www.unhistory.org
The Power of Ideas
UNIHP Book Series Ahead of the Curve? UN Ideas and Global Challenges (2001; 2nd edition 2003; French, German, Arabic editions published 2003) Unity and Diversity in Development Ideas: Perspectives from the UN Regional Commissions (2004) Quantifying the World: UN Contributions to Statistics (2004) UN Contributions to Development Thinking and Practice (2004) The UN and Global Political Economy: Trade, Finance, and Development (2004) UN Voices: The Struggle for Development and Social Justice (2005) Women, Development, and the UN: A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice (2005) The Power of UN Ideas: Lessons from the First 60 Years (2005) Human Security and the UN: A Critical History (2006)
UNIHP Book Series The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations (2007) Human Rights at the UN: The Political History of Universal Justice (2008) Preventive Diplomacy at the UN (2008) The UN and Transnational Corporations: from Code of Conduct to Global Compact (2008) The UN and Development: From Aid to Cooperation (2009) UN Ideas That Changed the World (2009) The UN and Global Governance: An Unfinished Journey (forthcoming 2010) Development Without Destruction: The UN and the Global Resource Management (forthcoming 2010)
International Advisory Council Makoto Taniguchi Galal Amin John G. Ruggie Margaret Joan Anstee Thandika Mkandawire Lourdes Ariz Enrique V. Iglesias Eveline Herfkens Gert Rosenthal Ramesh Thakur Andras Inotai
Funding Foundations Carnegie Corporation of NY Ford Foundation Rockefeller Foundation UN Foundation John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation Rockefeller Brothers Fund Governments Canada Finland The Netherlands Norway Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom Republic and Canton of Geneva
1999-2009 Ideas Matter. People Matter. www.unhistory.org
UN Voices -Interviews of UN personalities who have made a difference
Fernando Henrique Cardoso Sir Hans Singer Mrs. Ogata Samir Amin Elise Boulding Leticia Shahani Javier Perez de Cuellar Celso Furtado Adebayo Adedeji Bernard Chidzero Just Faaland Noeleen Heyzer Boutros Boutros-Ghali
9 UN Ideas That Changed The World Idea 1: Human Rights for All Idea 2: Gender Equality and Women s s Rights Idea 3: Development Goals Idea 4: Fairer International Economic Relations Idea 5: Strategies for accelerating development in poorer countries Idea 6: Priorities for Social Development Idea 7: Environmental Sustainability Idea 8:Peace and Human Security Idea 9: Human Development
Each of the UN Ideas has Evolved Human rights for all from aspirations to implementation Gender equality from eliminating discrimination to women s empowerment Environment sustainability from environment and development to climate change and saving the Planet
Peace and Security the evolution of UN ideas and approaches 1945 -Replacing conflict with the rule of law 1950s -Preventive diplomacy 1950s-1990s 1990s- Disarmament and Development 1948-2009 Peacekeeping -today160,000 deployed 1994 Human Security 2001 - The Responsibility to Protect
UN economic ideas have often differed from those of World Bank and the IMF but the Bretton Woods Institutions have received most donor support Fairer International Economic Relations needed in trade, aid and TNCs National Development strategies directed to accelerated national development Development Goals focused on human advance Social Development a a key component of development from the UN s s earliest years
The Pioneering Quality of UN Work is Often Not Realized: Nine Nobel Prize Winners in Economics 1969: Jan Tinbergen 1973: Wassily Leontief 1974: Gunnar Myrdal 1977: James Meade 1979: W. Arthur Lewis and Theodore W. Schultz 1980: Lawrence R. Klein 1984: Richard Stone 1998: Amartya Sen Lawrence R. Klein Amartya Sen
Sir W Arthur Lewis winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1979 and the first from a developing country LSE 1933-47 47 first class honours in economics1937, PhD 1940, lecturer 1939-47 Professor of Development Economics, University of Manchester 1948-57 UN Economic Adviser to the President of Ghana 1957-59 59 Deputy Managing Director of the UN Special Fund, which became UNDP 1960-61 61 Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies1961-1964 1964 Professor of Economics, Princeton University, 1964-1991 1991
Structural adjustment and the Washington Consensus have had disastrous effects Total increases in per capita income 1960-1980 1980 1980-2000 Latin America + 80% + 9% Sub-Saharan Saharan Africa + 36% - 15% So, the newly emerging consensus is that IMF programs hurt economic growth Source: Mark Weisbrot et al, The Emperor Has No Growth :Declining Growth in the Era of Globalization (Washington DC, Centre for Economic and Policy Research) 2001 Source: James Raymond Vreeland, The International Monetary Fund: Politics of Conditional Lending (Abingdon, Routledge) ) 2007
The Three UNs: : 1 st UN st UN Source: UN Photo Archives Governments
The Three UNs: : 2 nd UN nd UN Source: UN Photo Archives Staff members
The Three UNs: : 3 rd UN rd UN Source: UN Photo Archives Experts, members of commissions and NGOs closely associated with the UN
Interaction Among Three UNs 1st UN A B D C 2nd UN 3rd UN A: International and national civil servants interactions B: State-civil society interactions C: Secretariat-civil society interactions D: The networked space within which individuals and private organizations interact with the 1 st UN and the 2 nd UN to influence or advance UN thinking, policies, priorities, or actions
Fourteen UN Organizations and Individuals Have Received the Nobel Peace Prize 1949: John Boyd Orr 1950: Ralph Bunche 1954 and 1981: Office of The UN High Commissioner for Refugees 1957: Lester Pearson 1961: Dag Hammarskjöld 1965: UNICEF The UN Children s Fund 1968: René Cassin 1969: The International Labour Organization 1982: Alva Myrdal and Alfonzo Garcia Robles 1988: UN Peacekeeping Forces 2001: Kofi Annan and the UN 2007: The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (jointly with Al Gore) 2008: Martti Ahtissari Kofi Annan Martti Ahtissari
4 Ways Ideas Gain Global influence and traction Ideas change the way issues are perceived Ideas redefine state and non-state interests and goals, thereby setting agendas for action Ideas mobilize coalitions to press for action Ideas become embedded in institutions, with responsibilities for implementation & monitoring
A Balance Sheet of the UN s Contributions: The Positives 1. Promoting human rights for all 2. Providing an international framework for national development policies 3. Setting global goals 4. Quantifying the world 5. Changing the debate about trade and development 6. Proposing development policies that combine economic growth with poverty reduction 7. Bringing issues of environment and development to global attention, especially global warming 8. Promoting preventive diplomacy & human security 9. Promoting the human development approach
Negatives on the Balance Sheet 1. Late reaction to the Washington Consensus 2. Weak response to the special needs of the least developed countries 3. Too little done to introduce cultural aspects into the development equation 4. Tardy and weak reaction to HIV/AIDS 5. Inadequate attention inequalities of income and wealth, nationally & internationally
A Summary of the UN s Contributions The balance sheet shows a small but significant surplus The UN has led the way with many fundamental ideas, more than is often realized The UN has often been ahead of the World Bank and the IMF though these have received most donor support and most finance Ideas may be among the UN s most important contributions
Lourdes Arizpe Someone once said that the United Nations is a dream managed by bureaucrats.. I would correct that by saying that it has become a bureaucracy managed by dreamers.. Certainly you have to be a dreamer to work in the United Nations with conviction. It is only if you have this sense of mission that you can withstand the constant battering by governments who are afraid that the United Nations will become a world government So in the end, someone who works in the United Nations has to be a magician of ideas, because working for the United Nations is like working for a government in which all the political parties are in power at the same time.
Ten Global Challenges for the UN s s Future 1 Tackling global warming and climate change 2 Strengthening global governance in a multipolar world 3 Supporting fragile states 4 Balancing regionalism with globalization 5 Moderating inequalities in global development 6 Responding to population growth and international migration 7 Bridging international divides of culture and identities 8 Shifting the focus of security from states to individuals 9 Incorporating culture and human rights into development 10 Improving the quality of education worldwide
Strengthening the UN s Intellectual Work Encourage creative thinking Implications for recruitment and promotion More autonomy for research and related publications Create intellectual islands Seek alliances with many centers of expertise More sustained resources needed Concentrate on problems of real significance Dissemination of results is of the essence Rethink professional relations between UN and Bretton Woods institutions
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Sources for research on UN UN Websites many UNIHP = www.unhistory.org Oral histories =CD ROM of UNIHP interviews UK careers records and related records = Bodleian Library, Oxford
Some 450 Career Records of UK persons in accessible in the Bodleian Library, Oxford Helen Langley, FRHistS Curator, Modern Political Papers, Department of Special Collections ons & Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library Oxford OX1 3BG (Helen.Langley@bodley.ox.ac.uk) Michael Askwith, UNCRP Coordinator (askwith_michael@yahoo.co.uk) Website http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/bodley/services/using http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/modern/uncrp/uncrp.html ncrp.html