UNCED: Who will Hold the Purse Strings?

rio de janeiro, jun 3 1992 (ips/ramon isberto) -- while the problem of how to pay for programmes to curb global warming and other threats to the world's ecology dominated the first day's speeches at the u.n. conference on environment and development (unced), green groups here say the question of money is secondary.

the real issue is who would run the programmes and hold the purse- strings of the post-unced world, they said at a parallel summit here of non-governmental organisations (ngos).

according to martin khor of the third world network (twn), a malaysia-based ngo, ''the key issue is who will control the institutions that will emerge from unced.''

''will it be the bretton woods institutions which are dominated by the north -- the world bank, the international monetary fund (imf) and the gatt (general agreement on tariff and trade?'' he asked. ''or will it be the united nations, where developing countries have some say and influence?''

he added that if the north wins out in this tussle, ''you can kiss development and environment in the third world goodbye''.

in the run-up to the unprecedented summit being held in this brazilian seaside city, financing has been the most difficult issue under discussion and has defied all efforts at compromise.

according to estimates of the unced secretariat, 125 billion dollars a year of new aid money would be needed to fund the programmes of 'agenda 21', the plan of action for development which the more than 100 world leaders are expected to adopt here.

the group of seven (g-7) industrialised countries have said that raising such sums was out of the question while their economies were in a slump.

the talk now is that some five to 10 billion dollars yearly would be available for various projects under the action programme.

khor argues that the wrangle over money for the green fund is only part of a larger tug-of-war over the institutional framework which will run the post-cold war order that pits the developing country members of the united nations against the bretton woods institutions.

he says the mechanisms of the united nations which address social and economic issues of interest to the third world are losing out to the bretton woods institutions.

the closure of the u.n. commission on transnational corporations (unctc) was cited. also, the u.n. commission on trade and development (unctad), which had served as a forum for the third world to press for changes in the international economic order, has been eclipsed by the gatt.(more).

''the only part of the u.n. system that is being strengthened is the military, the peace-keeping forces, which are under the control of the big powers through the security council,'' khor said.

opposition to an expanded role for the world bank lies at the heart of third world opposition to the north-backed proposal that the post-unced green kitty be handled chiefly by the global environmental facility (gef).

though the gef is jointly managed by the u.n. development programme (undp), the u.n. environmental programme (unep) and the world bank, developing countries under the umbrella of the 'group of 77' (g77) fear the bank would dominate the fund and thus make it unacceptable.

the debate has thus become an argument over whether the gef should be ''the'' or ''an'' appropriate mechanism for managing the green kitty. g-77 chairman, pakistani ambassador jamsheed marker, refers to this controversy as one over institutional interlinkages.

third world governments fear that handing over the management of post-unced green funds to the world bank would mean more aid

conditionalities. green groups say the bank's environment record is dismal and that its projects have often hurt rather than helped the environment.

at the last unced preparatory meeting in new york, marker said gef would be acceptable to the g-77, if the world bank and the fund were reformed. the suggestion prompted the u.s. representative to storm out of the meeting.

world bank officials bristle at the charge that leaving the gef to the fund would be like ''giving a logger an energy-efficient chain saw''.

asked to react, the bank's chief officer in brazil, armeane choksi said: ''tell me, which institution has a better environmental record. and would the situation be better in many countries with the bank or without the bank''.

dennis mahar, the chief of the world bank's environment division in latin america, stressed that the bank had stepped-up its environmental programmes worldwide and had vastly increased the personnel and resources working fulltime and part-time on this concern since the mid-1980s.

the undp's representative to the gef management, michael gucovsky, stresses that the facility is jointly managed by the three partner agencies, and that recent reforms in the gef structure would give developing countries an equal say in its management.

but some developing countries are more attracted to the idea of channelling post-unced funds through such agencies as the undp, unep and unctad.

''we should go for institutions which are run on the basis of one country, one vote, rather than those that go by the principle of one dollar, one vote,'' khor said. (end/ips/en/ri/yjc/92)

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