It is difficult to believe that in just 48 hours, the world spends $4.7 billion on its military resources, but that according to the United Nations is what is happening. The revelation must give pause for considerable thought. How come with the Cold War long over and the international community settling down to expanding global trade, such immense sums are still being expended on projects to kill people?
However, the reason the UN has highlighted this figure is not to deplore it but to seek the selfsame amount in the coming year from the international community to save people - to help victims of war, famine and natural disaster. In 2005, no less than 30 million people have become victims of one or other of these tragedies, only the latest of which has been the Kashmir earthquake.
Comparing this with last December’s tsunami, it is clear that the world’s response is sadly partial. There seems to be some truth in the charge that it was because many Westerners were victims of the tidal wave that Western reaction to aid appeals was fulsome and generous. By contrast, the appalling results of the Kashmir quake brought only a limited Western response. Among Europeans, the British were to the fore but this was in part because of their large indigenous Asian community. Most large economies did their financial duty only when they were shamed into it when the shortfall in aid was made clear at a donor conference.
The problem, however, rests not simply in skinflint governments but in the structure for aid collection and disbursal. On paper this is clearly a job for the UN. A disaster emergency fund is already in the process of being created, which would give the UN the financial clout to commit resources immediately as need arose. Unfortunately, strong arguments are being made against the UN having such a responsibility. The organization has in certain areas become a byword for waste and inefficiency with subsidiary bodies such as UNESCO and the FAO being widely criticized.
However, the most damaging effect on its reputation has been the scandal over the Iraq Oil for Food program. What should have been a sophisticated humanitarian operation was turned by Saddam Hussein, his minions. greedy and dishonest UN officials and cynical and criminal companies around the world into one of the biggest-ever feeding troughs of corruption. Though Secretary-General Kofi Annan is committed to long-overdue root-and-branch reform of the UN to make it both transparent and properly accountable, the harsh fact is that this malfeasance took place on his watch. This truth offers the perfect excuse to governments who wish to shirk their international financial responsibility.
Thus those who stole so shamelessly from the Oil for Food program actually committed an even greater crime. In sullying the reputation of the UN, they also undermined its ability to be the agency of first relief for the world’s suffering poor. It is nevertheless up to the international community to look beyond this failing and back the UN appeal because in reality only the UN can do this job.
