UN Summit on financial crisis fails to rise to the challenge

The United Nations is the only universal institution bringing together all the nations of the earth. It has a priori more legitimacy than the G20. The disappointment in the UN’s efforts to address the financial crisis, and especially its impact on developing countries, are therefore all the more disappointing.

The UN conference on the world financial and economic crisis and its impact on development provided for continued discussion, but in no way measured up to the extreme gravity of the situation, civil society participants said as the conference ended on June 26.

Gemma Abada, ITUC representative to the UN in New York said: “the titanic is sinking and governments are thinking about the arrangement of the deck chairs”. There is a major gap between the penetrating analysis and recommendations of Nobel Prize winner economist (and former World bank Chief Economist) Prof. Joe Stiglitz, and the outcomes approved by governments. Preparations for the conference had been in disarray with competing drafts for an “outcome document”. The conference was deferred at the last moment from the first to the last week of June. Finally, it was attended by 140 out of the UN’s 192 member states, and only one head of government (from Ecuador). The document made some references to the need to achieve the MDGs and to defend education and health (points that were strangely missing in the General Assembly President first draft). But as Gemma Adaba of the ITUC said, the declaration was “so unclear on decisive action”.

The UN Secretary General has exhorted member states to take decisive action. But they have been found to be wanting. The Pittsburgh G20 summit on 24-25 September will be “crunch time” for global coordination of an effective response to the crisis. The UN General Assembly will open its general debate in New York on 22 September and G20 leaders are expected to attend a high level session of the Assembly on 26 September. So there is the prospect of moving from decisive action at the US-hosted G20 Summit in Pittsburgh to broader legitimacy for global action at the UN. Such decisive action is a year overdue, for the full extent of the global crisis became apparent in September 2008. Whether the leaders of G20 and other nations will at last rise to the occasion remains to be seen.

Links:
The Outcome document is available in English, French and Spanish at the following website:
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/CONF.214/3&referer=http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/&Lang=E
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