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Annan Calls for "Culture of Conflict Prevention" in U.N. Member States
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan Friday called upon U.N. member states to focus more on preventing conflicts than on resolving them, and to forge ties with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and business sector with this end in view.
In his report to the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Security Council, Annan said, "Since assuming office, I have pledged to move the United Nations from a culture of reaction to a culture of prevention."
The report has two objectives, he said. The first aim is to review the progress that has been achieved in developing the U.N.' s conflict prevention capacity, as called for by both the General Assembly and the Security Council; the second is to present specific recommendations on how the U.N. system's efforts in this field could be further enhanced, with the cooperation and active involvement of member states.
The report contained 29 recommendations, most of them aimed at getting the 189-member world body to be more alert to rumblings of conflict and more forceful in stopping before they explode.
Citing a study by the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, the U.N. chief said the international commission had spent an estimated 200 billion U.S. dollars in the 1990s on seven major intervention in places where violence broke out: Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, the Gulf, Cambodia and El Salvador.
The report was released as all 15 Security Council members are leaving New York for a visit to Kosovo, a Yugoslav province, and Annan said that the United Nations should make more use of " innovative mechanism" and fact-finding missions.
However, he said, "the U.N. is not the only actor in prevention and many often not be the actor best suited to take the lead."
"My basic premise is hat the primary responsibility for conflict prevention rests with the national government and other local actors," Annan said. "Without a sense of national ownership in each case, prevention is unlikely to succeed."
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