Helen Clark, new UNDP head, addresses Pacific leaders
Updated
New Zealand's former Prime Minister, Helen Clark, who now heads the United Nations Development program, has given a keynote address at the "Human Face of the Global Economic Crisis" conference underway in Vanuatu. It's the first time Ms Clark has visited the Pacific since she took over the leadership of the United Nations' biggest agency in April last year. The UN has been heavily involved in aid relief efforts to victims of last month's earthquake in Haiti, but that hasn't prevented Ms Clark from attending the Vanuatu talks.
Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speaker: Helen Clark, former New Zealand prime minister, and head of the United Nations Environment Program
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CLARK: Certainly not, we've been at this conference crossed with UN development system for quite some time, it had special endorsement from the Pacific Island Leaders Forum back last year when it was hosted by Kevin Rudd, and the leaders have specifically asked for a report back from this meeting in their deliberations at the annual meeting this year. So we regard this as a very, very important conference. Of course the UNDP and every other multilateral agency has its work cut out in Haiti, but that won't be to the exclusion of very, very important other parts of the world like the Pacific.
COUTTS: Well how much of a setback is the global economic crisis for the poor and the vulnerable in the region, including the Pacific?
CLARK: When the crisis first took root, I think many felt that perhaps the least developed low income parts of our world would not be really directed impacted, but that was quickly proved to be wrong because the crisis in the Western developed economies have ripple effects right round the world. It had an effect on tourism for example into developing countries, not necessarily in the Pacific. It had an impact on remittances, it had an impact on demand for commodities and other exports. It had an impact on the price that was received for goods and services exported.
So all of these things came together in the Pacific and there will be no doubt that poverty levels have risen in the Pacific as a result. What this conference is looking at is, where do we go from here, and from the point of view of the UN development agencies, with our big focus on human development, we're obviously very keen to see governments prioritise social safety nets and also continuing to support children getting their education and basic healthcare. If a child is pulled out of school now because of the ripple effect of the economic crisis, then that is an opportunity denied which may never be regained. So it's very, very important that we look at the social side, the human impact of the crisis.
COUTTS: What do you mean by social safety nets?
CLARK: Basically in the global crisis a number of developing countries have looked to implement various protection schemes which can ensure that poor and vulnerable families still have enough to live on. We've seen for example in one country in the Arab world, a government brought its inspiration from what was done with India's national rural employment scheme, which gives a basic minimum income. In other places it will be perhaps in the forum of cash for work, in-kind grants, maybe lowering the cost of education so that families can still afford to send their children there. There's a variety of ways of putting social protection in place, and across the UN development system we have agencies, not only UNDP but UNICEF, well known in the Pacific, the World Food Program, the UN Population Fund, all rather active in this area.
COUTTS: Will the global economic crisis disturb the UN's goal to halve poverty - this is part of the Millennium Development Goals - by 2015? Will that have to be reassessed now?
CLARK: This is the issue that will be before the Global Millennium Development Goals summit at the UN General Assembly in September. We had been making rather good progress on goals like cutting the numbers of extremely poor people by half, but the recession has cast a shadow of quite a lot of this. For example the numbers of chronically hungry people in our world are going up, not coming down, probably 150 million more this year than would have been protected a couple of years ago. So that's why the way in which governments respond to the economic crisis, the way in which they move to protect the poorest and most vulnerable people is an issue of huge concern, because it will determine whether or not the Millennium Development Goals can be achieved.
COUTTS: Is there a risk that the poor and the vulnerable will suffer lasting disadvantage as a result of the global economic crisis?
CLARK: Yes there is a risk that the poor and vulnerable will suffer lasting disadvantage, if the right policies aren't put in place. For example if a family's income deteriorates so much that they can't afford basic healthcare, and the government's income reduces so much that it can't afford to continue a basic healthcare system or an education system, a family can't pay the school fees, all of these things can have lasting effects. If a family is so short of money that it can't adequately feed its children, that could have long-term effects on a child's development. So I think what's important about this conference in the Pacific, and I think this is very characteristic of the Pacific, is that people want to look at the human face of these crises and how we deal with the human development impact of them.
COUTTS: Well what do you see as the priorities for action to protect the poor in the Pacific?
CLARK: I think certainly social protection programs; they could involve as I said cash for work, they could involve school feeding programs, they could involve knocking back the costs of education and healthcare at this time. None of this of course is cost-free, but it has to be prioritised, and what experience of supporting countries through previous crises has shown is that the social protection systems put in place actually have long-term beneficial impacts in building a community's resilience to crisis. It's not just short-term, it's about long-term social protection systems which promote social development.
COUTTS: Well are the Pacific governments doing enough to respond to the economic crisis?
CLARK: Well I think there have been some quite useful things done and the advantage of a conference like this is that brings together people from across the Pacific nations to really brainstorm and share ideas. But as with much of the developing world there aren't deep pockets in the Pacific. People run fairly tight budgets anyway, there's not a capacity to borrow a great deal more. So we certainly advocate that governments look very carefully at the budgets that they have, to make sure that every dollar goes where it really is most needed.
COUTTS: Well Helen Clark you've been at the UNDP for 10 months now, what changes do you bring to the role and the way the organisation does business?
CLARK: My main thrust has been to really sharpen focus on poverty reduction and the Millennium Development Goals and to integrate what we do closely with our work on climate, the environment and energy. I felt there was a tendency to look at those two sectors of work programs as quite separate, and yet if you don't address the threats to the very eco-system of the planet on which we dwell, then you'll never have sustainable development. So I've worked hard to bring the two agendas together and to see the way in which we adapt to climate change, the way in which we mitigate climate change has been integrally related to how we pursue human development goals.
COUTTS: And what difference will those changes make in the Pacific and were they considered enough?
CLARK: At Copenhagen the Alliance of Small Island Sates would have gone away quite disappointed because they were pushing very much for a more ambitious outcome than was achieved. The small island states of course face not just environmental and economic issues arising out of climate change, some of them face their very survival if global temperatures can't be better controlled. So there would have been a real sense of disappointment. At the UN Development Program we are practical people, we know that negotiations for a climate agreement should and must go on, but we're now focused on what we can do practically to support people with the best strategies and policies that they have. I said at our conference that the Pacific is very rich in natural sources of energy. There's no reason why we shouldn't aspire to a carbon neutral Pacific where people draw on their own natural and renewable energy resources and save on the fuel bill. I do believe also there's a lot we can do on disaster risk management, including climate risk management here. So there's plenty of practical things to get our teeth into.
COUTTS: Now you have always had an interest in the Pacific,and now as well as being head of the UNDP you're chair of the committee of the heads of all UN agencies. Is that going to give the Pacific a greater profile within the United Nations system now?
CLARK: It certainly has from my point of view and it's been very, very humbling here in Vanuatu to be welcomed back home if you like to the region and to be seen as a Pacific person who's gone to New York and will make sure that a flag is flown for the visibility of the Pacific in the UN development system. So I certainly intend to honour that commitment.
COUTTS: And will the Pacific see any results on the ground of you having these roles?
CLARK: I think when our people in the Pacific know that the boss is taking a close and personal interest in how the region fares, then yes, of course it intensifies the interest and the focus. But as I say, on any ground the Pacific would merit our attention and support. There are a number of countries here who are well short of meeting the Millennium Development Goals, and at UNDP we have to also prioritise our attention to the poorest and most vulnerable. And there are a number of those in our population here in the Pacific.
