December 7, 2003

Sometimes the UN is more successful than the others in getting the desired results and in getting things to change. I think it is better to work with the UN than to work against it,’ says the UN deputy secretary-general

LOUISE FRICHETTE, the first Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, is of the firm opinion that the world without the UN would be a much worse place. The world body has had its lows, but is not generally given the credit even when due, regrets Ms Frichette.

A Canadian national, she has held the high-profile post at the UN since March, 1998, assisting the Secretary-General in the full range of his responsibilities, besides chairing the Steering Committee on Reform and Management Policy, and the Advisory Board of the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP).

Before joining the United Nations, Ms Frichette was exposed for almost quarter of a century to ministerial, ambassadorial and other senior assignments in Canada. Ms Frichette recently spoke to Dawn Magazine at her UN office in New York. The following are the excerpts of the interview:

Q. President Bush last year said the UN could become irrelevant and then there was the Iraqi war and bitter differences in the member states over it. What now is the future of the UN?

A. Well, I think first it is important to note that even at the time when there were pretty deep divisions between the key members of the Security Council around Iraq, they were quite capable of working quite productively over quite a range of other issues, and they continued to work together as part of the UN inside the UN. That I think is important to remember, because there has been a tendency to connect everything to Iraq and to pronounce on the future of the institution just on the basis of Iraq.

The UN has gone through a number of crises in its existence, including a long period of time when the UN Security Council was sort of unable to operate much during the Cold War. It was very often marginalized in relations to a current threat to peace and security, and yet the organization continued to function and play the role that was not the full potential of the UN, but was nevertheless considered important enough to preserve.

So, I don’t think the situation now is any different or any worse than that. But if we go back to what the Secretary-General said at the UN General Assembly in September, we must recognize that there are divisions within the member states, which seemed to be based on the different perceptions of the threats and the nature of threats and how to deal with them. We together need to think about these things because if we do not have a common vision and a common approach then we risk undermining the framework of relevant principles that have underpinned the concept of collective security enshrined in the Charter, and, therefore, while the organization is not at risk of disappearing tomorrow morning, there is nevertheless a fundamental policy challenge there that member states should be ready to tackle.

We have to make sure that the multilateral system is capable of evolving, adjusting and changing when necessary. I think at any time in history or in the history of any organization there is always a challenge to adapt to the changing scene. If you fail to keep pace, you do run the risk of losing little by little the relevance. Allow me to add some parentheses as well.

The UN has changed in fact a great deal since it was created, and it is not often recognized how much the organization has changed and how agile it has been in responding to the new challenges. Just take, for instance, the post-Cold War period. Suddenly the organization was asked to intervene and resolve all kinds of conflicts many of which related to situations in which the UN had never got involved before.

The UN was asked to mount very large missions with much more complex mandates, staying for a long time to help countries come out of conflicts and help in rebuilding. Twice in the last six years, we had to become the government, once in Kosovo, and then in East Timor.

The organization of course has had its difficulties, but If you look back you have to conclude that it has evolved quite a lot and learned quickly how to deal with these new kinds of mandates and has been very successful in several cases.

The potential to adapt and change is very much there without necessarily changing the Charter which is more profound than is often recognised. September 11 attacks have generated all kinds of new questions, and I am confident that the organization, meaning the member states and the organization, will rise and meet the new challenges.

Q. In your opinion, what has been the most crucial UN role, besides maintenance of international peace and security, since its inception.?

A. I think the most crucial role of the UN is that this is the one place where you get the sense of the whole. The one place where the voice of all people, particularly the developing countries, can be heard. Sometimes those voices are heard, but not acted upon or the message is not always received as it should be, but I wonder what the world would be without one place, one organization where the concerns, the very different concerns of the people of the world, depending on whether they live in one of the world’s richest countries, with very different pre-occupations as against like countries which are in conflict or the countries which are very, very poor or which are grappling with big epidemics like AIDS. If we didn’t have that kind of forum where you come face to face, at some level at an equal footing, I think the world would be a much worse place.

The UN provides that forum. While there are divisions on some subjects, there also is a common vision on many things and issues and a capacity to think forward. The Aids epidemic, a fairly recent one, is a good example in this regard. The UN is the place where finally this issue became the issue of every one, it wasn’t just the case of African countries which were suffering due to very high incident of the disease, or the issue of the countries where it is a huge problem. It became the place to figure out together what was needed to get it under control. If you didn’t have a UN, we would have to invent a place to come together on the issue. And that’s irreplaceable in my opinion.

Q. The people in the poor countries who look up to the UN to help them are getting more and more disenchanted with it. They believe it is not effective. What do you say to them?

A. There is no doubt that the smaller and weaker you are, the more you need, or you feel the need, to work with others, and to have a place where you can join hands with others. If I were from a developing country, I would be very frustrated at times with the slow progress and with the slowness of change on issues that make a big difference for me. I would be very concerned with the slow pace of opening markets, for instance. I would be concerned over the insufficient flow of resources that come from countries that have the means to be more generous than they are now. But I would not necessarily blame the UN for that.

I would recognize that the UN cannot be more than what its member states are prepared to do. And I would tell them that working through the UN is probably the best way to put pressure to help them and to do more. In that sense you look at the Millennium development goals, which represent a very powerful instrument of mobilizing the political will and the generosity of the people. I think it does contribute. Sometimes the UN is more successful than the others in getting the results and in getting things to change. I think it is better to work with the UN than to work against it.

Q. Which of the many UN organs is working the best within the system to change the lives of the peoples?

A. I think it is a difficult question. I think each such body is working in its own way to cover a small piece of human activity. And I think in this era of globalization, there is hardly anything that does not have an internal dimension, and we need a common house to deal with them.

To me, there is no doubt that the UN Human Rights Commission has played an important role, it has taken a pro-active role in promoting human rights around the world. The agencies that act on social issues, like the UNICEF or the WHO, also come to mind, and you can measure the impact of such organizations. There are some UN organization that have undisputed leadership in the world. Take, for instance, the activities of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). For the ordinary people, the agencies dealing their problems remain more important. For instance, if you are a refugee, then the UNHCR is absolutely the most vital organization to protect your rights.

Q. As the situation in Iraq is unfolding, it looks as though the US is going to come back to the UN and ask it to take over effective and total control of running Iraq. Is the UN ready to undertake that responsibility?

A. Well, I don’t want to anticipate on what might happen. The UN and the Secretary General acted on the basis of the specific decisions of the Security Council, we have a recent decision of the Council a few weeks ago that provided some general instructions to us on the mandate. We are in the processes of defining how we can deliver on the mandate given us, bearing in mind the security concerns that exist in Iraq. If there were to be new elements or new changes in the mandate, they first have to go to the Security Council where they have to define what they want the UN to do. We are not there yet.

Q. Yes, but given that such a mandate comes, will the UN be able to shoulder the responsibility to run Iraq? And, more importantly, will the Iraqi people welcome the UN at this point in time if the multinational forces were to come under the UN umbrella?

A. Well, we have always said we wanted to work with the Iraqi people. We want to ensure that whatever we do in Iraq, it is greeted favourably by the Iraqi people and the international community and the countries in the region. It is hard again to anticipate exactly what kind of reaction or position might be taken by Iraq and by various actors in Iraq or the region without having a clear sense of what a new set of mandate would look like.

Q. You are speaking in general terms. What specifically you could do in Iraq? Are you ready to take up the new responsibility in Iraq? Do you have the infrastructure in place to take up such a responsibility?

A. Well, each situation is different. You cannot transform any kind of experience or a process or approach to another situation. It doesn’t necessarily work. You have to adjust whatever you do to a new set of conditions and specificity of the circumstances. But the fact is that the UN has acquired quite a lot of experience over the course of its history, dealing with what is called ‘post-conflict peace-building’, and has acquired quite a lot of practical experience about how to support a political process, how to support the organization of elections, how to assist in the strengthening of police forces.

We have the capacity and the relevant experience. But I cannot say at this stage how this partnership with Iraqis will develop.

Q. But if given such a mandate, you are sure the UN will be able to deliver in Iraq?

A. I think the big concern over here at the moment is on the security situation. That is the big cloud on the horizon because overall we were targeted twice in a significant way. It is an inhibition. You have to ensure the security of your people as much as possible.

Q. How do you then resolve the security situation?

A. Well, I think this a big challenge, but this is a challenge that rests on the shoulders of the coalition and Iraqi security forces. My understanding is that this is what in Washington right now they are grappling with. For the UN itself when it comes to protecting our own people, our options are more limited. We don’t have our own army. We have to see where we are, what number of people we need to do our work, whether we can do work with reduced number of people. Protection of our people is essential and we have to look at it from various angles.

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