North-South divide on global threats is unnecessary, Annan says

A high-level panel examining change at the United Nations should show there is no need for a North-South divide when determining the greatest threats to the world, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said tonight.

Mr. Annan said it was important to “get away from the idea” that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction are only of interest to the North, and poverty and hunger only of concern to the South, according to the text of his address at UN Headquarters to the Board of Trustees of the Brookings Institution, a United States think tank.

“I think we need a clear global understanding of the threats and challenges that we all have to face, because to neglect any one of them might fatally undermine our efforts to confront the others,” he said.

The Secretary-General appointed a High-Level Panel of eminent persons late last year to consider contemporary threats and challenges to the world and to examine how the UN system should be adapted in response.

Tonight he said he hoped the Panel would make specific recommendations for improving the UN.

“I believe the main reason why some countries resort to unilateral action is that they do not have confidence that a collective response would be timely or effective," he said. "That, above all, is what we have to change.”

Mr. Annan added that the answer may lie in “some kind of new compact between the United States and the rest of the world, comparable to that forged by the Great Powers in 1945."

At the same time, he refrained from going into further detail in order to provide room for the experts to reach their own conclusions. “I want to leave the Panel itself time and space to do its work, without me telling its members what to think," he explained.