Tuesday, April 4, 2000; Page A28 Washington Post - Editorial
THE INTERNATIONAL institutions set up at the end of World War II are increasingly being questioned. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund were the subject of a critical congressional report last month. The World Trade Organization, successor to the postwar GATT, has yet to regain its balance after the Seattle protests. Yesterday a thoughtful report asked what the United Nations exists for.
The report comes from none other than Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general. Despite a career spent toiling within the U.N. bureaucracy, Mr. Annan has evinced a Gorbachev-like openness about its faults and a willingness to countenance restructuring. His new report includes an attack on the U.N. General Assembly's habit of passing countless mandates that never get phased out. And it accepts that the United Nations still has a way to go in modernizing its managerial procedures. No organization that averages 300 days to hire someone can possibly be efficient.
The report acknowledges that the United Nations has not kept up with changes in the international order. Its founding charter presupposed that war between states would constitute the most serious security threat. But far more people have been killed recently in civil wars and ethnic cleansing. To bring the United Nations up to date, Mr. Annan wants it to focus on people, rather than on the member governments that have traditionally been its constituents. This would allow it to side with citizens against governments in Kosovo-type cases.
Mr. Annan also proposes to harness new technology to the United Nations' humanitarian purposes. He has plans to distribute medical information via the Internet to poor countries. He promises a U.N. Information Technology Service to train groups in the developing world in the uses and opportunities of information technology. And he has persuaded L. M. Ericsson, the Swedish wireless telecom group, to create a global network of wireless communications for use by relief workers in natural disasters and emergencies.
The world needs institutions to manage globalization. The question is whether the United Nations is up to the job. Mr. Annan's report leaves no doubt about his own appetite for the challenge. But he depends on the backing of member states, which have a poor record of giving the United Nations the resources it needs to tackle peacekeeping, refugee relief and scores of other pressing projects.:
