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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: United Nations Population Fund

Do We Need The United Nations?

26 Mon Oct 2015

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Opinion and Response

≈ Comments Off on Do We Need The United Nations?

Tags

Blue Helmets, children's rights, Dag Hammarskjöld, Department of Peacekeeping Operations, diplomacy, disease, DPKO, FAO, Food and Agriculture Organisation, genocide, global health, HIV, human trafficking, hunger, IFAD, International Fund for Agricultural Development, malaria, peacekeeping, polio, security, smallpox, tuberculosis, UN, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, UN Women, UN.GIFT, UNAID, UNDPKO, UNEAD, UNFPA, UNICEF, United Nations, United Nations Children's Fund, United Nations Electoral Assistance Division, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, United Nations Population Fund, United Nations Security Council, UNODC, UNSC, war crimes, WFP, WHO, women's rights, World Food Programme

In May 1959, Dag Hammarskjöld asked the Students Association in Copenhagen, “Do we need the United Nations?” Ever since, we have been periodically returning to that question whenever the UN remains conspicuously absent during a crisis. With enough ongoing crises to merit a sequel to Billy Joel’s 1989 hit, We Didn’t Start The Fire – Syria, drugs, Libya, human trafficking, Yemen, terrorism, Boko Haram, climate change, Afghanistan, water, Kordofan, disease, Somalia, poverty, Balochistan, refugees, South Sudan, hunger, Donbass – the United Nations has not had much positive press. Disenchantment with the Organisation, particularly in the more developed countries, has grown as various crises threaten their prosperity.

This is a very uncharitable and narrow view of the United Nations. There are many areas in which the United Nations been a vital force, many regions where Blue Helmets were the only acceptable foreign presence. The criticism of the UN falls short in that it conflates the two roles the Organisation plays: one as a forum for negotiations and the other as an executive body. Most dissatisfaction with the United Nations, when considered closely, is directed at the second role, the not infrequent failure of the Security Council to live up to our morality. However, it would be myopic to disregard the UN’s unsung successes in the several other aspects of the executive function, not to mention the importance of its negotiating platform.

Although despair at the UN seems to run high among policy wonks, the Organisation enjoys robust support among the public. In a 2011 Gallup poll, the UN registered greater approval than disapproval in 106 of 126 countries surveyed. Overall, 44 per cent of the people surveyed responded positively about the UN while only 17 per cent disapproved. The UN was most unpopular in the Middle East, North Africa, and the United States while its most ardent supporters were from Sub-Saharan Africa; 61 per cent of Qataris disapproved of the UN while 86 per cent of Sierra Leoneans approved of it. This spread is not surprising when seen as indicative of the UN’s successes and failures.

Some of the United Nation’s greatest hits includes food aid to war-torn, impoverished, and famine-struck countries. Since 1961, the World Food Programme (WFP) has been one of the most effective multilateral efforts against global hunger. With a workforce of only 11,500 people, the WFP, on average, feeds some 80 million people in 75 countries. Even better, the group fights to prevent future hunger by helping communities build food assets and providing them education and training in agriculture, food security, procurement, nutrition, logistics, and other related topics. Similarly, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have worked with the international poor by providing them microloans and grants for agricultural activities that not only feed them but also alleviate their poverty. Set up in 1977, IFAD has since reached over 430 million poor rural people.

The United Nations has also led the international effort against diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and polio. Through the World Health Organisation (WHO), Global Fund, and UNAIDS, the United Nations has provided medicines, including antiretroviral therapy, quinine, Rifampicin, Isoniazid, Salk vaccine, and sulfa drugs to millions of people; over 500 million insecticide-treated nets have been distributed to prevent malarial outbreaks. The UN has worked with other organisations and governments to raise funds, heighten awareness, and establish systems and protocols to prevent and fight epidemics. The successful campaign to eradicate smallpox is a testimony to the enormous work that has been put in by the UN, its affiliates, and cosponsors towards global health.

The cause of women and children has found a strong advocate in the United Nations. Expertise in mother and child health, family planning, and preventing sexually transmitted diseases has been shared with more than 100 countries via affiliates like the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Definitive measures were taken to create sources of clean water and improve sanitation and nutrition. The Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has made great strides in promoting literacy and protecting children against exploitation. The United Nations has been an important forum in drafting international conventions to remove discrimination against women in the political, civil, economic, social, and cultural life. Women and children are among the worst affected by human trafficking and the narcotics trade. The Global Initiative to Fight Trafficking (UN.GIFT) works to foster awareness, consolidate global support, and counter trafficking in consultation with governments. A trust fund supports victims’ rehabilitation. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) provides states technical expertise on illicit drugs and detection to help law enforcement; it also provides legal services to help draft and implement domestic and international legislation to thwart the influence of narcotics on institutions and society.

The United Nations has developed impressive credentials in holding and monitoring elections. Just in the last 25 years, the United Nations Department of Political Affairs (UNDPA), through its Electoral Assistance Division (UNEAD), has provided technical, logistical, and other support to Cambodia, Iraq, El Salvador, East Timor, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Congo, South Africa, and Nepal to conduct free and fair elections. The UN has participated in over 300 projects in the same time period, at times in locations where the only foreign presence acceptable was the international organisation.

Credit must also be given the United Nations for attempting to create a legal framework for war crimes and genocide. A sensitive issue inextricably tied to national honour and sovereignty, input is taken from several sources – states, individuals, advocacy groups – and progress depends on nearly unanimous decisions of several parties. There has been some success, admittedly slow, on tribunals covering the erstwhile Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia but funding is another hurdle.

Among the most visible activities that the United Nations performs is peacekeeping. In fact, the role is almost synonymous with the United Nations and seen as the raison d’etre for its formation in 1945. The Blue Helmets deserve credit for going into countries in which no one else had any interest. In several cases, neighbouring states were themselves too weak and divided to contribute to regional security. In Congo, Liberia, Kosovo, or Burundi, for example, the only alternative to UN peacekeepers would have been slaughter and mayhem. Most problems arising in UN peacekeeping operations are a result of vague mandates and the difficulty of managing troops from so many different sovereignties and varying capabilities and training. Currently, the United Nations is involved in 16 peacekeeping missions worldwide with an internationally contributed force of slightly over 118,000 troops, police, and civilian personnel. In many of these places, the UN is the most reliable institution on the ground.

Often underestimated is the United Nations’ presence as a forum for informal discussions on several issues of regional or international importance such as the removal of landmines, disarmament, nuclear proliferation, internet privacy, or climate change. The United Nations may not always take the lead in such discussions but the assembly of a permanent diplomatic conference facilitates low-key negotiations between parties in bilateral or even multilateral settings. Diplomats assigned to the New York office develop wide-ranging contacts and come to understand each other on a personal basis. Such anonymity and flexibility of exchanges are a great service to international diplomacy: their lack of publicity should not be taken to suggest that they are unimportant. On the contrary, the exact opposite is the case.

The most acrid criticism of the United Nations is reserved for its other most visible role – that as a security provider. The UN Security Council’s (UNSC) numerous failings are often cited as an indication that the UN has not lived up to its most important task. However, it must also be borne in mind that the United Nations was not created as a global gendarme, and there are practical as well as conceptual problems associated with demanding such a role. The Organisation is a collective of states and it is only with their permission that it can act on behalf of the world community. The United Nations has no independent army nor an economy by which to procure such an army; it depends on the contributions of its members to function in a military or civilian capacity.

The use of military force by the United Nations must have the support of all the Great Powers and the majority of the Security Council. Without this high standard of congruence, Hammarskjöld warned, no military action has an effective foundation with which to act. Furthermore, without such unanimity, the United Nations is susceptible to being transformed into a military alliance in a conflict between the Powers. The intervention in Korea demonstrated how dangerous such action could be if taken only by a simple majority of members. The United Nations was never designed to be an organ of collective security such as one of the alphabet soup of alliances the United States created during the early Cold War to contain the Soviet Union; rather, the aim was to create a universal system through which peace and other common goals may be pursued.

If the failings of the Great Powers diminish the UN, then it is a reflection of the prevailing world order and abandoning the Organisation will hardly contribute to peace and stability. Ultimately, though the nations of the world come together at the United Nations in false equality – one country, one vote – the Security Council is a reminder of global economic and military wherewithal. The UN is not truly an idealistic organisation as many suppose but a fairly pragmatic one, infused with just a little hope for a better tomorrow. To write off the UN because of difficulties or a few failures, Hammarskjöld reminded his audience in 1959, would mean, among other things, “to write off our hope of developing methods for international coexistence which offer a better chance than the traditional ones for truth, justice, and good sense to prevail.”

This past weekend, the UN crossed 70. I, for one, hope it has as many more.

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An Open Letter to the Indian National Congress

10 Mon Jun 2013

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on An Open Letter to the Indian National Congress

Tags

cereal, dairy products, eggs, Fair Price Shop, food prices, INC, Indian National Congress, inflation, milk, NAC, National Advisory Council, PFCE, Private Final Consumption Expenditure, Public Distribution System, pulses, sanitation, UNFPA, UNICEF, United Nations Children's Fund, United Nations Population Fund, vegetables, water, WHO, World Health Organisation

Dear Congress,

Namaskar. I did not vote for you. I would like to be able to, if only because I like to have a choice when I vote; I am no idealist and do not expect your candidates to be paragons of virtue, but it would be nice if they were at least viable and worthy of consideration. I am not even asking for integrity or competence, just that they not lead the country down a suicidal path.

You claim to represent the common man; you claim to work for him (her too, if you want to get all politically correct). You are less interested in big business or the burgeoning middle class. In fact, one of your critiques of your primary opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, in 2004 was their trickle down economics that served only the well-off. I can understand that even if I do not accept it.

I am not sure if you have looked in the direction of a common man recently. If you had, the first thing you would have noticed is how worried they are about the spiralling cost of food. In case you missed it, here are a few basic details: using 2004 as a base year, the prices of ten major food and crop groups in India have risen over 200%. If a family of five would have required ₹5,000 per month for food when you came to power, it is likely that the same family would need approximately ₹12,500 today. This data, by the way, comes from the Office of the Economic Adviser to the Government of India, which is a part of your government’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

 Food inflation, 2004-2013  Animal inflation, 2004-2013  Vegetables inflation, 2004-2013
All Food Groups  Animal Products  Vegetables
 Pulses inflation, 2004-2013  Cereals inflation, 2004-2013  Food Basket
 Pulses  Cereals  Food Basket
Food Prices Inflation, 2004-2013

The Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE), calculated by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), tells us that the highest three spending categories of Indian households are vegetables, milk products, and cereals, all of which have followed the general pattern of the food price rise. Vegetable prices in particular have been remarkably unstable, with constant spike during the nine years.

UPA InflationIn the same period, that is, the duration of your tenure, inflation has averaged 9%. Even if salaries had kept up with inflation, which is damn near impossible in the unorganised sector, the faster rising food prices would have pinched. For your aam aadmi, this would have been even worse. Also affected are the few middle class pensioners dependant upon a fixed income. A recent study conducted by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in India revealed that 71% of people between the ages of 60 and 80 were forced to work out of economic necessity. Though part of this is undoubtedly due to abuse of elders by their children, RS Deshpande, the director of Population Research Centre, Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), said that cost of living was largely to blame.

It is not merely the matter of food prices that worries the common man – it is reports of criminal wastage of food stocks thanks to asinine government regulations, transport bottlenecks, distribution bureaucracy, and poor storage facilities. The food that finally trickles through to the local ration shop is then subject to one last indignity – dispersal through the black market and adulteration of remaining stores to conceal the theft. It is not uncommon to find sand or tiny rocks in the rice, sugar, or other supplies from the Public Distribution System. Few readers will remember the socialist utopia of Indira Gandhi when food queues were the norm even for the middle class and tankers supplied water at odd hours of the night twice a week. Is that what you are trying to return us to, dear Congress?

An equally uneasy situation is the irregularity of the water supply – according to a 2013 joint World health Organisation (WHO)-United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) study, barely 35% of Indians have proper sanitation facilities and only 25% have piped drinking water while the rest rely on bore wells, tankers, and water bodies. As the Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation reports make clear, the government has been struggling with improved access due to over-exploitation of water sources, leaching of dangerous chemicals into water sources, and other problems. Not only is there a direct correlation between poor access to water and sanitation and health, water also happens to be one of those things we simply cannot live without. Why has this not been your top priority in the past nine years?

While the average person may care or understand less about nuclear policy, balance of trade, and external debt, I suspect there is increasing distress about rising transport costs. As state-owned transportation corporations hike the price of their monthly passes, the most directly hit are day labourers living far from the more expensive urban centres where they work. A monthly pass on Bangalore’s BMTC costs approximately ₹925, a sizeable amount for someone making ₹6,000 a month as a domestic servant. Please tell me you are not considering a Right To Transport now?

Speaking of travelling to work, could we have some? The National Development Council reports that in the five-year period from 2004-2009, India lost 19 million jobs. This is not even taking into account the number of jobs not created because the government has simply not made that sector a priority. have you considered that had you just done your job properly we might not have needed drastic resource sinks like NREGA?

To sum it up, the economic policy tailored for the common man raises the price of fundamentals such as food, makes it costlier for him to report to work, and when he finally gets there, tells him that he has been laid off. Crucially, your government has failed in providing access to the two most important things to life itself – food and water; everything else is a distant third. You, my dear Common Minimum Programme Party, have dropped the economic ball and done so in a grand fashion. Between your myriad taxes, inflation, and artificially created scarcities, why are you nudging people into corruption?

I will not include middle class woes here for two reasons: 1. this is a short letter and not a book; and 2. you don’t seem to be concerned about the middle class at all, your rhetoric always highlighting the plight of the lower-income groups. Even considering your record in serving just your hand-picked mandate, honestly, I am thoroughly confused – on the one hand, you create white elephant welfare schemes which we will be saddled with for an eternity as they ossify to form the third rail of Indian politics while at the same time losing control of events such that any potential positive effects of these schemes would be wiped out. It seems your only game plan is to create dependent automatons, not citizens.

I hear stories that India’s economy has been savaged by high oil prices and the European financial crisis. Yet oddly, India maintained robust growth even during the volatile initial years of oil price increases, and prices have been more stable of late. As for the Eurocrisis which hit in 2010, it does not explain the 19 million jobs lost in the five years prior to that. In any case, if we wanted a government that made excuses, we would have searched among third grade truants. Why do we need you?

I fundamentally disagree with your welfarist policies; nonetheless, I would have been willing to accept your goals as alternate ideas of growth had you actually delivered on them. My problem, dear Congress, is that not only have you severely damaged the Indian business class but you have also compounded the problems of the Indian lower class while doing so. Not only are you not delivering what you should, but you are not delivering even what you promised. Sadly, you do not take the responsibility for your actions but waste our time with your insipid and interminable commentary on secularism, the excesses of social media, which minister is ready to sweep whose floor, and other inconsequentials.

The 2014 elections are not far off; I’d like to ask you to not compete at all, but it is India’s curse that you are the only viable alternative national party there is. So let me ask you this, and one of you will particularly appreciate this question: would you rather be remembered like the Medicis or like the Borgias?

Yours sincerely,

An Indian lucky not to live under your misrule.


This post was published at Rediff on June 21, 2013.

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