SUNS  4315 Tuesday 3 November 1998

United Nations, Oct 30 (IPS/Thalif Deen) -- The United States and the European Union (EU), usually the best of political friends, are in a fight for one the top jobs in the U.N. system: Administrator of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP).

The Europeans say they have a right to the job which has been monopolised by U.S. nationals for more than 32 years. EU members have increased their individual and collective contributions to the
U.N. system while U.S. funding for UNDP has declined and there also was the question of Washington's non-payment to the United Nations of some $1.4 billion in arrears.

"It would be outrageous to look for any other national than an European," the Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation Eveline Herfkens told IPS. "We know it is an appointment made by the
Secretary-General (Kofi Annan), but we have a EU candidate. The most important thing is that Europe should get it."

The 15 EU members are: Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Britain, Belgium, Finland, Italy, Austria, France, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Luxembourg.

In a letter to Annan last month, Austrian Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schussel named Poul Nielsen, the Danish Minister for Development Cooperation, as the "common EU candidate" for the job. The United States has not formally submitted the name of any American candidate.

Writing in his capacity as EU chairman, Schussel also reminded Annan that the member states of the EU "contributed almost 60% to the core budget of UNDP, yet the Office of Administrator has never been held by a citizen of an EU member state."

At a news conference here last month, Schussel pointed out that the European Union was the main financial contributor to the United Nations, paying 36% of its regular budget, nearly 40% of foreign
aid, between 55 to 60 percent of the cost of peacekeeping operations, and nearly 60% of aid to Palestine.

Besides its huge arrears, the U.S. is also seeking to have its contributions to the world body reduced: from the current 25% to 20% of the regular budget of one billion dollars annually.

The U.S. contributions to UNDP which reached a high of $160 million in 1985 have declined during the past decade to $124.3 million in 1993, $113 million in both 1994 and 1995 and a low of $51 million in 1996.

"The reduction undermines the leadership of UNDP Administrator Gus Speth, an American who has been highly responsive to our concerns about improving the quality, value and accountability of U.N. programmes," then U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright told the U.S. Congress in June 1996.

"And it could put at risk continued American leadership at UNDP when Mr. Speth's term expires..."

Following her strong plea, Congress decided to increase the 1997 funding for UNDP to $76 million and in May last year Speth was Speth was re-appointed by Annan for a second four-year term.

Schussel said the EU had, at that time, asked Annan to give "favourable consideration" to an European candidate "thereby more properly reflecting the European contribution to the activities of
the UN development organisations."

But Annan opted for Speth.

Last month, however, Speth announced he would leave the job in June next year - and long before his term was to expire in 2001 -- prompting Europe to press its claims once again. Speth has accepted an offer to be the Dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University in the state of New Haven.

Addressing the National Press Club in mid-October, Speth himself was critical of U.S. cuts on development aid, prompted mostly by a rightwing Republican dominated U.S. Congress.

"Our economic interdependence with the rest of the world, including the underdeveloped world, has not been matched by a willingness at a policy level to engage the world," he said.

"Take the case of development assistance. In 1956, 63% of all development assistance came from the United States. Last year, it was down to 13 percent," he said.

Speth also pointed out that in 1960, 4% of the U.S. budget went for development and international affairs, in general. Today, he said, that figure stands at less than one percent.

"When you compare the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) devoted to development assistance among the other industrialised nations, the U.S. ranks dead last," Speth said, adding that "contributions to the U.N.'s development work remains modest, and the one billion dollars plus owed to the U.N. remains unpaid."

Denmark, which is strongly backing Nielson's candidature for the UNDP job, is the second largest contributor to UNDP in absolute terms and number one in terms of the country's population of 5.1
million people.

Denmark is also one of only four countries - the others being Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden - to exceed the U.N. target of 0.7% of gross national product (GNP) as official development
assistance (ODA) to the world's poorer nations.

Over the years, the job of UNDP Administrator has been held by Paul Hoffman, David Owen, Rudolph Petersen, Bradford Morse, William Draper and Speth - with the exception of Owen, all U.S. Nationals.

Hoffman was head of the U.N. Special Fund from 1959 to 1966. David Owen of Britain was chairman of the U.N. Technical Assistance Board from 1950 to 1966 when these two bodies were merged into the new UNDP. The two men served as co-Administrators of UNDP from 1966 to 1969 when Owen retired and Hoffman continued as sole Administrator until 1997.

Of the three other major U.N. Funds and Programme whose heads are appointed by Annan, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) is headed by Carol Bellamy and the World Food Programme (WFP) by Catharine Bertini, both U.S. nationals, and the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) by Nafis Sadik of Pakistan.