Shashi Tharoor Proposes Four-Point Agenda For UN Reform

Aug 29,2006 00:00 by Newsdesk

India’s nominee for the post of Secretary General Shashi Tharoor has said the greatest problem for the world body is that it does not have one big issue to deal with but a host of them shouting for attention.

An international institution like the United Nations with "impressive achievements" and "haunting failures" has changed but needs to change further, Tharoor said in an article in the forthcoming issue of a news magazine while suggesting a four-point plan to revamp the UN.

His reform proposal focuses on four priority areas mainly making democracy a priority; bolstering the ranks; prioritizing and streamlining in addition to healing wounds.

"The single greatest problem facing the United Nations is that there is no single greatest problem, rather, there are a dozen different ones each day clamouring for attention," Tharoor said.

"Some, like the crisis in Lebanon, the Palestinian situation and the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, are obvious and trying," he said, going on to talk about "problems without passports" -- issues like climate change, drug trafficking, human rights, terrorism, epidemic diseases, and refugee movements.

Tharoor, who is now a leading candidate to succeed Kofi Annan said finding solutions to these issues were beyond the ability of one nation or a group of countries and the key was "strengthening the capacities of both the united nations and its members".

He also emphasized on need for more efforts to promote democracy and good governance as key ingredients of development.

In the process of prioritizing and streamlining, the world body should be more sharply focused on areas like humanitarian disasters, peacekeeping and administering territories.

Regarding his last point - healing wounds, Tharoor argued that there was a great danger of the east-west divide of the cold war being replaced by a north-south divide at the UN.