LANDMARK UNITED NATIONS REPORTS URGE ACTION TO ENHANCE COLLECTIVE SECURITY AND ACHIEVE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

As part of its drive to implement the 2000 Millennium Declaration, the United Nations recently issued two major reports: the first, by a High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, presents over 100 recommendations for the United Nations system and Member States to face the new security challenges of the century more effectively and under a strengthened multilateral decision-making system; the second, by the UN Millennium Project (a global network of specialists coordinated by the United Nations) submits considerations and proposals with a view to achieving the Millennium Development Goals over the next 10 years. The two reports will be at the centre of United Nations debates during the course of 2005 and are expected to provide an important conceptual background to the High-level Plenary Meeting of the Sixtieth Session of the United Nations General Assembly, to be held in September with a view to assessing progress in the implementation of the 2000 Millennium Declaration.

The report of the High-level Panel, entitled A more secure world: Our shared responsibility, is meant to energise the international community into rethinking the concept of collective security so as to encompass not only terrorism and military threats, but also the equally dangerous threats derived from poverty, transnational crime, environmental degradation and climate change, HIV/AIDS, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

At the same time, the report aims at providing governments around the world with an indication of the most urgent reforms needed to enable the United Nations to face these new challenges in an integrated manner. In particular, the report contends that the way in which the United Nations deals with issues remains too compartmentalised, resulting in an inability to adequately discern and address the multifaceted threats that exist today in the world. The authors note, for example, that it was only in 2000 that the Security Council held its first debate on the security risks posed by HIV/AIDS.

	Some of the most important recommendations from the High-level Panel report (A more secure world: Our shared responsibility) include the following: Expand the membership of the Security Council so as to make it more representative of the world in which we live today; Adopt a clear set of guidelines for the Security Council to follow when considering the use of military force; Establish a Peacebuilding Commission with representation from the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and other major stakeholders, to identify countries at risk, mobilise the appropriate preventive measures and provide necessary support for post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding; Consider a proposed new definition of terrorism and start work on a comprehensive new international convention; Initiate negotiations on global warming to build consensus on the measures required after 2012, when the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol will no longer apply; Make operational some of the current proposals for innovative approaches to financing for development; Establish a timetable for donor countries to reach the 0.7 per cent target of GNP in official development assistance (ODA), and conclude the Doha round of trade negotiations by 2006.

The report makes it clear that in this age of globalisation the challenges facing the international community are so interdependent and of such magnitude that they can only be addressed through global solutions. Multilateralism, governed by international law, is therefore of vital importance. Moreover, if governments want security for their people, they need to think of human security in the broadest possible terms. Development and security, in other words, have now become two sides of the same coin.

Precisely because security and development are so crucially inter-dependent, the UN Millennium Project report, entitled Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals, constitutes an important complement to the High-level Panel's conclusions. The United Nations Millennium Project consisted of a huge research endeavour that called on the word's foremost specialists in all fields of development to help identify the most effective investments that governments could make in order to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed to in 2000. The report avoids dogma and ideology to strike at the core of the development problem. Recognising that too many countries have gone off course in their efforts to achieve the MDGs, the report's main premise is that it is only through massive investments in physical infrastructure, human capital, and institutional development that poor countries can realistically meet the MDGs' 2015 deadline. One of the principal recommendations put forward in the UN Millennium Project report, and perhaps the most relevant one to the parliamentary community, is that governments design 10-year national strategies that would directly be geared to implement the basic blueprint of the report. Such strategies should be developed in consultation with all partners within a given country, and with the widest possible public consultation. Where Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers are already in place, the report recommends revising them to ensure that they are more explicitly designed to achieve the MDGs. Needless to say, parliaments play a key role here in developing the recommended strategic plans and ensuring broad national consultations thereon.

The implications of these two reports for the IPU and its Member Parliaments are many and far-reaching. Many of the recommendations set forward are in line with positions that the IPU has taken over the last few years. The need for a consistent definition of terrorism, for an improvement in the targeting of sanctions and for a predictable increase of ODA, and many other similar action lines, have also been addressed by IPU Member Parliaments. Other recommendations, in contrast, are new, and they deserve careful consideration at the parliamentary level.

Already, at United Nations Headquarters in New York there has been intense scrutiny of these basic documents. Many delegations have highlighted the areas where the reports have brought forward valuable arguments and contributions, as well as those aspects that have not been sufficiently or adequately explored. Among the latter, there are the role that economic development plays in safeguarding collective security; the need for Security Council reform to include not just broader membership, but also better methods of work and decision-making mechanisms; and the risks involved in limiting weapons proliferation at the expense of the promotion of disarmament.

As the world's parliamentary community is preparing for the Second World Conference of Speakers of Parliaments, to be organised by the IPU in cooperation with the United Nations later this year in New York, the two reports could not have come at a better time. They provide essential food for thought on the most critical issues of our time, and material that parliaments can integrate into their own deliberations. They also serve as a basis for consultation and analysis in designing the outcome documents for the 2005 World Conference, at which parliamentary leaders will be called upon to pronounce on the future of multilateralism, the strengthening of the United Nations system, and the further development of the parliamentary dimension to international cooperation, in particular in respect of the work of the United Nations.

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