politics and international organisations

International Organisations face Many Challenges:
Political, Economical and Social.
July 11,2006

International organizations (also called inter-governmental organization) face many challenges in various forms, social, economical, and political. There are two main types of international organizations: international intergovernmental organizations, whose members are sovereign states; and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which are private organizations. These Organisations private or not face social and economic challenges that are inadvertently the result of world politics and these problems appear entrenched in their present organizational structure.
Most of these international organizations are effectively political organizations much like the United Nations(UN), the World trade organization(WTO), both political.
“Most international non-government organizations claim to be non-political organizations, in the sense that there is a basic distinction between the organization of a political party and an organization representing the particular interests of its members, vocational, religious otherwise” (Judge 1973).

The reality is that governmental delegates assess the potential value of an organization primarily in terms of the political power of the region it represents and this criterion unintentionally affects the social and economic policy creating problems for the organization selected.
Social challenges manifest themselves mainly in the form of cultural differences that affect international policies in adverse ways. The most outstanding social issue is that not every member state of the International Organisation (IO) shares the same leadership model. For example one member uses a democratic system (America) and another politically powerful member uses an autocratic system (China), Statements such as “In just over a month it will be ten years since the Berlin Wall fell. It fell because millions of people rebelled, not only against the loss of their political freedom, but their economic freedom, their democracy”(Moore 1999) shows the distaste and the lack of concern for the unorthodox leadership model. This difference stems from each member states cultural disparities. Economic challenges are reflected in the form of funding concerns and policy challenges. It is difficult to incorporate the concerns of member states at different levels of economic development in policy formation. It is so because each state would like to benefit equally from all policy changes. “The implementation of the Basle Accord II in which the concerns of over 50% of the developing world were totally disregarded in the international organization risk weighting system” (Bailey 2005). The ruling board at the Bank of International Settlement was predominantly run by the G8-Nations, a political strong arm in the Organisation and the worldwide arena. Problems of this nature all stem from the politics of each member state in this case the G8-Nations. For this reason there is a great link between political issues and, economic and social issues as a unit by themselves.
Essentially the politics of each organization is what makes it effective in one case and ineffective in another. Consequently, the main challenge of each IO is to resolve its political issues in order to solve its social and or economic issues. The “Iraq Crisis” for instance showed the political power that the United States and United Kingdom brandish in the international arena. In the past they had been most vocal in maintaining sanctions though now because of social, political and economic issues with Iraq they were the main drivers to lift sanctions. They could validate their activities through the United Nations and its current leader Kofi Annan. The United Nations problem did not stem from its own social and economic problems with Iraq, it stemmed from an indirect source. Noting the fact that the United States and United Kingdom represented a significant portion of the United Nations Army and Political influence worldwide, the United States (US) was afforded a means by which to carry out its own agenda through the United Nations (UN).
“The policy of sanctions has been used to pursue political goals-for example, the removal of the Iraqi regime – beyond the overt scope of resolution 687, which contained no prescription regarding Iraq’s form of government or the conduct of domestic policy. The Iraqi populations’ economic and social rights have been seriously infringed by the impact of a prolonged embargo.” (Shah 2005)

It is evident that, the UN’s issue was really political and resulted from external social and economic policy concerns of its governing body members. Political world powers have the potential to create major issues economically and or socially, because each IO requires extensive funding and technical expertise in various capacities. Political world powers more often than not have the ability to supply funding and expertise and as such are key elements in many IOs. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) major source of funding is the US (the current world political power) and through the IMF the US is able to manipulate benefactors of IMF facilities constantly creating social and economic issues for the IO to solve internally. In addition technical expertise sourcing problems, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) constantly requires the expertise of the most brilliant minds in atomic energy; inadvertently these minds come from the current world power. The world powers capacity to fund and create research opportunities for these individuals will ultimately provide them with political leverage.
There is apparently no solution to politics other than more politics for democracy and global integration have become the prescribed medicine for solving international issues, this is the patent in Moore’s statement.

“These are now universal values. Democracy has been practiced in different forms for centuries and has evolved to democratic internationalism where sovereignty is enhanced by treaties and global institutions. We learned in the middle of this century that freedom cannot survive in one nation alone, that when freedom is threatened in one place, it is threatened everywhere. This is even more true now as the world becomes ever more inter-dependent. While the nation state remains the core unit of global economic, social and political organization, a defining feature of our time is that no country is viable in isolation, no matter how large it is. Cooperation is not a choice, it is indispensable to survival.”(Moore 2005)

This statement describes human nature throughout the centuries, if for some reason you are not able to eliminate a problem be it a group or issue then throughout history consolidation and adjustment has been the solution. The roman crusades in the name of the Christian church is a classic example; where political powers manipulated the first and closest thing to an IO at the time to there own benefit. Throughout history International Organizations have faced social and economic challenges that were inadvertently the result of world politics. It is obvious that politics will always exist therefore, in order to avoid issues of any sort; economic and social policy equilibrium must be found worldwide.





Annotated Reference List (APA)

Bailey, R. (2005). “Basel II and Development Countries: Understanding the
Implications” Retrieved from www.Ise.ac.uk/depts/destin.

(This paper deals with concerns of the developing countries with regards to the implementation of Basle Accord II, how it affects the member states and the international banking system as a whole. The entire document was relevant to my paper.)

Fenric, K. (2000). “Foresight a pre-accession tool for countries to face the challenges of globalization and integration.” Retrieved from http://www.unido.org.

(This paper deals with foresight as a avenue for European Union states to efficiently deal with the issues of integration and globalization in an easy to read outline form giving scenarios and actual present day examples.)
Judge, A. (1973). Challenges to the Action of International Nongovernmental
Organizations; Convention relating to the legal position of international associations. In: The Open Society of the Future. Brussels, Union of International Associations, (pp.139-147). Retrieved from http://www.laetusinpraesens.org.

(This webpage deals with international government organisations and analyses comprehensively all the issues of international organisations in general, for example; funding and social challenges. The entire document was relevant to my research with few exemptions)

Moore, M. (1999). “Challenges for the global trading system in the new millennium” speech delivered to the council on foreign relations in Washington D.C. Retrieved from http://www.wto.org.
(This is a speech delivered 28 September 1999 by Mike Moore, Director- General of the World Trade Organization, to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. Discussing the Social and Economic policy challenges that World Trade Organisation Faces and how International integration is the only real viable solution.)
Philip, G. (2006). International Conference on the Challenges faced by Technical and
Scientific Support Organizations in Enhancing Nuclear Safety Aix-en-Provence. International Atomic Energy Agency announcements, 06. Retrieved June 16, 2006 from http://www.pub.iaea.org.

(This document is call for papers to deal with International Atomic Energy Agency challenges; it expresses various challenges faced by the organisations and calls for papers to handle these problems. The introduction is the item of interest for my research paper, on Page 2)
Shah, A.Y. (1998) The Iraq Crisis; Effects of Sanctions. Retrieved June 16, 2006 from
http:www.globalissues.org
(The entire webpage deals with issues surrounding the United Nations and Iraq Discrepancy where George Bush the American president clearly overstepped his boundaries and Sanctions were levied unfairly due to various political standings on the world stage at that time of the incident. The entire document was of interest for my paper.)