Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre

Member states must make UN’s goal real

The Sunday Business Post, Dublin, 17 September 2006

The United Nations has an important role to play in the modern world write Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Irish minister for foreign affairs Dermot Ahern.

This week’s official visit to Ireland of the King and Queen of Norway will highlight the links between our two countries. But beyond this lies a common endeavour to use our resources for the universal ideals expressed by the United Nations.

The goal of the UN is a world of peace and security ruled by justice and respect for human rights. When the reality is different we tend to blame the UN. It has strengths as well as weaknesses. It is good, for example, at maintaining discussions on important issues leading to consensus and legitimacy, as with Security Council resolution 1701 that helped end the war in Lebanon. The UN has clearly defined its reform agenda. Ireland has played its role as an envoy seeking the international community’s endorsement for that agenda.

The UN also has a fairly good record at promoting respect for human rights and will do better with the new Human Rights Council. It is hoped it will choose to follow the forthcoming recommendations from the high-level panel on system coherence, co-chaired by the Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg.

Peace mediation and peace operations are also among the UN’s strengths, but it is less good at peace-building. Ireland and Norway are strong supporters of the new Peacebuilding Commission and its fund - to which Ireland has committed €10m and Norway €24m. Disarmament and non-proliferation remains stalled.

And what about poverty? Or disease? How many people are dying of Aids? What do the appalling figures for child mortality tell us? What about progress in providing clean water, in combating desertification, in halting environmental degradation?

Why do we work in partnership with a UN that falls so short of our expectations and hopes? Because the failures are not those of the UN as an organisation – but the collective failure of its members. There is an important distinction between the UN as an organisation and the UN’s member states who make the decisions, instruct the UN and agree on its resources.

The gap between what the UN ought to do – and what it can actually achieve – lies at the heart of the gap between ideals and reality. The answers to the challenges facing the world can only be found with the help of the UN and the resources its members provide.

Ireland and Norway are playing their part. Ireland plans to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI) on development assistance by 2012, three years ahead of the deadline. Norway’s expenditure is near 1 per cent, putting it in the top ten of donors in volume terms. The UN expresses all our ideals about a peaceful, secure, fair world, but it can only be as good as we, its members make it.