Ban Ki - Moon: The new face of the United Nations by Jeffrey Sachs Project Syndicate 10:13am 28th Nov, 2006   Nov. 25, 2006    On Jan. 1, Ban Ki-Moon, South Korea"s former foreign minister, will become U.N. secretary-general, following Kofi Annan"s 10-year tenure. In addition to the long-term challenges of poverty, the environment, nuclear proliferation and U.N. reform, Ban will inherit a long list of hot spots: Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia, Myanmar, Sudan, North Korea and others.    Recent attempts to influence developments in these countries through threats and sanctions, and sometimes war, have failed. Most are less stable today than they were five years ago. Clearly, a new approach is needed.    The leading Asian countries, including Ban"s South Korea, have long favored a balance of diplomatic approaches and economic incentives as the way to solve complex challenges. Rather than relying on sanctions and threats of force, the idea is to underpin long-term prosperity in today"s unstable regions. This balanced approach is important because most of the world"s hot spots are in trouble not only, or even mainly, because of politics, but, as in Darfur, because of the underlying challenges of hunger, disease and environmental crisis.    Defusing the crises in Darfur and elsewhere will be among the greatest challenges facing Ban. Yet it is vital that the United Nations not simply lurch from one hot spot to the next. The United Nations also has the unique role and opportunity to offer leadership in building a global consensus around vital long-term environmental and economic challenges facing the planet.    In fact, from 1992 to 2002, member governments of the United Nations signed several treaties and agreements that can and should provide the foundation for long-term global solutions. Three treaties emerged in 1992 out of the so-called Rio Conference on the Environment -- on climate change, biodiversity conservation and desertification. In 2000, the member governments agreed on the Millennium Development Goals. And in 2002, they agreed on the Monterrey Consensus, pledging concrete efforts to triple aid flows to the poorest in order to reach the international goal for foreign assistance of 0.7 percent of rich-world GNP.    The key for today"s United Nations, therefore, is not to create more goals, but to implement those that have been set. Ban has made clear his intention that the United Nations should implement the commitments that the world community has made. Without implementation, all of the treaties in the world would lead us nowhere.    During his mandate as secretary-general, Ban will face the challenge of forging a global agreement on climate change for the years beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol ends. Likewise, the Millennium Development Goals remain far off track in the poorest countries, with just nine years to go. Despite a global pledge to reduce significantly the loss of biological diversity by 2010, huge areas of rain forest and oceans continue to be destroyed.    If the United States works more closely within the U.N. framework, it will find willing partners in the rising Asian powers, which require global stability to underpin their own long-term development. They are acutely aware of their increasing global influence as investors, trading partners and as contributors to and victims of environmental change. Behind the scenes, they can help to defuse the crises in Darfur, North Korea, Myanmar and elsewhere. They will be crucial to forging new cooperative approaches to climate change, water scarcity, and the like.    Ban assumes his post with the world yearning to solve festering problems. Importantly, there is already broad agreement on shared goals. Those goals are achievable. The challenge is implementation.    * Jeffrey Sachs is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also a special advisor to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals.    ©2006 Project Syndicate Visit the related web page
	Next (more recent) news item
	Next (older) news item