UN: Technical Agencies

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the key objectives of United Kingdom delegations attending United Nations technical agencies in 2014; and whether they will report back to Parliament after the meetings.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, United Nations agencies are responsible to national Governments, who are their members and funders. These organisations with specialised purposes, from health to meteorology to communications, were formed even before the League of Nations and United Nations were. In the United Kingdom, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has an overall brief to ensure that the delegations to these agencies from various UK government departments and their semi-independent agencies represent UK interests effectively. Despite the strong and effective participation of the UK in these agencies, there is general concern that their profile in Whitehall and Westminster is not as high as it should be. It is obviously much lower than that of foreign affairs and international crises.

The United Nations Association, the voluntary body that supports the UN in the UK, works hard to raise the profile of UN bodies. These agencies have a vital role for key aspects of all countries of the world, both developed and developing; for example on health warnings, food safety, communications, aviation, weather forecasting and intellectual property. Sometimes Ministers attend the meetings of the UN agencies but fewer do from the UK than from other countries. I recall my noble kinsman Lady Bottomley attending the WHO meetings when she was Minister of Health, while Mr Meacher at Defra was an assiduous attendee of meetings at UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme.

My first point is that the agencies need reviewing from time to time, in the light of urgent issues, but while the UN and national Governments always look at efficiency in these reviews, they seem reluctant to look at the fundamentals of their operation and the budgets allocated in relation to the urgency of the problem. I am pleased that the UK contribution to UN agencies is not dependent on its policies or particular decisions; nor is it subject to lobbying by commercial or political organisations, as US contributions are. My noble friend Lord Rea will talk about the WHO; yesterday I learnt that there are threats to the WHO from the United States about its policy that sugar levels should be dropped to the equivalent of one glass of Coca-Cola per day.

Water resources are currently critical but the United Nations programmes—for example in UNESCO and the World Meteorological Organisation, which is also responsible for hydrology—have very small budgets. In the case of the World Meteorological Organisation, it is less than 5% of the total while 95% is for meteorology. Although availability of water is one of the key objectives of DfID, this is a surprising situation. Sometimes new agencies are needed, as happened in the 1980s when the United Nations Environment Programme was initiated. UNEP did a good job on the ozone hole but it is not being directed in an effective way by member countries to co-ordinate and publicise the national, regional and global problems associated with atmospheric and marine pollution. That is of course very topical at the moment, particularly in Asia. Marine pollution is in fact to some extent a responsibility of the International Maritime Organisation, based across the river here in London, but it plays a limited role. Is Defra considering stronger co-ordination by UNEP in this general area of pollution, since UNEP is probably the UN body with the biggest responsibility?

My next point is that the United Nations bodies are generally open in their communications. They are not secret; all their minutes are published before and afterwards and the communications between the members are open. However, it is very important that the recent exposure of certain Governments spying on the confidential communications of diplomats from other Governments and non-governmental organisations does not lead to a loss of trust between countries and agencies working in the UN.

I tabled a Parliamentary Question and was told, more or less, “We’re not going to answer that question because we do not talk about those things”. The fact is that they exist and this is a real issue. I hope that the Minister, in replying, will provide something more than I got in response to my PQ.

My next point is that the Government review agencies, but in doing that they should also consider the benefits to the UK: for example, in dealing with flooding, where other countries have developed useful approaches and, in some cases, have better research facilities. The Food and Agriculture Organisation studies of GMOs in agriculture are surely important. The recent reviews by United Nations bodies of the UK’s health and housing are very useful, although they were very controversial and the Government were not very happy with them. That is the kind of UN activity that is really impacting on us in the UK, which we therefore need to consider in reviewing those agencies.

One way to ensure improved benefits to the UK from our membership of the UN is to involve UK stakeholders, in which I include parliamentarians, to a greater extent in UN agencies; for example, through regular pre-meetings, report-back meetings and wider participation of UK delegations as observers. I am president of an NGO, ACOPS. We have observer status at the International Maritime Organisation and the London dumping convention, and we can provide some expertise. For example, there are now regular consultations between the Met Office and certain parts of the private sector, which are very welcome.

However, generally, the United States is stronger in that respect and positively ruthless in using its delegations to promote US technology. They have told me that they will vote or not vote because they were told by their industry to vote for this or not vote for that. That is highly directed to promoting US technology and US business. The Chancellor was calling yesterday in his speech for the UK to have higher exports. Perhaps he might talk to the Foreign Office UN department to see whether it could be of some help in that direction. At the executive level, there are now excellent relations between some UN agencies and NGOs, of which GLOBE is an example on issues connected with climate and the environment.

My third main point is that the United Nations as a whole has broad targets. I believe that the millennium development goals were a tremendous step forward for the whole UN movement, understood at the level of the sustainability commission in New York and the General Assembly. That brought together lots of activities. There have also been the broad goals of reducing carbon emissions. I believe that there could be more specific targets for agencies or groups of agencies—for example, I just mentioned pollution. Those targets could be openly discussed by parliaments as stakeholders and progress or regress towards achieving them should be openly reviewed.

Of course, targets require data, which remains a great weakness of the UN system and, indeed, the international system. UN bodies could urge countries to be more systematic in gathering data and more open with them. For example, sometimes even the most basic data are not available in some countries, such as whether there is or is not a sewage plant in the capital city of an African country. In the case in point, the answer was no. A study in another African country showed that several organisations are collecting very useful environmental and health data which are not well co-ordinated. The study, in collaboration with those organisations, recommended the use of data centres. The whole world would benefit from that. DfID does not seem to understand or support that view very strongly.

In closing, which goals and targets should be emphasised and publicised? They should relate to recent crises. One of the greatest crises at the moment is the Syrian and, earlier, Iraq conflict. Surely we should be thinking more about technical methods of identifying combatants and their weapons, as happened last year with the question of gases. We must consider how we can provide improved humanitarian aid. Those are technical and organisational questions and we should have targets for them.

The Bangladesh factory collapse last year led to the deaths of many hundreds of people. There should now be improved targets for the International Labour Organisation on factory health and safety. After the floods in Europe and Pakistan and the droughts in California, the water programmes need more technical focus and bigger budgets, as I have already mentioned. We could also have targets to help co-ordinate international and regional programmes for pollution episodes.

We could have improved warnings and assistance before, during and after natural and artificial disasters. The United Nations organisation for disasters, the ISDR, co-ordinates but with more funds it could have more ambitious targets. For example, should we not have a target that, say, 30 years from now we should finally be able to detect earthquakes? There is a good deal of research going on—big objectives are appropriate. A meeting in Parliament this morning showed the need for FAO studies of future food and fish stocks, and how they are in danger from exploitation, pollution and climate change, to be more widely understood by world leaders. We need some clarity in this area.

I look forward to the Minister’s response to the issues raised. I declare my interest as a former permanent representative for the UK at the World Meteorological Organisation, when I was head of the Met Office; president of an NGO; and vice-chair of GLOBE, working with UN agencies.