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calls the situation a shambles. Now on BBC News it is time for | :00:00. | :00:10. | |
HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. What is the | :00:11. | :00:15. | |
point of the United Nations? It has a multi`billion dollar budget, a | :00:16. | :00:17. | |
sprawling bureaucracy and a broad mandate to better the human | :00:18. | :00:20. | |
condition, but when the going gets tough, does the UN have an effective | :00:21. | :00:31. | |
response? It is a question that might be asked in Syria today, maybe | :00:32. | :00:37. | |
in Iraq and South Sudan as well. A host of other countries as well. My | :00:38. | :00:43. | |
guest is the UN's third most senior official, Helen Clark, the boss of | :00:44. | :00:46. | |
the UN Development Programme. Is the UN failing the people who need it | :00:47. | :00:48. | |
most? Helen Clark, welcome to HARDtalk. | :00:49. | :01:19. | |
Would it be fair to say that people around the world have lost their | :01:20. | :01:24. | |
faith in the United Nations as a force for good? I do not think they | :01:25. | :01:30. | |
have lost their faith, but the are a lot of conflicts and issues around | :01:31. | :01:38. | |
the world that the UN struggles to address effectively. Whether that is | :01:39. | :01:42. | |
the UN's fault or the nature of the conflict itself is another matter. | :01:43. | :01:46. | |
Are you prepared to allow it might be the UN's fault? When you look at | :01:47. | :01:51. | |
the Security Council, it is not always to get agreement. Syria is | :01:52. | :01:58. | |
the example of that. The conflict is in its fourth year. Over 2 million | :01:59. | :02:06. | |
refugees. People say, why can't something be done? The Security | :02:07. | :02:10. | |
Council cannot give a mandate if among its permanent members there is | :02:11. | :02:15. | |
a disagreement. That must be deeply frustrating for you. You had up the | :02:16. | :02:19. | |
development programme, you chair the entire development group of UN | :02:20. | :02:25. | |
agencies. There is so much work you could and should be doing inside the | :02:26. | :02:29. | |
Syria, and yet you look at the political masters in the Security | :02:30. | :02:31. | |
Council and it is utterly dysfunctional. Decisions cannot be | :02:32. | :02:36. | |
taken. There was a calculation last year that Syria had lost 35 years in | :02:37. | :02:44. | |
its development ranking because of this conflict. It is enormously | :02:45. | :02:48. | |
frustrating. Syria had done quite well in terms of capital, education | :02:49. | :02:54. | |
and health. That will drops away with the conflict. We are still | :02:55. | :02:57. | |
trying to raise money to change the things that can be done for people | :02:58. | :03:03. | |
in those difficult circumstances. But that is the tragedy we see. I | :03:04. | :03:09. | |
characterised it as people around the world losing face. But you have | :03:10. | :03:15. | |
to go in every day to work, sometimes in the Middle East, and | :03:16. | :03:22. | |
you must say, a lot of the work I am trying to do is pointless. | :03:23. | :03:26. | |
Development can only happen if there is some semblance of peace, security | :03:27. | :03:31. | |
and stability on the ground. In Syria there is none. The UN has no | :03:32. | :03:38. | |
idea how to further stability. It is very hard to get any traction on | :03:39. | :03:41. | |
development where you have instability. If you look at South | :03:42. | :03:48. | |
Sudan, which began its life as a new nation in 2011, had a lot of support | :03:49. | :03:53. | |
behind it, it went up in flames with the conflict last December with | :03:54. | :03:59. | |
250,000 displaced, significant hunger problems. `` a quarter of its | :04:00. | :04:07. | |
people. You make it sound as though all you can do is sit back and | :04:08. | :04:12. | |
watch. The UN has to take some stability of what happened in South | :04:13. | :04:17. | |
Sudan. You had a presence there even before independence was finally | :04:18. | :04:20. | |
achieved. You have emission of many hundreds, plus thousands of security | :04:21. | :04:29. | |
forces. And yet it seemed like the UN was completely taken by surprise. | :04:30. | :04:35. | |
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If you apply hindsight to think that on | :04:36. | :04:43. | |
the 1st of July 2011 there was a new nation with no package of conflict | :04:44. | :04:50. | |
from the past, a lot of genuine efforts went into trying to do State | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
building at the most basic community level and the political system there | :04:55. | :04:58. | |
was tremendous division and a lot of baggage from the past. We have to | :04:59. | :05:05. | |
try and build from the bottom up. I was going to start by talking about | :05:06. | :05:10. | |
Syria and Iraq, but I'm taken by South Sudan. I spent a lot of time | :05:11. | :05:15. | |
reporting from the country myself. I am struck by these words from a | :05:16. | :05:18. | |
civil society activists in the capital. This gets to the heart of | :05:19. | :05:24. | |
which the UN is for. He says, we went to the UN in New York, the | :05:25. | :05:32. | |
period before December 2013 when the politics since fell apart, he said | :05:33. | :05:41. | |
we told them not to ignore the friction. But they were so | :05:42. | :05:45. | |
preoccupied talking about development and investment, saying, | :05:46. | :05:48. | |
let us throw money at the country, the voices urging a focus on | :05:49. | :05:55. | |
covenants were in the minority. He has got a point. There was a lot to | :05:56. | :06:02. | |
focus on State building, delivery of services and a foreign investment | :06:03. | :06:06. | |
conference which had a great many people attending it. While these | :06:07. | :06:10. | |
tensions were still simmering at the community level. There were not a | :06:11. | :06:15. | |
surprise. The President had sacked his old cabinet and removed his vice | :06:16. | :06:23. | |
president. Why didn't they tell you, never mind development and | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
investment, we should be making more `` shortly politics do not fall | :06:29. | :06:33. | |
out. The canary in the mine came out when the sackings happened. We have | :06:34. | :06:42. | |
been looking, you could say to lead, puts certainly at the lessons | :06:43. | :06:47. | |
learned. I do not feel our programme focused sufficiently on that most | :06:48. | :06:50. | |
basic level of community building which is essential for a nation. You | :06:51. | :06:56. | |
cannot build a state if you cannot build a community. There were deep | :06:57. | :06:59. | |
tensions in the country which needed to be addressed from day one. So you | :07:00. | :07:05. | |
sort of got it wrong? I do not think the UN just got it wrong. I think | :07:06. | :07:10. | |
the government partners saw an opportunity, but the basic community | :07:11. | :07:15. | |
building needed to be done. Let us talk about the two most pressing | :07:16. | :07:19. | |
problems facing the international community in the Middle East. That | :07:20. | :07:25. | |
is Syria and Iraq. Let us start with Syria. Would you accept that Syria | :07:26. | :07:30. | |
over the past 2.5 years has been a terrible failure for the United | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
Nations? The Security Council permanent members do not agree. You | :07:36. | :07:41. | |
cannot get concerted action in those circumstances. The one place you did | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
get concerted action was when the chemical weapons were used. The | :07:46. | :07:48. | |
Security Council rallied very quickly. That was a line that people | :07:49. | :07:56. | |
could not accept. We are in the process of seeing those weapons | :07:57. | :08:00. | |
eliminated. Sadly, you are right, this is one of the few examples | :08:01. | :08:04. | |
where there has been a coming together of what to do. I want you | :08:05. | :08:10. | |
to be as frank with me as you can, is not a problem that the United | :08:11. | :08:14. | |
Nations is constrained by the sovereignty issue? In the end, the | :08:15. | :08:19. | |
UN, whatever reason, feels it has to work through and with the sovereign | :08:20. | :08:27. | |
government in Damascus, the Assad regime? That fundamentally limits | :08:28. | :08:35. | |
the possibility of what the UN camp achieve on the ground. That does not | :08:36. | :08:43. | |
stop it in the case of humanitarian supplies, negotiate access with a | :08:44. | :08:48. | |
range of groups which may be in control of a political area. What it | :08:49. | :08:54. | |
does stop, it seems, according to a study, 85% of UN food supplies and | :08:55. | :08:59. | |
over 70% of medicine supplies are going into government held | :09:00. | :09:06. | |
territory. There is a lot of negotiation to get it into other | :09:07. | :09:11. | |
territories as well. I cannot do humanitarian relief, I had a agency. | :09:12. | :09:19. | |
But you are involved with a group doing this. They are working very | :09:20. | :09:26. | |
hard to get access into rebel areas. With some success, but not as much | :09:27. | :09:30. | |
as they would want. But the UN Security Council passed a resolution | :09:31. | :09:37. | |
which was supposed to ensure that humanitarian aid which civilians | :09:38. | :09:39. | |
across Syria and would not be blocked by the government or the | :09:40. | :09:44. | |
rebels. That resolution was passed with fanfare. But it seems it is not | :09:45. | :09:48. | |
worth the paper it is written on. It may be hard to implement because of | :09:49. | :09:55. | |
the nature of the conflict. A lot of people suffer when you cannot get | :09:56. | :09:58. | |
essential relief supplies. Coming back to what you said about the | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
nature of the Security Council, one problem with the resolution was it | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
was not passed under chapter seven. That would have given the United | :10:08. | :10:10. | |
Nations the authorisation to work without the consent of the Syrian | :10:11. | :10:16. | |
government. I am asking you this as a senior politician, a former Prime | :10:17. | :10:20. | |
Minister of New Zealand, as well as the third most senior official of | :10:21. | :10:25. | |
the United Nations, do you believe that the chapter seven powers should | :10:26. | :10:32. | |
be invoked in Syria? Whether or not I think, the point is the politics | :10:33. | :10:38. | |
will not permit that. It seems to me that UN officials have an obligation | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
to speak out, to put as much pressure as you can, if you believe | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
that is the only direction to go in. Of course it is better to have a | :10:48. | :10:51. | |
resolution that enables you to get the support that is needed. But that | :10:52. | :10:58. | |
is not going to be the outcome of the member states negotiation, it is | :10:59. | :11:05. | |
not going to happen. You can call it the way you see it. If sufficiently | :11:06. | :11:11. | |
important people say, you know what, I am going to be strict with the | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
people of Syria and the world and as a, we have to have this | :11:16. | :11:23. | |
authorisation. That would make a difference. And month and month out, | :11:24. | :11:27. | |
Baroness Amos, who heads the UN emergency relief area, talking about | :11:28. | :11:34. | |
all the problems she has, she needs support from good resolutions. Why | :11:35. | :11:40. | |
is it that when we have spoken to senior NGO officials involved in the | :11:41. | :11:44. | |
relief effort, they say there are real problems with the competence of | :11:45. | :11:55. | |
the United Nations on the ground with Syria, you say it is the NGOs | :11:56. | :11:59. | |
rather than the UN who are doing most of the work in rebel held | :12:00. | :12:03. | |
areas. They are not happy with the support they are getting. I have not | :12:04. | :12:09. | |
heard that. Media that is because I'm not directly responsible for the | :12:10. | :12:14. | |
area. I have talked to the High Commissioner for refugees, the | :12:15. | :12:17. | |
emergency relief co`ordinator and others, who spend an enormous amount | :12:18. | :12:21. | |
of their time trying to address the Syrian crisis. I do not think the | :12:22. | :12:28. | |
fault can be laid at their door. But the geopolitics around Syria are | :12:29. | :12:31. | |
such that it does not make it easy to get the entry points you need. | :12:32. | :12:37. | |
The UN is so tied to this notion that you cannot do things that might | :12:38. | :12:41. | |
upset the government, in this case the Assad regime, that it actually | :12:42. | :12:45. | |
prevents you from doing important work on the ground in rebel held | :12:46. | :12:51. | |
corporation from the authority in corporation from the authority in | :12:52. | :12:55. | |
Damascus to be able to operate at all. You do not want that door | :12:56. | :13:01. | |
entirely closed. You need to be able to cool an Chote across lines. Here | :13:02. | :13:06. | |
is what Lakhdar Brahimi has said in Germany. After serving as the | :13:07. | :13:15. | |
special envoy. Having achieved not much. He said Syria will become | :13:16. | :13:16. | |
another Somalia, a field state. If things continue as they are | :13:17. | :13:39. | |
coming he is probably not far wrong. What about groups doing humanitarian | :13:40. | :13:42. | |
work on behalf of rebels in their areas? When one of their officials | :13:43. | :13:46. | |
says that it is outrageous that the UN is in effect, supporting the | :13:47. | :13:57. | |
regime of a war criminal? I would not accept that assertion for a | :13:58. | :14:01. | |
moment. The UN is very clear that the situation in Syria is completely | :14:02. | :14:11. | |
unacceptable. Mr Brahimi himself and before that Kofi Annan did | :14:12. | :14:17. | |
everything they could to come to a mediated decision. Let's talk about | :14:18. | :14:24. | |
Iraq as it appears to be in danger of imploding as we speak. Save the | :14:25. | :14:30. | |
Children has said that 500,000 civilians have been forced to flee | :14:31. | :14:34. | |
Mosul and the surrounding areas. We are talking about the largest and | :14:35. | :14:37. | |
swiftest movement of people in recent times and again you, the UN | :14:38. | :14:42. | |
and others have a big presence on the ground in Iraq. What is the | :14:43. | :14:47. | |
point when the country is so unstable, potentially imploding, all | :14:48. | :14:52. | |
the resources you are putting into the country will probably go to | :14:53. | :14:58. | |
waste, won't they? It is not a peacekeeping mission so it is not as | :14:59. | :15:01. | |
if there are great forces on the ground there. Agencies like my own | :15:02. | :15:06. | |
have been able to work unimpeded in Iraq for example in the Kurdish part | :15:07. | :15:13. | |
of Iraq in which we do pretty standard operations there because of | :15:14. | :15:19. | |
the stability. We operate in other places but because of the violence | :15:20. | :15:24. | |
in the past year, it has been so serious in recent days and it is | :15:25. | :15:29. | |
quite shocking. Do you think the UN will have to get much further | :15:30. | :15:33. | |
involved in Iraq? The Security Council will address it quite | :15:34. | :15:38. | |
urgently and maybe by the time the show has aired, one can predict that | :15:39. | :15:45. | |
they will come behind the territorial integrity of Iraq but | :15:46. | :15:50. | |
will look to Iraq itself to police its own internal security. You made | :15:51. | :15:55. | |
waves in 2003 as Prime Minister out of New Zealand because you oppose | :15:56. | :16:02. | |
military intervention in Iraq at that time. There is talk today of a | :16:03. | :16:13. | |
need, if indeed this Islamic extremist insurgents is being | :16:14. | :16:16. | |
installed in Iraq and the east of Syria, of the need to consider new | :16:17. | :16:23. | |
Western led military intervention. My guess would be that there would | :16:24. | :16:27. | |
not be great appetite for that among many countries. They may look to | :16:28. | :16:33. | |
take such action. They may advise or train or arm but I think the | :16:34. | :16:37. | |
appetite for boots on the ground is well and truly associated with the | :16:38. | :16:45. | |
previous intervention. And do you believe her slowly and politically | :16:46. | :16:50. | |
that the decision to invade in 2003 can be directly linked to what is | :16:51. | :16:55. | |
happening in Iraq today? Do you think ultimate responsibility sorts | :16:56. | :16:59. | |
of lies with those who made the military intervention in 2003? I | :17:00. | :17:06. | |
think it's hard to attribute cause and effect this far out but | :17:07. | :17:12. | |
certainly, the intervention didn't solve a lot of issues. It replaced a | :17:13. | :17:19. | |
very authoritarian leader, and the attitude of my government took at | :17:20. | :17:27. | |
the time was that our Iraqis `` Iraqis should be controlling it. | :17:28. | :17:32. | |
There is long`term fallout from that decision I think. One could also | :17:33. | :17:36. | |
look at how politics in Iraq have been run. Have they been inclusive | :17:37. | :17:43. | |
enough? Have a set out to create a nation that can hold together a | :17:44. | :17:47. | |
cross quite diverse peoples? I think that is where I would like to focus | :17:48. | :17:52. | |
from a developmental prospect. It seems to me that there is a strong | :17:53. | :17:57. | |
possibility that the work you do reinforces the fragmentation of | :17:58. | :17:59. | |
regions like the Middle East. You work in Kurdish areas so you are | :18:00. | :18:05. | |
beefing up their sense of autonomy and quantitative dependence. You are | :18:06. | :18:13. | |
doing a huge amount of work in Syria with refugees, two and a half | :18:14. | :18:17. | |
million across their borders and in Lebanon and Jordan and Turkey as | :18:18. | :18:23. | |
well. By offering long`term assistance and development | :18:24. | :18:25. | |
assistance to these people, are you not simply assuring that the | :18:26. | :18:28. | |
fragmentation process is set in stone? I wouldn't see it as | :18:29. | :18:34. | |
supporting a fragmentation process but what I do think is that | :18:35. | :18:38. | |
nationstates often put a border around very diverse group of people | :18:39. | :18:42. | |
and for those states to maintain territorial integrity, there does | :18:43. | :18:46. | |
have to be an often quite significant measure | :18:47. | :18:54. | |
decentralisation. The United Kingdom in itself got quite a long way down | :18:55. | :18:58. | |
the road with Scottish autonomy and Welsh autonomy and so on and so for | :18:59. | :19:03. | |
nations to stay together, often the central government has to be | :19:04. | :19:06. | |
prepared to default quite a lot. I want to come back to the politics of | :19:07. | :19:10. | |
the UN as you are a who used to run the relief | :19:11. | :19:22. | |
co`ordination office of the UN says that right now, we are in the | :19:23. | :19:25. | |
bleakest, blackest days of War. He's thinking of what we have | :19:26. | :19:26. | |
seen in Syria and Ukraine as well. Security Council. Would you agree | :19:27. | :19:42. | |
with that? I think certainly those two cases have been like a flashback | :19:43. | :19:49. | |
to a previous era of the Cold War all addicts. Something we haven't | :19:50. | :19:52. | |
seen for much of the past two decades. It gets to the very | :19:53. | :20:00. | |
credibility of the UN, doesn't it? People here that the UN Security | :20:01. | :20:04. | |
Council is meeting to discuss a situation in Syria or Ukraine or | :20:05. | :20:08. | |
Iraq and this year alone there have been 20 discussions about Syria and | :20:09. | :20:13. | |
yet nothing concrete or meaningful ever seems to get done and that | :20:14. | :20:14. | |
undermines and corrodes credibility. I look at the UN now | :20:15. | :20:22. | |
and see it as separate from the as the leader of the government. You | :20:23. | :20:29. | |
have the UN organisation or a peacekeeping mission or human | :20:30. | :20:39. | |
rights development and then you have the politics of the UN which is the | :20:40. | :20:42. | |
member states regimes and positions presented. A | :20:43. | :20:51. | |
far right perspective of opinion where it is not easy to get | :20:52. | :20:57. | |
consensus. It is not easy to take things forward in a situation where | :20:58. | :21:01. | |
inevitably, the views and differences are very great. It is | :21:02. | :21:05. | |
the role of diplomacy to try to bridge those differences whether it | :21:06. | :21:09. | |
is the Security Council itself or the work you do with the warring | :21:10. | :21:14. | |
factions of a country. Not easy tasks. Know and I get the point | :21:15. | :21:19. | |
about how much frustration you must feel. If the member states of the UN | :21:20. | :21:25. | |
are incapable of delivering decisions, it comes back to what is | :21:26. | :21:29. | |
the point of so much of the work that you do? Without the political | :21:30. | :21:36. | |
lead coming from the member nations of the UN, the work you are doing is | :21:37. | :21:40. | |
constantly getting undermined? It can certainly limit its impact but | :21:41. | :21:44. | |
the thing I like about leading a major development agency is that | :21:45. | :21:47. | |
every day, there is something positive you can do. The politics is | :21:48. | :21:53. | |
going on and the Security Council in the country that there is still | :21:54. | :21:57. | |
something positive you can do every day and I am a very task oriented | :21:58. | :22:01. | |
person so I like that. I am interested to hear you say that | :22:02. | :22:04. | |
because at the beginning of the year, there was some talk about you | :22:05. | :22:10. | |
being the next General Secretary of the United Nations and you had said | :22:11. | :22:14. | |
that you would consider it if there was enough support for the style of | :22:15. | :22:18. | |
person you are. What sort of style do you have and what would you do in | :22:19. | :22:24. | |
the job? We have to address three issues and one is certainly the | :22:25. | :22:29. | |
style, traditionally it has been a diplomat and that is not my | :22:30. | :22:32. | |
background. Does it need to be someone much more confrontational | :22:33. | :22:38. | |
who will tell it like it is? To the member states want that or do they | :22:39. | :22:41. | |
want the traditional diplomatic style? That is the first question | :22:42. | :22:46. | |
and the second is, is it time for the first woman? The third is for | :22:47. | :22:53. | |
regional groups, who's turn is it and that determines whether any | :22:54. | :22:57. | |
particular person is a possibility or not. You have laid out three very | :22:58. | :23:02. | |
interesting questions. What are your answers? Yes, yes and yes? I have | :23:03. | :23:13. | |
many things I could do with my life. I have not fulfilled all the great | :23:14. | :23:17. | |
ambitions I have for my life. If you are telling me that the UN needs | :23:18. | :23:21. | |
someone more direct, I am going to need a more direct answer. That is | :23:22. | :23:26. | |
the answer that member states will have to give you. You have to | :23:27. | :23:30. | |
represent yourself to them and say this is what you need. If you are | :23:31. | :23:35. | |
going to restore the credibility of this organisation, is that what it | :23:36. | :23:37. | |
needs and argue the person to provide it? It is hard to say. The | :23:38. | :23:43. | |
Secretary General has to be a person who brings people together and it | :23:44. | :23:48. | |
is, in the and a job where you are working with a very diverse family | :23:49. | :23:54. | |
and you have to support forging. Yes or no, do you want that job? I can't | :23:55. | :24:04. | |
give you a yes or no answer because in the end, I think the member | :24:05. | :24:08. | |
states have to work out what it is that they want and there will be a | :24:09. | :24:11. | |
lot of debate over the answers to the three questions I gave you. We | :24:12. | :24:16. | |
will revisit this another time. Helen Clark, ain't you for being on | :24:17. | :24:20. | |
HARDtalk. `` thank you. Some pretty big temperature | :24:21. | :24:46. | |
contrasts across the British Isles on Thursday. Read the sunshine came | :24:47. | :24:52. | |
out across England and Wales, it was a very warm day with temperatures up | :24:53. | :24:56. | |
to 26 Celsius, one of the warmest days so far. We had a girl rain | :24:57. | :24:59. | |
bearing | :25:00. | :25:01. |