On Friday the GII convened its latest EA2 meeting, a dialogue focused on how to bridge from the G8 and the progess made there in dealing with poverty and disease to the UN Summit in September.  The discussion went quickly to the broader agenda that will define the UN Summit. As participants explored the prospects for answering Kofi Annan's call to think about security and development as pieces of the same puzzle, it was clear that a primary objective at the summit -- alongside taking stock of progress on dealing with poverty and disease -- must be progress on credible and effective UN reform.  The degree to which Americans see the UN confronting its scandals, cutting its bureaucratic flab, and reflecting the ideals for which it was founded (such as respect for human rights), will cast the MDGs either as worthwhile investments that demonstrate the UN's potential for making progress on shared problems, or as a bureaucratic sinkhole that we would do better to work around.

Frank Gaffney Jr. made an impassioned argument in Tuesday’s Washington Times that the financing demands ("globotaxes") imposed by the MDGs are paramount to pouring money down a sinkhole considering the failures of the UN.  He sees current reform proposals doing nothing more than "reshuffling the proverbial deck chairs."

Understandably, Gaffney is opposed to aid mechanisms that are manifestly poor investments.  But his objections cloud the issue.  The MDGs are themselves a cost-saving tool in that they spread the costs of fighting poverty and disease among many contributors, calling on each country to make the same proportional investment toward solving the problems of underdevelopment with which UN member-states must to contend in any case. 

Not only this; the MDGs entail a commitment by recipient countries to work toward specific, measurable goals.  This is a much more logical, cost-effective way to go about dealing with problems that both the President and Congress have pledged to address and which the American people -- as seen in myriad polls -- take seriously.  Not only do we shoulder less of the burden financially, everyone pulling in the same direction, but everyone is looking in the same direction too.  Mishandled or extorted aid would be a thumb in the eye of every donor nation paying attention.  All told, it’s hardly the "taxation without representation" that Gaffney says has "America’s Founders spinning in their graves."

So the MDGs are -- in a functional UN -- a good idea.  But is the UN capable of making the MDGs work?  It’s hard to argue as Gaffney does, that the UN is "dominated by the unfree… a protection racket for the world’s despots and, effectively, an abettor of those who would supplant liberty with corrupt authoritarianism, or worse."  But it’s also difficult to dispute that the UN’s internal procedures don’t produce some bizarre and woefully distracted results. 

Radek Sikorsky, a former Polish foreign minister, notes that "Decades after the end of colonial rule around the world, UN institutions continue to call for an end to colonialism.  Not everybody knows, for example, that we live in the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, a celebration declared by the General Assembly in 2000.  However, by 'colonialism', the UN does not mean the subjugation of foreign peoples, or even genocide, of which there is no shortage around the world."

Sikorsky points out that these kinds of oddities, coupled with "morally repugnant and politically counterproductive" situations like the UN Human Rights Commission, which has become a political shield for human rights abusing countries, leave no wonder that "many of the claims that its enthusiasts make on behalf of the UN seem to apply not to the organization as it is, but as it should be."  Americans demostrably resonate with the UN as it should be, but it’s no surprise that they view its performance with skeptisism.

So can we – and if so how and when can we – expect the UN to reform?  And for those of us that communicate to Americans about the MDGs and the UN role as a whole, what are we to say?

Gaffney points to Rep. Henry Hyde’s legislation that would force the UN to adopt 38 specific reforms immediately, or forgo half of U.S. dues, accounting for about an eighth of the UN budget.  A recent op-ed in the Washington Post likens this to "using a sledgehammer to drive a nail into an antique table: Even if you’re aiming at the nail, you’re going to cause damage." 

The Washington Post op-ed concludes by answering both the policy question and the communications question: "Mr. Hyde and his congressional colleagues must ponder a basic question: Is the U.S. national interest best served by disengaging from the United Nations and allowing it to atrophy for lack of resources?  Or is the national interest served by supporting the institution, even while pushing it to reform?"  Both UN and US leaders have proposed constructive reforms. 

Even from the perspective of the Bush administration, much concerned as it is with the spread of freedom and democracy, the UN has many tools that should be of immense help, such as its recently-organized Democracy Caucus.  Working in this context would provide legitimacy for U.S. action, both for the pursuit of democratic reform abroad and a huge range of other priorities, from nuclear proliferation, to anti-poverty, the spread of disease, the care of refugees, and the provision of peacekeepers and nation-builders.  All of this should provide both policy makers and Americans who care about any and all of these issues a powerful motivation for constructive UN reform.