Feeling the Heat, Seeing the Light

Once, at the height of the Cold War, during some heated debate about one of the issues dividing the two blocs, reporters grew exasperated with the taciturn responses of U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold.

“Could you say,” one of them demanded, “whether the compass points left or right? East or West?”

“It points forward,” Hammarskjold said.

It is now 10 years since Filipinos rose against the government of Ferdinand Marcos and installed Cory Aquino, a courageous neophyte politician, in his stead. I was a player in that spontaneous, people power revolution, and when it succeeded I left my post at the United Nations and headed for home.

As the United Nations considers the selection of a new secretary-general, I see that my years away from the organization have given me an enlarged, if not wholly new, perspective on what the U.N. needs as it enters its sixth decade and how the selection process can help.

People in the industrialized countries think of the United Nations mostly in terms of peacekeeping. Most news reports dealing with the U.N. focus on its role as a mediator, in, say, Bosnia, ignoring its role providing medicine to children with diphtheria.

The view is quite different from the perspective of developing countries. Without at all minimizing the peacekeeping role, we see the urgent need for a strong U.N. role in development. After all, in the decade ahead, the new challenges for humankind will come in the form of environmental protection and population management of a world that might total 11 billion people, the empowerment of women and the elimination of poverty. New challenges come from the modern plagues of Ebola and AIDS, from international crime syndicates and from corruption.

For me, these issues directly relate to the security of all human beings. They should be considered every bit as threatening to peace as armed aggression.

Maintaining international peace and security is vital, but balance must be struck between the needs for peacekeeping and development under a revitalized U.N.

To regain the balanced approach, which is clearly the wish of most members, the United Nations must make a number of critical reforms.

* Revitalize the General Assembly: The only principal U.N. organ in which all 185 members participate equally, the General Assembly is truly a universal body. However, its role is not being fulfilled in the way envisioned by the U.N. Charter. To give the General Assembly more scope, not only in peacekeeping but in every area, would ensure that the U.N. more accurately represents the wishes of the international community.

* Expand the membership of the Security Council: The last time the Security Council was expanded, the U.N. had 115 members. Since then it has added 70 countries. Expanding the Security Council--and strengthening the role of the Economic and Social Council--would take account of that change and other changes in international relations. Along with the change in membership, however, must come more openness--the wonderful term is “transparency”--in the council’s decision-making process. Watching the Security Council in action should not be like seeing through a glass darkly.

* Move promptly on administrative and management reforms: This isn’t new, of course. I remember then-Secretary-General U Thant saying in 1962 that the need for “streamlining of procedures has become more urgent.” Now the cumbersome working procedures of the General Assembly and the secretariat must change. The U.N. must improve management, cost-effectiveness and professionalism. The secretariat must also find ways of being more accountable to the general membership--without having its functions micromanaged.

* Create a sound and viable financial basis: There are a number of different perspectives on the reason for the U.N.’s current $2.5-billion debt. Still, it is clear that the U.N. must resolve such issues as the arrears of member states, the payment of contributions in full and on time and the scale of assessments--for both regular budget and peace-keeping expenses.

* Confront the issue of the status of women--both around the world and inside the United Nations: With women making up 70% of the 1.6 billion poor on this planet, with acts of violence from rape to circumcision destroying the lives of women around the world, this is an issue the United Nations must address. And as the challenge of Beijing made clear, the U.N. must stand up for women within its own walls. Only 14% of Level I jobs at the U.N. are held by women. That’s not good enough.

In the Philippines, there is one food everybody knows how to make. It is a rice cake, baked in a charcoal stove. We call it bibingka. While every family has its own treasured recipe, there is one element that always remains the same: The heat must come equally from the top and the bottom.

This is true of reform. It must rise from the grass roots. But there must be leadership from the top. Which is why we call our Filipino women’s movement, relying on community work and our national government, the Bibingka Movement.

The United Nations also needs to use the bibingka cooking method.

It is responding to pressure from below in these areas--pressure from the people of the world, members of civil society and the nongovernmental organizations. But a united U.N. membership and a strong secretary-general can also exert leadership from above. It is not enough for the United Nations to feel the heat. It must see the light.

My hope is that the new secretary-general, who should be a moral and diplomatic compass for the world, can help the U.N. reshape itself to meet these challenges. The compass must continue to point forward.