The United Nations
is now more at the centre of international affairs than it
has been for many years. We see the Secretary-General
and his staff driving diplomacy. They are on the
ground, moving forward peace efforts in the Middle
East and coordinating and sustaining peace operations
in Lebanon. The United Nations is drawing up
mandates and getting ready for new and urgent
assignments, such as the one in Darfur.
The United Nations is assisting countries coming
out of conflict, such as Burundi and Sierra Leone. It is
giving protection under international law to soldiers
and civilians in Afghanistan. It is also launching a
Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.
It is to the United Nations that we all turn when
other processes fail, and Norway is working hard to
support its leading role, be it by sending naval units to
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Lebanese waters, by having soldiers in Afghanistan, or
by training future peacekeepers for Darfur.
The policy platform of the Norwegian
Government states that:
“It is in Norway’s best interest that we have a
United Nations-led world order. The Government
will therefore work to strengthen the United
Nations and international law.”
The United Nations can count on Norway. We
believe that our combined efforts in the areas of peace,
the environment and development will pass the tests of
foresight as well as hindsight.
Those of us who are staunch supporters of a
strong and effective United Nations must also be key
players in driving the process of change and renewal. I
have the honour to serve with colleagues on a panel for
United Nations reform appointed by the Secretary-
General. The Panel is drawing up proposals on how the
United Nations can deliver more and do so better and
faster in the areas of development, humanitarian
assistance and the environment.
It was the 2005 Summit that called for greater
coherence in and better governance of the United
Nations. Over time the United Nations has added new
bodies, new organs and new activities to its portfolio.
Few people comprehend the overall picture; few can
tell what the United Nations is doing in a particular
country for development; and few can definitively
answer how much money the United Nations is
spending in a specific country.
In several countries the United Nations system is
represented by more than 20 different organizations. A
country such as Ghana is reported to be host to 14
different United Nations agencies. Many United
Nations organizations deal with many of the same
issues. This is simply overlapping. More than 20
different United Nations organizations deal with water
and more than 10 United Nations organizations deal
with the promotion of education for young girls. This
leads to a fragmented, loosely governed system; it
leads to duplication and reduces possibilities for
monitoring results. This is not the way we would
govern our own affairs — nationally or locally. It is
we, the Member States, who are to blame.
We must put an end to duplication, fragmentation
and rivalry between different parts of the system.
Instead, we must focus on results. We must be willing
to change, adapt to new situations and relinquish tasks
that are no longer needed. We need to ensure that less
is spent on bureaucracy, and more is spent in the field.
Let us take, for example, the coordination of
humanitarian relief after the establishment of the
Central Emergency Response Fund headed by Jan
Egeland. With these resources, he is able to coordinate
more effectively through the direction of the financial
flows. In the absence of a crisis governance and
financing cannot be separated.
All matters of reform seem extremely
controversial here in the United Nations, but they must
be carried out. The most irresponsible thing we could
do now would be to do nothing, i.e. to allow bodies,
governing boards and their representatives to duplicate
work and squander scarce resources.
The report of the High-level Panel on System-
wide Coherence will be presented to the Secretary-
General later this year. We have had an open,
transparent process. We have held meetings in all parts
of the world and listened to a great many stakeholders,
practitioners and country representatives. My plea to
you all — to all the Member States — is to meet that
report with an open mind.
Let me be clear about this: any efficiency gain
must be channelled back to the developing world.
Every single cent gained in improved performance or
reduced overhead must go to aid that reaches the
needy. Recipients and donors alike would find that
attractive.
We are in the fortunate position of having set
clear goals for the Organization. Six years ago we
adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
here in New York. We pledged to do our utmost to
achieve these goals — Norway is working on all eight.
This year we give 0.96 per cent of our gross national
product in development assistance and we will reach
the 1 per cent mark in a few years.
Now we have vigorously set out to take a lead in
realizing Millennium Development Goal 4, which
compels us to reduce child mortality by two thirds by
2015. Every year, children, in numbers equal to one
and a half times the population of New York City, die
before their fifth birthday — most of them from
preventable diseases. A number of children, equal to
the death toll in the recent tsunami, die every month
from pneumonia alone. Vaccines, costing just $20 for
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each child, could have prevented most of those
common diseases.
Allowing such child mortality puts shackles on
the growth potential of States, prolonging the long
night of underdevelopment. This can and must be
changed. Yesterday I announced that the Norwegian
Government has decided to increase its annual
contribution to child mortality and vaccines from
$75 million per year to $125 million next year. In total,
Norway will contribute $1.3 billion through 2015 for
vaccine-related activities to reduce child mortality.
The next step will be to develop a global strategy
for reaching Millennium Development Goal 4,
specifically a plan for financing and execution.
Meeting that Goal, and other Millennium Development
Goals, really depends on United Nations reform. An
organization that sets goals and carves them in stone —
as we did when we adopted the Millennium
Development Goals — such an organization must adapt
its structure and methods of work to these goals.
We also have to reform the United Nations to
reduce child mortality, i.e. in order to save lives as we
said we should. We have done great things in the past
and have greater means than any other generation and
any other organization. I invite you all to join this
global campaign for child survival.