Ban fails UN and global challenge
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
"We are facing a perfect storm of new challenges."
- UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
All global problems come together at the United Nations, according to its
secretary general Ban Ki-moon. Yet few of the answers are found at the world
organization and its offshoots, especially regarding economic woes, including
food security.
The more severe the food crisis, the more prominent the UN's economic role
should be in galvanizing the international community's collective effort to
find viable near- and long-term solutions. The void of leadership is evident,
for instance, at the Group of Eight (G-8) summit in Japan earlier this month,
as well as the World Trade Organization (WTO), at present stalled with
indecision on agricultural policy. Ban needs to be more impressive in dealing
with recalcitrant governments and others and weigh in with the magnetism of
charisma and the heat of personal pressure, and not just the skills of a
reasoned communicator.
The Doha round [1] of WTO discussions on agricultural policy are now in their
eighth year, without any discernible sign of a breakthrough. The current food
crisis and its policy ramifications have served only to sharpen conflicting
perspectives and interests between, for example the developed and developing
nations. This is to the detriment of a much-needed consensus on global
agricultural trade, irrespective of the gains already made in the complex
negotiations on various issues of market access, tariffs and domestic support
for the agricultural sector.
Addressing G-8 leaders in Japan, Ban identified three "key challenges" to the
world community, that is, climate change, food crisis and a crisis of
development. Given the lack of significant progress toward achieving the lofty
objectives of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDG), he characterized the
net efforts so far as "too divided, too sporadic and too little".
The G-8 summit, nevertheless, concluded without any new financial commitments
to ease the food crisis, warranting severe criticism from several players in
the global community. The UN secretary general limited himself to praising the
summit's achievements and in so doing shed new light on the limits of his
leadership style of perpetual quiet diplomacy and confrontation-aversion,
keeping him hopelessly beholden to the initiatives of the US and other leading
developed nations.
Whatever the merits of Ban's bureaucratic style and his apt hand in pursuing
management reform at the UN, his inability to dominate the scene and exert the
necessary heat to solicit required results reflects a one-dimensional
leadership ill-suited to the growing mix of global problems confronting the UN
today.
"Our most important work is often the least visible," Ban wrote in an oped
article in International Herald Tribune recently, without presenting any
understanding that for the UN to achieve more it desperately needs more
visibility and an imposing presence. More than keen analysis of global problems
and the viability of solutions proposed, personal and charismatic leadership at
the UN's helm would be difficult to resist, be it in regards to the Myanmar
junta on the issue of humanitarian assistance or in confronting G-8 leaders on
the scale of food aid requested by the UN.
The Food and Agricultural Organization, a branch of the UN that feeds some 90
million people in more than 70 countries, has called for 16 billion euros to
tackle the food crisis. Yet the G-8 nations have committed only US$10 billion
since January 2008. Nor have they heeded the call of many leading economists to
stop devoting arable land to biofuel and instead boost agricultural output for
food purposes. Yet, unable to utter a word of criticism at the poor performance
of the G-8 leaders, Ban has once again demonstrated the sub-optimal leadership
role he has brought to the office.
Ban's unreflective championing of trade liberalization also leaves a lot to be
desired. Thus, although he has repeatedly stated that "we must boost
agricultural production," Ban has also stated: "We must encourage nations to
eliminate the export restrictions that many placed on foodstuffs this spring,
as well as the more long-standing subsidies that many developed nations provide
their farmers. Such artificial barriers distort trade patterns and drive up
prices."
In fact, government subsidies to farmers drive down prices and should the US
and EU follow Ban's advise and deeply slash their present farm subsidies, the
net result would be considerably higher bills for food importing nations,
particularly those in the South. Ban actually "corrects" himself elsewhere by
calling for more, and not less, government assistance to farmers, for example
in Africa, by helping them to "get the improved seeds, water pumps [and] soil
nutrients".
The Doha round's various "boxes" of permissible and impermissible subsidies
notwithstanding, the secretary general should be more careful than issuing a
blanket condemnation of all import restrictions and/or subsidies, particularly
since Doha's special provisions for the developing nations and the
least-developed nations dictate otherwise. [2]
In other words, there is a perceptible lack of fit between Ban's pronouncements
on the food crisis and the specific guidelines promulgated by the Doha
discussions. As a result, the UN secretary general is in danger of appearing
out of touch with the complex details of the on-going debates on WTO's
agricultural policy.
Unfortunately, a similar criticism is applicable to many Third World leaders
who have naively echoed Ban's call for the elimination of farm subsidies in the
developed countries. The problem has also infected the World Bank, which has
issued a report recently citing major gains for the developing nations in case
those subsidies are sharply curtailed and or entirely eliminated.
There is no doubt about it, the World Bank experts got it wrong on their
previous advise to developing nations regarding farm subsidies, and they
continue to get it wrong by giving the UN secretary general and other world
leaders wrong advise on the role and impact of Western governments' farm
subsidies. [3]
Again, such analyses are completely skewed and miss the point about adverse
impact on global agricultural output if the Western farm subsidies are
eliminated at this critical juncture. Instead of using arcane Third World
lenses, this problem requires a more sophisticated theoretical mill to analyze
it and to search for solutions, such as how to substantially increase the
volume of direct food assistance on the part of US and EU by committing more
government resources to food production, as well as by promoting a timely food
export reorientation.
This requires greater subsidies of energy inputs in the agricultural sectors in
light of the high oil prices affecting the cost of transporting goods and
purchasing fertilizers. This would be part and parcel of a new micro (and
macro) economic policy in tune with a new global collective effort to address
the worsening food crisis.
Unfortunately, a high-level group that the UN secretary general has put
together to study the food crisis, drawn from the usual suspects, appears to be
oblivious to the need to "swim against the current" and to come up with
innovative solutions.
Flawed and imperfect responses to a gathering storm in today's slowing global
economy simply aggravate the problems instead of alleviating them. Part of the
problem is, however, the inadequate appreciation of incremental steps, such as
food assistance, wrongly viewed as putting a "Band-aid" on a gaping wound,
without due consideration of how multiple bandages can bring a timely respite
as an essential prerequisite for regaining full health.
Notes
1. A clue to the problems with the Doha rounds, Russia has been classified as a
"developed country" in the agricultural discussions when, in fact, everything
about Russian agriculture bespeaks of the typical problems confronting
developing nations, one reason why Russia insists on much larger farm support
than allowed under WTO rules.
2. See the WTO here
3. For a typical World Bank study published a few years back that is innocent
of any reference to emerging food crisis see
Distortions to world trade
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of
"Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume
XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping
Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author
of
Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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