11:56 AM May 24, 1996

TRANSLATING MIDRAND SPIRIT INTO ACTION

Geneva, 24 May (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The staff of the secretariat of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, and government delegates, with "a politically and diplomatically successful" UNCTAD-9 behind them, are waiting to see how, and how soon, the renewed and strengthened mandate, as Secretary-General Rubens Ricupero put it, will be reflected in the work of the restructured intergovernmental bodies and the secretariat itself.

At the end of the Conference's ninth session at Midrand, Ricupero viewed the outcome with satisfaction and said UNCTAD had emerged as a "rejuvenated" and "reborn" institution, with its mandate clarified and strengthened.

Mr. Ricupero is due to be back at his desk in Geneva next week, and the followup to Midrand is expected to be high on his agenda.

Several of the countries and delegations who played a prominent role in making UNCTAD-IX a success, stress that the compromises in terms of future work and priorities set at Midrand need to be translated quickly into concrete work plans for the intergovernmental bodies and provide a focus for the secretariat work.

The final document of UNCTAD-IX has set a 10 July deadline for the Trade and Development Board to meet in Executive Session and establish the three Commissions decided upon at Midrand, and two agenda items for each of them from within their priorities agreed upon at Midrand.

With UNCTAD-IX having broadly welcomed and supported the pre-conference announcement of Ricupero in restructuring the secretariat (an action that lay within his ken), the details of the restructuring, including how and who would do these analytical, programmatic and technical assistance activities within the secretariat will be watched to see the direction the new UNCTAD would take.

In proving its relevance and usefulness by the quality of its work on the development dimensions of the global economic scene, the UNCTAD secretariat has to contend with the fact that its relatively meagre 120 and odd professional staff have to match, in terms of quality of output, the vast financial and human resources behind the OECD, the World Bank and the IMF -- all controlled by the North and functioning in their interest and pushing its agenda -- and the WTO with its coercive enforcement instrument of trade retaliation.

UNCTAD can do so only by effectively exercising its real 'comparative advantage' and approaching its tasks with an objective and open mind, uncluttered by any pre-conceived ideological baggage or conclusions that seem to characterise work in the other organizations.

As UNCTAD-IX ended in Midrand on 11 May, with all countries affirming the relevance and future of the institution with focus on development, one of the elements that struck observers was that the United States, unlike at past conferences, neither entered any reservations nor made any interpretative statements.

In the runup to the Conference, and in pre-conference negotiations at Geneva, the major industrialized nations, particularly the US and the EU, clearly wanted to limit and reduce the role of UNCTAD, and particularly any role as an institution in analysis on trade issues or monitoring of the implementation of the Uruguay Round (and identifying 'winners' and 'losers' and how to compensate the latter), or as a forum for discussions of either the built-in agenda of the WTO or the new 'trade' issues.

They repeatedly stressed the 'complementary' role of UNCTAD, with WTO, and need to avoid 'duplication' -- seeking to achieve all this through the budget-cutting exercise throughout the UN system.

While the EU did this more subtly (by talking of UNCTAD's role as one of helping the 'integration' of developing countries into the global economy, and repeating it twice at the final plenary), the United States spelt out in Geneva, and at the initial negotiating stances at Midrand, its view that UNCTAD should become a technical assistance agency, focusing on the needs of the least developed countries.

The developing countries, particularly the African and Asian regional groups of the Group of 77, on the other hand went to Midrand with the aim of ensuring the continuance of UNCTAD and its role as a premier UN body focusing on all aspects of development and their inter-relationships.

In a pre-conference briefing for some of the foreign newsmen at Midrand, a senior UNCTAD official was reported to have said that the Asian view (about maintaining UNCTAD mandates and focus spelt out in the 1964 UN General Assembly resolution) and the US view (for cutting down UNCTAD, and keeping it essentially as a technical assistance agency for LDCs) represented the two extremes of this debate.

The US hard-line though was tempered at Midrand by the realization that so long as UNCTAD remained an organ of the UN General Assembly, there was no way the US could 'withdraw' from UNCTAD (and deny it funds) without doing the same to the UN and the General Assembly.

This coupled with the realization of many EU member-states that, given the distrust of developing countries, both of their governments and increasingly vocal public opinion in these countries, of the BWIs and the WTO, the continuance of UNCTAD and its fora could be useful to persuade these countries to adopt the policies and measures favoured by the North, provided the elements for a compromise.

Also, the opening session of the Conference, and the views and comments of the Heads of State who participated in the round table, on the need for 'guidance' at international and multilateral level to curb the excesses of the "globalization" and neo-liberal economics set a tone that the conference participants could not easily repudiate or reverse.

At the end, after many deadlocks that threatened to undo patient efforts at forging a compromise, the final document and a political 'Midrand Declaration' was adopted by consensus, with no reservations or even interpretative statements, giving the institution a chance to rejuvenate itself and ensure a future till the next Conference in the next millennium in Thailand.

This enabled Ricupero to say (at the final plenary and a closing press conference) "We are born again" and that UNCTAD was coming out of the Conference with a "clarified and strengthened mandate in all its indispensable ingredients."

It was an achievement that few could have predicted during the preparatory process.

There are however many contrary pulls and pushes.

The US, as also the European Union and its Commission for e.g., clearly envisage UNCTAD promoting their new agenda in the WTO -- a multilateral investment agreement, trade and labour standards and other questions -- and would not easily allow an independent UNCTAD view.

Developing countries on the other hand do not have a clear and united view and the Group of 77 in Geneva (at UNCTAD) are far away from moving in this direction.

The Group of 77 was largely non-functional at UNCTAD-IX and seems unlikely to change, unless the foreign ministries of the member countries (who now deal with the G77 activities at annual meetings in New York at the General Assembly) take a hand in the matter.

In a report to the one-day Ministerial meeting of the G77, the South Centre in effect suggested that given the current situation of the countries and the difficulties of united stands based on consensus (which enables a few to block actions of the large majority), those having problems with a particular position should stand aside and allow others to take a common view.

With UNCTAD bodies having less of a negotiating role, it should be easier for the minority, some of whom feel closer to the OECD neo-liberal views, to allow this to happen. But whether they would is an open question.