:00:00. > :00:10.calls the situation a shambles. Now on BBC News it is time for
:00:11. > :00:15.HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. What is the
:00:16. > :00:17.point of the United Nations? It has a multi`billion dollar budget, a
:00:18. > :00:20.sprawling bureaucracy and a broad mandate to better the human
:00:21. > :00:31.condition, but when the going gets tough, does the UN have an effective
:00:32. > :00:37.response? It is a question that might be asked in Syria today, maybe
:00:38. > :00:43.in Iraq and South Sudan as well. A host of other countries as well. My
:00:44. > :00:46.guest is the UN's third most senior official, Helen Clark, the boss of
:00:47. > :00:48.the UN Development Programme. Is the UN failing the people who need it
:00:49. > :01:19.most? Helen Clark, welcome to HARDtalk.
:01:20. > :01:24.Would it be fair to say that people around the world have lost their
:01:25. > :01:30.faith in the United Nations as a force for good? I do not think they
:01:31. > :01:38.have lost their faith, but the are a lot of conflicts and issues around
:01:39. > :01:42.the world that the UN struggles to address effectively. Whether that is
:01:43. > :01:46.the UN's fault or the nature of the conflict itself is another matter.
:01:47. > :01:51.Are you prepared to allow it might be the UN's fault? When you look at
:01:52. > :01:58.the Security Council, it is not always to get agreement. Syria is
:01:59. > :02:06.the example of that. The conflict is in its fourth year. Over 2 million
:02:07. > :02:10.refugees. People say, why can't something be done? The Security
:02:11. > :02:15.Council cannot give a mandate if among its permanent members there is
:02:16. > :02:19.a disagreement. That must be deeply frustrating for you. You had up the
:02:20. > :02:25.development programme, you chair the entire development group of UN
:02:26. > :02:29.agencies. There is so much work you could and should be doing inside the
:02:30. > :02:31.Syria, and yet you look at the political masters in the Security
:02:32. > :02:36.Council and it is utterly dysfunctional. Decisions cannot be
:02:37. > :02:44.taken. There was a calculation last year that Syria had lost 35 years in
:02:45. > :02:48.its development ranking because of this conflict. It is enormously
:02:49. > :02:54.frustrating. Syria had done quite well in terms of capital, education
:02:55. > :02:57.and health. That will drops away with the conflict. We are still
:02:58. > :03:03.trying to raise money to change the things that can be done for people
:03:04. > :03:09.in those difficult circumstances. But that is the tragedy we see. I
:03:10. > :03:15.characterised it as people around the world losing face. But you have
:03:16. > :03:22.to go in every day to work, sometimes in the Middle East, and
:03:23. > :03:26.you must say, a lot of the work I am trying to do is pointless.
:03:27. > :03:31.Development can only happen if there is some semblance of peace, security
:03:32. > :03:38.and stability on the ground. In Syria there is none. The UN has no
:03:39. > :03:41.idea how to further stability. It is very hard to get any traction on
:03:42. > :03:48.development where you have instability. If you look at South
:03:49. > :03:53.Sudan, which began its life as a new nation in 2011, had a lot of support
:03:54. > :03:59.behind it, it went up in flames with the conflict last December with
:04:00. > :04:07.250,000 displaced, significant hunger problems. `` a quarter of its
:04:08. > :04:12.people. You make it sound as though all you can do is sit back and
:04:13. > :04:17.watch. The UN has to take some stability of what happened in South
:04:18. > :04:20.Sudan. You had a presence there even before independence was finally
:04:21. > :04:29.achieved. You have emission of many hundreds, plus thousands of security
:04:30. > :04:35.forces. And yet it seemed like the UN was completely taken by surprise.
:04:36. > :04:43.Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If you apply hindsight to think that on
:04:44. > :04:50.the 1st of July 2011 there was a new nation with no package of conflict
:04:51. > :04:54.from the past, a lot of genuine efforts went into trying to do State
:04:55. > :04:58.building at the most basic community level and the political system there
:04:59. > :05:05.was tremendous division and a lot of baggage from the past. We have to
:05:06. > :05:10.try and build from the bottom up. I was going to start by talking about
:05:11. > :05:15.Syria and Iraq, but I'm taken by South Sudan. I spent a lot of time
:05:16. > :05:18.reporting from the country myself. I am struck by these words from a
:05:19. > :05:24.civil society activists in the capital. This gets to the heart of
:05:25. > :05:32.which the UN is for. He says, we went to the UN in New York, the
:05:33. > :05:41.period before December 2013 when the politics since fell apart, he said
:05:42. > :05:45.we told them not to ignore the friction. But they were so
:05:46. > :05:48.preoccupied talking about development and investment, saying,
:05:49. > :05:55.let us throw money at the country, the voices urging a focus on
:05:56. > :06:02.covenants were in the minority. He has got a point. There was a lot to
:06:03. > :06:06.focus on State building, delivery of services and a foreign investment
:06:07. > :06:10.conference which had a great many people attending it. While these
:06:11. > :06:15.tensions were still simmering at the community level. There were not a
:06:16. > :06:23.surprise. The President had sacked his old cabinet and removed his vice
:06:24. > :06:28.president. Why didn't they tell you, never mind development and
:06:29. > :06:33.investment, we should be making more `` shortly politics do not fall
:06:34. > :06:42.out. The canary in the mine came out when the sackings happened. We have
:06:43. > :06:47.been looking, you could say to lead, puts certainly at the lessons
:06:48. > :06:50.learned. I do not feel our programme focused sufficiently on that most
:06:51. > :06:56.basic level of community building which is essential for a nation. You
:06:57. > :06:59.cannot build a state if you cannot build a community. There were deep
:07:00. > :07:05.tensions in the country which needed to be addressed from day one. So you
:07:06. > :07:10.sort of got it wrong? I do not think the UN just got it wrong. I think
:07:11. > :07:15.the government partners saw an opportunity, but the basic community
:07:16. > :07:19.building needed to be done. Let us talk about the two most pressing
:07:20. > :07:25.problems facing the international community in the Middle East. That
:07:26. > :07:30.is Syria and Iraq. Let us start with Syria. Would you accept that Syria
:07:31. > :07:35.over the past 2.5 years has been a terrible failure for the United
:07:36. > :07:41.Nations? The Security Council permanent members do not agree. You
:07:42. > :07:45.cannot get concerted action in those circumstances. The one place you did
:07:46. > :07:48.get concerted action was when the chemical weapons were used. The
:07:49. > :07:56.Security Council rallied very quickly. That was a line that people
:07:57. > :08:00.could not accept. We are in the process of seeing those weapons
:08:01. > :08:04.eliminated. Sadly, you are right, this is one of the few examples
:08:05. > :08:10.where there has been a coming together of what to do. I want you
:08:11. > :08:14.to be as frank with me as you can, is not a problem that the United
:08:15. > :08:19.Nations is constrained by the sovereignty issue? In the end, the
:08:20. > :08:27.UN, whatever reason, feels it has to work through and with the sovereign
:08:28. > :08:35.government in Damascus, the Assad regime? That fundamentally limits
:08:36. > :08:43.the possibility of what the UN camp achieve on the ground. That does not
:08:44. > :08:48.stop it in the case of humanitarian supplies, negotiate access with a
:08:49. > :08:54.range of groups which may be in control of a political area. What it
:08:55. > :08:59.does stop, it seems, according to a study, 85% of UN food supplies and
:09:00. > :09:06.over 70% of medicine supplies are going into government held
:09:07. > :09:11.territory. There is a lot of negotiation to get it into other
:09:12. > :09:19.territories as well. I cannot do humanitarian relief, I had a agency.
:09:20. > :09:26.But you are involved with a group doing this. They are working very
:09:27. > :09:30.hard to get access into rebel areas. With some success, but not as much
:09:31. > :09:37.as they would want. But the UN Security Council passed a resolution
:09:38. > :09:39.which was supposed to ensure that humanitarian aid which civilians
:09:40. > :09:44.across Syria and would not be blocked by the government or the
:09:45. > :09:48.rebels. That resolution was passed with fanfare. But it seems it is not
:09:49. > :09:55.worth the paper it is written on. It may be hard to implement because of
:09:56. > :09:58.the nature of the conflict. A lot of people suffer when you cannot get
:09:59. > :10:02.essential relief supplies. Coming back to what you said about the
:10:03. > :10:07.nature of the Security Council, one problem with the resolution was it
:10:08. > :10:10.was not passed under chapter seven. That would have given the United
:10:11. > :10:16.Nations the authorisation to work without the consent of the Syrian
:10:17. > :10:20.government. I am asking you this as a senior politician, a former Prime
:10:21. > :10:25.Minister of New Zealand, as well as the third most senior official of
:10:26. > :10:32.the United Nations, do you believe that the chapter seven powers should
:10:33. > :10:38.be invoked in Syria? Whether or not I think, the point is the politics
:10:39. > :10:42.will not permit that. It seems to me that UN officials have an obligation
:10:43. > :10:47.to speak out, to put as much pressure as you can, if you believe
:10:48. > :10:51.that is the only direction to go in. Of course it is better to have a
:10:52. > :10:58.resolution that enables you to get the support that is needed. But that
:10:59. > :11:05.is not going to be the outcome of the member states negotiation, it is
:11:06. > :11:11.not going to happen. You can call it the way you see it. If sufficiently
:11:12. > :11:15.important people say, you know what, I am going to be strict with the
:11:16. > :11:23.people of Syria and the world and as a, we have to have this
:11:24. > :11:27.authorisation. That would make a difference. And month and month out,
:11:28. > :11:34.Baroness Amos, who heads the UN emergency relief area, talking about
:11:35. > :11:40.all the problems she has, she needs support from good resolutions. Why
:11:41. > :11:44.is it that when we have spoken to senior NGO officials involved in the
:11:45. > :11:55.relief effort, they say there are real problems with the competence of
:11:56. > :11:59.the United Nations on the ground with Syria, you say it is the NGOs
:12:00. > :12:03.rather than the UN who are doing most of the work in rebel held
:12:04. > :12:09.areas. They are not happy with the support they are getting. I have not
:12:10. > :12:14.heard that. Media that is because I'm not directly responsible for the
:12:15. > :12:17.area. I have talked to the High Commissioner for refugees, the
:12:18. > :12:21.emergency relief co`ordinator and others, who spend an enormous amount
:12:22. > :12:28.of their time trying to address the Syrian crisis. I do not think the
:12:29. > :12:31.fault can be laid at their door. But the geopolitics around Syria are
:12:32. > :12:37.such that it does not make it easy to get the entry points you need.
:12:38. > :12:41.The UN is so tied to this notion that you cannot do things that might
:12:42. > :12:45.upset the government, in this case the Assad regime, that it actually
:12:46. > :12:51.prevents you from doing important work on the ground in rebel held
:12:52. > :12:55.corporation from the authority in corporation from the authority in
:12:56. > :13:01.Damascus to be able to operate at all. You do not want that door
:13:02. > :13:06.entirely closed. You need to be able to cool an Chote across lines. Here
:13:07. > :13:15.is what Lakhdar Brahimi has said in Germany. After serving as the
:13:16. > :13:16.special envoy. Having achieved not much. He said Syria will become
:13:17. > :13:39.another Somalia, a field state. If things continue as they are
:13:40. > :13:42.coming he is probably not far wrong. What about groups doing humanitarian
:13:43. > :13:46.work on behalf of rebels in their areas? When one of their officials
:13:47. > :13:57.says that it is outrageous that the UN is in effect, supporting the
:13:58. > :14:01.regime of a war criminal? I would not accept that assertion for a
:14:02. > :14:11.moment. The UN is very clear that the situation in Syria is completely
:14:12. > :14:17.unacceptable. Mr Brahimi himself and before that Kofi Annan did
:14:18. > :14:24.everything they could to come to a mediated decision. Let's talk about
:14:25. > :14:30.Iraq as it appears to be in danger of imploding as we speak. Save the
:14:31. > :14:34.Children has said that 500,000 civilians have been forced to flee
:14:35. > :14:37.Mosul and the surrounding areas. We are talking about the largest and
:14:38. > :14:42.swiftest movement of people in recent times and again you, the UN
:14:43. > :14:47.and others have a big presence on the ground in Iraq. What is the
:14:48. > :14:52.point when the country is so unstable, potentially imploding, all
:14:53. > :14:58.the resources you are putting into the country will probably go to
:14:59. > :15:01.waste, won't they? It is not a peacekeeping mission so it is not as
:15:02. > :15:06.if there are great forces on the ground there. Agencies like my own
:15:07. > :15:13.have been able to work unimpeded in Iraq for example in the Kurdish part
:15:14. > :15:19.of Iraq in which we do pretty standard operations there because of
:15:20. > :15:24.the stability. We operate in other places but because of the violence
:15:25. > :15:29.in the past year, it has been so serious in recent days and it is
:15:30. > :15:33.quite shocking. Do you think the UN will have to get much further
:15:34. > :15:38.involved in Iraq? The Security Council will address it quite
:15:39. > :15:45.urgently and maybe by the time the show has aired, one can predict that
:15:46. > :15:50.they will come behind the territorial integrity of Iraq but
:15:51. > :15:55.will look to Iraq itself to police its own internal security. You made
:15:56. > :16:02.waves in 2003 as Prime Minister out of New Zealand because you oppose
:16:03. > :16:13.military intervention in Iraq at that time. There is talk today of a
:16:14. > :16:16.need, if indeed this Islamic extremist insurgents is being
:16:17. > :16:23.installed in Iraq and the east of Syria, of the need to consider new
:16:24. > :16:27.Western led military intervention. My guess would be that there would
:16:28. > :16:33.not be great appetite for that among many countries. They may look to
:16:34. > :16:37.take such action. They may advise or train or arm but I think the
:16:38. > :16:45.appetite for boots on the ground is well and truly associated with the
:16:46. > :16:50.previous intervention. And do you believe her slowly and politically
:16:51. > :16:55.that the decision to invade in 2003 can be directly linked to what is
:16:56. > :16:59.happening in Iraq today? Do you think ultimate responsibility sorts
:17:00. > :17:06.of lies with those who made the military intervention in 2003? I
:17:07. > :17:12.think it's hard to attribute cause and effect this far out but
:17:13. > :17:19.certainly, the intervention didn't solve a lot of issues. It replaced a
:17:20. > :17:27.very authoritarian leader, and the attitude of my government took at
:17:28. > :17:32.the time was that our Iraqis `` Iraqis should be controlling it.
:17:33. > :17:36.There is long`term fallout from that decision I think. One could also
:17:37. > :17:43.look at how politics in Iraq have been run. Have they been inclusive
:17:44. > :17:47.enough? Have a set out to create a nation that can hold together a
:17:48. > :17:52.cross quite diverse peoples? I think that is where I would like to focus
:17:53. > :17:57.from a developmental prospect. It seems to me that there is a strong
:17:58. > :17:59.possibility that the work you do reinforces the fragmentation of
:18:00. > :18:05.regions like the Middle East. You work in Kurdish areas so you are
:18:06. > :18:13.beefing up their sense of autonomy and quantitative dependence. You are
:18:14. > :18:17.doing a huge amount of work in Syria with refugees, two and a half
:18:18. > :18:23.million across their borders and in Lebanon and Jordan and Turkey as
:18:24. > :18:25.well. By offering long`term assistance and development
:18:26. > :18:28.assistance to these people, are you not simply assuring that the
:18:29. > :18:34.fragmentation process is set in stone? I wouldn't see it as
:18:35. > :18:38.supporting a fragmentation process but what I do think is that
:18:39. > :18:42.nationstates often put a border around very diverse group of people
:18:43. > :18:46.and for those states to maintain territorial integrity, there does
:18:47. > :18:54.have to be an often quite significant measure
:18:55. > :18:58.decentralisation. The United Kingdom in itself got quite a long way down
:18:59. > :19:03.the road with Scottish autonomy and Welsh autonomy and so on and so for
:19:04. > :19:06.nations to stay together, often the central government has to be
:19:07. > :19:10.prepared to default quite a lot. I want to come back to the politics of
:19:11. > :19:22.the UN as you are a who used to run the relief
:19:23. > :19:25.co`ordination office of the UN says that right now, we are in the
:19:26. > :19:26.bleakest, blackest days of War. He's thinking of what we have
:19:27. > :19:42.seen in Syria and Ukraine as well. Security Council. Would you agree
:19:43. > :19:49.with that? I think certainly those two cases have been like a flashback
:19:50. > :19:52.to a previous era of the Cold War all addicts. Something we haven't
:19:53. > :20:00.seen for much of the past two decades. It gets to the very
:20:01. > :20:04.credibility of the UN, doesn't it? People here that the UN Security
:20:05. > :20:08.Council is meeting to discuss a situation in Syria or Ukraine or
:20:09. > :20:13.Iraq and this year alone there have been 20 discussions about Syria and
:20:14. > :20:14.yet nothing concrete or meaningful ever seems to get done and that
:20:15. > :20:22.undermines and corrodes credibility. I look at the UN now
:20:23. > :20:29.and see it as separate from the as the leader of the government. You
:20:30. > :20:39.have the UN organisation or a peacekeeping mission or human
:20:40. > :20:42.rights development and then you have the politics of the UN which is the
:20:43. > :20:51.member states regimes and positions presented. A
:20:52. > :20:57.far right perspective of opinion where it is not easy to get
:20:58. > :21:01.consensus. It is not easy to take things forward in a situation where
:21:02. > :21:05.inevitably, the views and differences are very great. It is
:21:06. > :21:09.the role of diplomacy to try to bridge those differences whether it
:21:10. > :21:14.is the Security Council itself or the work you do with the warring
:21:15. > :21:19.factions of a country. Not easy tasks. Know and I get the point
:21:20. > :21:25.about how much frustration you must feel. If the member states of the UN
:21:26. > :21:29.are incapable of delivering decisions, it comes back to what is
:21:30. > :21:36.the point of so much of the work that you do? Without the political
:21:37. > :21:40.lead coming from the member nations of the UN, the work you are doing is
:21:41. > :21:44.constantly getting undermined? It can certainly limit its impact but
:21:45. > :21:47.the thing I like about leading a major development agency is that
:21:48. > :21:53.every day, there is something positive you can do. The politics is
:21:54. > :21:57.going on and the Security Council in the country that there is still
:21:58. > :22:01.something positive you can do every day and I am a very task oriented
:22:02. > :22:04.person so I like that. I am interested to hear you say that
:22:05. > :22:10.because at the beginning of the year, there was some talk about you
:22:11. > :22:14.being the next General Secretary of the United Nations and you had said
:22:15. > :22:18.that you would consider it if there was enough support for the style of
:22:19. > :22:24.person you are. What sort of style do you have and what would you do in
:22:25. > :22:29.the job? We have to address three issues and one is certainly the
:22:30. > :22:32.style, traditionally it has been a diplomat and that is not my
:22:33. > :22:38.background. Does it need to be someone much more confrontational
:22:39. > :22:41.who will tell it like it is? To the member states want that or do they
:22:42. > :22:46.want the traditional diplomatic style? That is the first question
:22:47. > :22:53.and the second is, is it time for the first woman? The third is for
:22:54. > :22:57.regional groups, who's turn is it and that determines whether any
:22:58. > :23:02.particular person is a possibility or not. You have laid out three very
:23:03. > :23:13.interesting questions. What are your answers? Yes, yes and yes? I have
:23:14. > :23:17.many things I could do with my life. I have not fulfilled all the great
:23:18. > :23:21.ambitions I have for my life. If you are telling me that the UN needs
:23:22. > :23:26.someone more direct, I am going to need a more direct answer. That is
:23:27. > :23:30.the answer that member states will have to give you. You have to
:23:31. > :23:35.represent yourself to them and say this is what you need. If you are
:23:36. > :23:37.going to restore the credibility of this organisation, is that what it
:23:38. > :23:43.needs and argue the person to provide it? It is hard to say. The
:23:44. > :23:48.Secretary General has to be a person who brings people together and it
:23:49. > :23:54.is, in the and a job where you are working with a very diverse family
:23:55. > :24:04.and you have to support forging. Yes or no, do you want that job? I can't
:24:05. > :24:08.give you a yes or no answer because in the end, I think the member
:24:09. > :24:11.states have to work out what it is that they want and there will be a
:24:12. > :24:16.lot of debate over the answers to the three questions I gave you. We
:24:17. > :24:20.will revisit this another time. Helen Clark, ain't you for being on
:24:21. > :24:46.HARDtalk. `` thank you. Some pretty big temperature
:24:47. > :24:52.contrasts across the British Isles on Thursday. Read the sunshine came
:24:53. > :24:56.out across England and Wales, it was a very warm day with temperatures up
:24:57. > :24:59.to 26 Celsius, one of the warmest days so far. We had a girl rain
:25:00. > :25:01.bearing