Written Answers. - United Nations Security Council.
Jim O'Keeffe
Question:
238
Mr. J. O'Keeffe
asked the
Minister for Foreign Affairs
if Ireland will use its position as a member of the UN Security Council to press for a qualitative change in the way UN aid programmes are conceived and administered.
[1805/01]
The Security Council has, under the Charter of the United Nations, primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security and the member states agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council. It is the Security Council which mandates all UN peace support missions. Ireland's national approach to peace and security has always been based on the key role of the council.
From time to time, the Security Council examines broad issues which have a specific development dimension. It has, for example, considered the global impact of HIV-AIDS on three occasions in the past year. The last such dis cussion was held earlier this month during which Ireland made an intervention. However, the day-to-day running of the UN funds and programmes and the policy considerations underpinning their operation is the responsibility of the agencies' respective executive boards rather than of the Security Council.
Ireland has just completed a three year term on the executive boards of the UN development programme, UNDP, the largest UN development body, and the UN population fund, UNFPA. Ireland was vice-president of the UNDP bureau in 1999. During our term on the boards we were actively involved in policy debate concerning the present and future orientations of these two key agencies. In particular, Ireland used its position to support the process of reform proposed by the UN Secretary General aimed at making UN aid programmes more effective. Over the past two years, the UN development group, consisting of all the principal UN development agencies, has been established to facilitate co-ordination. UN development assistance frameworks have been introduced at field level, again to improve co-ordination. Staff have been decentralised from HQ to the field and bureaucracy has been streamlined. UNDP, UNFPA and UNICEF have also adopted results based budgeting which emphasises outputs and outcomes. We will continue to monitor and encourage this process as observers on the boards.
Ireland is a permanent member of the executive committee of UN High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR, which is based in Geneva, and will become a board member of UNICEF in 2002. Participation in the boards will ensure that we continue to have an opportunity to influence the operation, performance and reform of these agencies.
Question No. 239 answered with Question No. 232.
