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Helen Clark
Helen Clark: The three-term Prime Minister of New Zealand, entered the UN with two preoccupations that are likely to inform her work: trade and climate change PHOTO: AFP/Getty Images
Exclusive Interview
“I’m not interested in anything that’s small in scale. We should not be in anything that is not capable of having system-wide impact”
At a time when the entire UN system finds itself fielding questions about its relevance and effectiveness, the appointment of Helen Clark, with her reputation for straight-talking, to one of its most senior roles, could prove to be a sharp move. A three-term Prime Minister of New Zealand, Miss Clark is probably the most high-profile administrator that the United Nations Development Programme has ever had, and is already being touted as a future secretary general.
Speaking in her New York office, Miss Clark says that she entered the UN with two preoccupations that are likely to inform her work: trade and climate change. A conversation on international financing for development and food security naturally turns to the stalled World Trade Organisation’s Doha Round, which has been locked in stalemate due to disputes over agricultural subsidies between blocs, loosely comprised of leading economies, led by the United States, and developing countries, led by India. A successful Doha Round, with concessions made on development and agricultural markets, could have huge development benefits.
“You’re talking to a New Zealander,” Miss Clark says. “We’ve got a lot of interests in common with developing countries with respect to agricultural trade access, for example. The WTO round going through in a way that deals with agriculture and with fisheries… would be a huge thing.”
She also agrees with the notion that the United States, which has pledged $3.5bn towards improving food security in the developing world, could have more impact by simply giving ground on its own subsidy programme. “Agricultural subsidies devastate developing world agriculture,” she says. “Again, a successful WTO round, which eliminates export and domestic subsidies, would be of huge benefit. But subsidies have led to first world production being dumped on the third world.”
It is Miss Clark’s second preoccupation – climate change – that seems to be energising her and the rest of the United Nations system. An aggressive advocate of the Kyoto Protocol, Miss Clark made climate change mitigation an important part of New Zealand’s domestic and international priorities while she was in government. In the year that world leaders meet to discuss a second agreement on climate change, bringing climate change into the centre of the development agenda, and vice versa, are going to be critical.“Let’s be clear, there won’t be a deal at Copenhagen or anywhere else unless it’s a deal for development,” she explains. “In my past life, I’ve taken very close interest in the climate change talks, but also on the WTO rounds. You can’t get the WTO round through now unless it’s a development round. Why did Cancun fall over? Because small, least developed countries asked: what’s in it for us?”
