetting the needs of the people who empowered them to make demands upon the governments? Have they contributed to the undermining of public support by emphasising the shortcomings and weaknesses of official aid? In the North, environmental organizations can influence governments because their citizens are directly concerned about issues such as environmental pollution. But the development agenda has not yet captured public imagination in the same way. At the same time, environmental organizations learned at UNCED that there are no purely environmental solutions; they are now refocusing their efforts on sustainable development strategies. The NGO development agenda should move away from the North-South charity paradigm, since the North faces its own challenging development agenda, and all parts of the world must respond to the growing social and other problems linked to globalization. Northern NGOs could learn from their Southern partners, and from other social movements in the North, about working with people and actively involving their support base in their activities.

European and North American NGOs are reducing their funding support for Latin American NGOs and giving greater priority to Africa and the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Some of the vacuum is being filled by funding from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and others. How are these changes affecting the Latin American NGO community? Official aid can severely distort the work of the NGO community and several examples of NGO co-option were described.

The shift of resources from development to emergency work poses a great challenge to development NGOs and to UN agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP), which now allocates far more of its resources to emergencies than to development initiatives. At the same time, a few large humanitarian NGOs are capturing a significant and growing share of financial aid.

The way NGOs define themselves in relation to the state is crucial. In the North, society came first and then created the state. In many parts of the South, the state came first and created society, at the service of the state. In these cases the relationships between the state and civil society need to be turned around so that the state serves civil society. Yet, global processes are weakening the power of the state. NGOs must find ways of dealing with the economic power of transnational corporations (TNC), and may have to join forces with governments to ensure the transparency and accountability of TNCs. The UN's competence in global economic policy issues is being undermined, and its role in international economic policy making is being weakened to the benefit of the BWIs and WTO. This is unacceptable for those concerned with democratizing international economic decision making. These institutions should be accountable to the international community and the people they seek to support in developing and transition countries.

The UN is in a political crisis and is seeking NGO support to help revitalize its policy making. NGOs must be clear about their role within the UN context; they are not governments and have very different responsibilities. NGOs must challenge current orthodox thinking on development and set an example in promoting partnership, equality and solidarity. There are many countries today where the economy is being liberalized and privatized with no corresponding opening of political and public life for civil society. Structural adjustment should be replaced by economic reforms that do more to unleash the capacity of the poor by increasing their access to productive assets. Though not as strong as it could be, the language on structural adjustment agreed at the WSSD is helpful to NGOs who want to push the debate forward.

NGOs inevitably play a political role in responding to a political issue like poverty. In the South, some NGOs are more popular than governments because of the services the NGOs deliver. Southern NGOs face a complex political situation with regard to North-South issues such as the replenishment of the funds of the World Bank's IDA. The NGOs support their governments' calls for replenishment and are critical of Northern NGOs who oppose the replenishment. Defending a national position may mean agreeing with government, which leaves NGOs open to the charge of being collaborationist. At the same time, NGOs are not always trusted by governments, who sometimes see NGOs as a threat. A conflict may be emerging between Southern NGOs and those Northern NGOs who are replacing foreign experts from the World Bank and other international agencies in delivering services. Partnership is an alternative to this, since citizens of developing countries must decide what is best for their nations.