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The Specialized Agencies and the United Nations: Progress Report II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Walter R. Sharp
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Extract

Since the preparation in August 1947 of the first part of this report, three significant developments affecting the scope and character of United Nations–specialized agency relations have taken place. First, the “family” of specialized agencies, in being and in prospect, has substantially increased in size and variety. Second, the regional machinery of the Economic and Social Council has been expanded by the establishment of economic commissions for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) and for Latin America (ECLA), with the probability that a similar commission for the Middle East will be authorized before the end of 1948. Together with the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), set up in the spring of 1947, these subsidiary instrumentalities of the Council will be concerned with a wide range of reconstruction and developmental activities which bear directly upon various functions of FAO, ILO, Bank, Fund, and ITO and which, in addition, introduce a further element of complexity in the task of coordinating international economic programs. The third development, important from the procedural standpoint, was the action taken by the General Assembly at its second regular session in November 1947, and by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at its sixth session in March 1948, in spelling out methods for treating the budgets and reports of the specialized agencies.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , June 1948 , pp. 247 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1948

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References

1 Agreements had previously been approved with ILO, FAO, UNESCO, and ICAO. See the Report of the Joint Second and Third Committee (Document A/449). for a summary of the basis Mayupon which the new agreements were accepted.

2 It should be noted that the WHO agreement will not legally go into effect until it has been approved by the First World Health Assembly, now scheduled to meet in Geneva on June 24, 1948.

3 These two agreements, in draft form, had previously been approved by the Congress of the Universal Postal Union (XIIth Session, May–June 1947), and the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunications Union (May–October 1947), respectively.

4 New Zealand joined the three Soviet Republics in voting against the agreements; Yugoslavia and Australia abstained. Interestingly enough, in view of later political developments, both Poland and Czechoslovakia cast affirmative votes. Document A/349 contains the approved texts of the two agreements.

5 For the complete text see Resolution 81 (I) in Document A/64/Add. 1.

6 The Consultative Committee on Budgetary and Financial Arrangements set up by the Co-ordination Committee had previously explored rethis contentious issue and come to the same conclusion, apart from the technical difficulties involved in any such procedure.

7 By Resolution XII (4) adopted on 13 February 1946. Document A/64.

8 See Document A/426 for the text of this report.

9 See Resolution 165 (II) in Document A/519. Whether the Assembly's comments on the UNESCO budget reached Mexico City in time to affect the decisions of the Conference is doubtful. Report has it that some of the UNESCO delegates displayed resentment over the Assembly's action. Even so, the Conference did reduce the Director-General's estimates for 1948 from $8,500,000 to $7,682,000.

10 See Document A/497 for the report of the Joint Second, Third, and Fifth Committees which summarizes the conclusions reached and gives the full text of Resolution 125 (II).

11 See Document A/C.2/112 for the Greek, and Document A/C.5/179 for the Belgian, proposal.

12 A Canadian proposal “to entrust to the Interim Committee of the General Assembly the task of considering any recommendation or decision by one of the three Councils involving expenditure beyond the approved budget and of recommeriding … to the Secretary-General that necessary advances be made from the Working Capital Fund,” was defeated for similar reasons.

13 Documents E/614 and E/625. This committee had met in October at Lake Success and again in January in Geneva for its second and third sessions. The Council, in a fit of pettiness, renamed the Committee “The Secretary-General's Committee on Coordination” – disregarding the susceptibilities of some of the agencies represented on it.

14 The text of the resolutions is contained in Document E/765.

15 The second report of the committee (Document E/625) indicates the wide range of questions which are now coming to its attention.

16 See Document E/578 for this report. In an effort to extricate itself from its own tangles, the Social Commission set up at its second session an “Advisory Committee on Planning and Coordination.” At the time of writing, this Committee had just issued a report (Document E/CN.5/46) which indicates substantial progress in the attempt to allocate feasible international action in such fields as child welfare, migration, housing, and the prevention of crime – none of them a major responsibility of any one agency.

17 This of course is not true of the subcommissions, whose members are private experts.

18 Not all of the agreements include a specific provision on this last point, but it is implied. Inpassing, it should be noted that three agencies (ICAO, Bank, Fund) have been averse to entering into formal accords with other agencies, preferring rather to rely on ad hoc arrangements as occasion requires.

19 Perhaps the most fruitful instance to date of this method of inter-agency collaboration is the special committee set up by FAO and WHO to advise the International Children's Emergency Fund on the nutritional aspects of its child-feeding program.

20 United Nations information centres are now in operation at Copenhagen, Geneva, London, Mexico City, Moscow, New Delhi, Paris, Prague, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Warsaw, and Washington.

21 This important document (Sales No.: 1948 II.C.I) bears the title: Economic Survey: Salient Features of the World Economic Situation 1945–47. For summary of ECOSOC discussions, see this issue, p. 317–8.

22 Document E/288.

23 United Nations Sales No.: 1948.II.D.1.

24 Resolution of March 10, 1948. Document E/747.

25 The complex business of how to coordinate regional facilities and activities within the United Nations system is now under careful review by the Coordination Committee, which has recommended that no further regional offices should be set up, except in cases of urgency, pending the completion of the study.