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Al-Ahram Weekly 23 - 29 September 1999 Issue No. 448 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 23 - 29 September 1999 Issue No. 448
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Comment Focus Special Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Challenges to humanity
By Mona Makram Ebeid *
at century's endMuch concern is being voiced as to the need to enhance and realign the United Nations so that it can better meet the challenges of the next millennium. As humanity enters the 21st century, it faces prospects both forbidding and promising. If promise is to triumph, the nations of the world need an organisation that will enable them to pursue, in common purpose, a world where equity and justice prevail, a world of shared economic progress, a world in which future generations can live securely and well, at peace with themselves and the environment on which their very survival will depend.
Fifty-five years ago, the United Nations was created, brought into being by the vision, hope and determination of men and women who had seen at first hand the dangers of rampant nationalism, economic depression, freedom lost and war unbridled. Today, in a vastly altered world, the United Nations offers broader promise than even its founders could have imagined. But it has not come through these 55 years unscathed. Like any good vessel, it needs overhauling and refitting.
Human creativity and invention have made the conditions of life across a good portion of this planet far better than they were half a century ago. The regions of the world and their peoples, still widely separated only yesterday, face the future as a community drawn ever closer by shared ideas, communication, economic exchanges and, I believe, a common yearning for freedom and peace. These transformations are related to the unprecedented revolution in communications and to an emerging global economy that, despite its regional, cyclical and structural anomalies, is far more open than it was when the UN Charter first called for international cooperation to resolve economic problems.
Yet a daunting array of problems, deriving in fact from these very transformations, stands ahead. While the growth in global production has brought a widespread increase in standards of living, it has also brought into sharper and more telling focus the disparities in wealth between countries and between social groups within them. The economic and social problems that confront us are by no means limited to the most disadvantaged countries. Very different societies are challenged by debilitating debt, the volatility of the international financial system, unemployment, persistent poverty and increasingly destructive crime and corruption. More than one billion people now lack clean water; 1.7 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. Demographic changes are also frightening: in 1945, the earth's total population stood at some 2.5 billion. Today, it is 5.7 billion and increasing by an additional 95 million human beings each year. The prospect of hundreds of millions born into circumstances of instability and want is among the gravest challenges facing humankind and one, like so many others, that can only be handled successfully within a multilateral framework.
The United Nations is an association of sovereign states and must respond to the governments of the world. But the profound transformations and growth of civil society in our time -- the rapidly growing importance and power of non-state actors such as the media, religious groups, business communities and people everywhere -- have created a new dimension in international cooperation.
Let us not forget that the lines of division of the world of the last half century are giving way to new lines, a new world "undoing and remaking itself" in the words of Taher Ben Jelloun and Mahmoud Hussein, two Arab writers with distinguished intellectual credentials. Instead of being frozen by the East-West ideological battle and the north-south decolonisation struggle, the arguments are about civil society and individual rights confronting established political and economic power.
At the heart of the UN system, UNESCO occupies a unique place and therefore can and should have a vital role. It is an organisation committed to "promoting collaboration among nations through education, science and culture in order to further the rule of law and for human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world without distinction of race, sex, language or religion..." Leadership of this important body is vital. But leadership also requires a strong voice able to provide the moral authority, intellectual stimulus and organisational skills to sustain its credibility and effectiveness.
It needs a leader committed to that mission -- someone who is both a visionary and a doer, a communicator and a manager, devoted to human dignity, peace, justice and liberty. International civil society has found such a leader. Having examined Dr Ismail Serag El-Din's record and worldwide achievements in poverty reduction, sustainable development, empowerment of women, maximisation of food production through applied scientific research and his impassioned commitment to the respect of human rights and good governance, apart from his numerous contributions to the fields of literature, art and the preservation of architectural heritage, it has endorsed without reservation his candidacy to lead UNESCO into the new century.
To date, over 230 prominent public figures, both in Egypt and worldwide, among them some 40 Nobel laureates, have endorsed Serag El-Din as the new director-general of UNESCO when Federico Mayor completes his second and final term. In their view, Serag El-Din fulfills the criteria required for that post in a remarkable way; he is a visionary leader in the development field, recognised as an innovator and coalition builder, a champion of the poor, minorities, and women as well as the weak and marginalised everywhere. He is a proven manager, who rose through the ranks to become vice-president of the World Bank and who simultaneously heads the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP), Global Water Partnership (GWP) and the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century. He has numerous contributions in each of the three main areas of UNESCO: education, science and culture.
Although he represents a country, Egypt, one of the main signatories of the Declaration of Human rights (in 1948) and one of the oldest members of UNESCO's Executive Committee (40 years), he is not the official Arab candidate. His candidacy has been put forward and ratified by the Organisation of African Unity. Lately, both Sweden and Holland have endorsed his candidacy, and hopefully more governments will follow suit. Elections will take place on 16 October, and the final decision will be made on 15 November.
Any plans for improving international machinery must take account of civil society. This is the path to follow, the path that echoes the proud openings of the UN Charter: "We the Peoples of the United Nations... resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims..."
If UNESCO is to gain the respect of people everywhere, it will have to rely on their participation. Only then will it be recognised by all as the best hope of humankind in confronting the dangers and opportunities of the years ahead.
* The writer, a former member of the People's Assembly, teaches political science at the American University in Cairo.
