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ECONOMY: U.N. Summit Seeks Collective Response to Crisis

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 13 2009 (IPS) - The president of the 192-member U.N. General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, dismisses the G20 bloc of economically advanced countries as unrepresentative of the international community.

"Despite their good intentions," he scoffs, "the Group is still a minority on an international level" because it shuts out more than two-thirds of the membership of the world body.

"The most democratic way to discuss issues that affect all of us is by doing so at the United Nations," he argues.

And so, with the unanimous support of the General Assembly, he is planning to hold a high-level meeting of all 192 U.N. member states to discuss the global financial crisis.

The meeting, scheduled to take place Jun. 24-26, is expected to be attended by most world leaders, including heads of state and heads of government.

D'Escoto said: "There is widespread consensus among world leaders that the current crisis has its roots in ethical failure."

The meeting, which will cost over 860,000 dollars – equitably shared by member states depending on their financial status – will adopt a final declaration on how to cope with the crisis.

"We now have the opportunity and the responsibility to search for solutions that take into account the interests of all nations, the rich and the poor, the large and the small," he declared.

Whether the three-day summit will be another talk-fest or a landmark conference will depend on the final outcome document which will be drafted over the next seven weeks by member states.

Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, former permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations and a former U.N. under-secretary-general, told IPS it is heartening that the General Assembly, the world's most universal intergovernmental body, would be discussing the ongoing global economic meltdown.

"To be meaningful and worthwhile, it is essential that the Assembly is seized on a regular basis with the issues which are of primary and ongoing concern to the citizens of the world," he said.

But it is unfortunate, he pointed out, that the Assembly is loaded with agenda items that point to its irrelevance.

"Its present engagement in deliberating on the global economic crisis is, therefore, very welcome," he added.

At one time the global economy was shaped and dictated to by the G6: the world's six major industrialised nations, namely the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. With the exception of Japan, the rest were from the Western world.

Canada joined later to transform the group into the G7. But there were still no developing nations, although the decisions of the G7 also impacted heavily on the developing world.

When Russia was admitted, the group became the G8, as it existed last year.

The G20 that met in London recently also included some of the world's major developing nations, such as China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Argentina, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, along with Australia, South Korea and the 27-member European Union (which also includes the former East European states).

The General Assembly meeting in June also follows a call for the creation of a Global Economic Coordination Council by a U.N. Commission of Experts chaired by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz last month.

Roberto Bissio, executive director of the Third World Institute, told IPS the upcoming meeting is obviously an opportunity both for G20 countries and for the other 172 countries, not represented by the G20, to have their say.

But the G20 members will also have a major opportunity to legitimise their role through the proposed Economic Coordination Council to be created within the United Nations, if the suggestion of the Stiglitz Commission is endorsed, said Bissio, who is also the Coordinator of Social Watch, a network of civil society organisations in over 50 countries.

In fact, he said, the proposed Council could have "permanent members" (without veto powers) selected from among the present G20 members and other members elected.

"Yet, the Council as a whole would be transparent and accountable to all countries, thus overcoming the accusations of illegitimacy and unrepresentativeness presently made, with justification, with regard to the G20," he added.

On the upcoming meeting, Chowdhury said the main concern, however, is what would be the outcome and whether it would have any impact on the countries from whom the action would be asked for.

"Most significantly, one wonders whether the Assembly would be able to go beyond the London G20 Summit outcome," he said.

He said universalising the G20 outcome without the benefit of participation and giving it a seal of endorsement would be meaningless on the part of the Assembly's 192 members and its leadership.

"As I have often reiterated, the credibility of the U.N. would be enhanced if it could focus on some concrete action for the benefit of 800 million of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) – the poorest and weakest segment of the international community – which are the innocent, and the worst, victims of the ongoing global crisis," said Chowdhury, a former U.N. high representative of LDCs.

However, he added, given its inherent inadequacy in dealing with global financial issues, "I believe the Assembly should at least ask for a specific share of resources to be set aside for the LDCs in the context of the G20 Summit decided on the role of Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) in the global recovery from the current crisis."

The LDCs, which number 49, are described as the poorest of the world's poor, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

Also, Chowdhury noted, the G20 Summit's call on the U.N., working with other global institutions, to establish an effective mechanism to monitor the impact of the crisis on the poorest and most vulnerable should be reflected in the Assembly outcome mentioning specifically the needs of the LDCs as well as the Landlocked Developing Countries and the Small Island Developing States.

Bissio said other suggestions included in the Stiglitz Commission report deserve careful consideration. And while it might be unrealistic to have them all approved in June, the U.N. summit is the opportunity to place them on the agenda.

In particular, and contrary to the G20 communique, the Stiglitz Commission clearly identifies the origins of the crisis and pinpoints structural solutions, not just emergency measures, he noted.

The emergency measures suggested by the Commission, he said, do not imply strengthening the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, but reforming them.

And the long term solutions, he said, include the creation of a world reserve currency, not based on the U.S. dollar, and the adoption of carbon tax and a financial transaction tax.

These, he pointed out, would not only generate genuine resources for development but also help control unwanted global warming and financial speculation and volatility.