MARK MALLOCH BROWN, UN CHIEF OF STAFF-UN SECRETARY GENERAL: Oh I think so, not least because the functions it provides are so critical and indispensable. I mean, take Australia's own backyard. Australia is one who's got effective bilateral aid programs, effective regional politics in the region but still couldn't have done East Timor without the UN coming in, in partnership, couldn't do Papua New Guinea without the partnership development activities of the UN, because we stretch a regional power's reach, like Australia, allow it to get into places it can't reach, for political reasons, leverage in resources from elsewhere in the world. Even the US - a ton of things it couldn't do without our help.

GEORGE NEGUS: Yep. When I asked the Australian PM about his position on the UN - I asked him, is he a multilateralist or a unilateralist? - he said he is a realist. Now, that sounded to me like he was supporting the American position without saying so. How do you feel about the fact that we appear - appear at least - the perception is that Australia follows in the American international policy tracks.

MARK MALLOCH BROWN: Well, I like realists, actually, because I think if the UN can't pass the test of being practically useful to countries then, indeed, we become irrelevant.
We're a partner in all sorts of, not always sexy, glamorous but nevertheless vital tasks, and that's the real worth of the organisation.

GEORGE NEGUS: So why do you think George Bush has appointed a man like John Bolton to be his almost personal political envoy to this place? A man who is openly and unapologetically opposed to the whole idea of the UN, if you listen to what he has been saying.

MARK MALLOCH BROWN: Well you know, this is a guy who served for many years as head of international organisations under President Bush Snr, so it's not altogether true to say that he's someone who is completely against the UN. He's made a lot of his career working on UN issues.

GEORGE NEGUS: But we're talking about a man here who's been described as a UN-basher.

MARK MALLOCH BROWN: Yeah, he's been a UN-basher and he still is but I think that is reflective of the broader state of American public opinion's attitude towards the UN at the moment. President Bush has just told Secretary-General Kofi Annan, "Look, remember, in the part of America I come from people don't like the UN. They question why we have it." And, you know, in John Bolton you've got an ambassador who does believe in it but can communicate with those people, persuade them...

GEORGE NEGUS: He's got a funny way of showing it.

MARK MALLOCH BROWN: Well, yes and no, I mean, he's the ultimate, sort of, hard-headed realist but yes, I mean, there's a lot about the UN - the, sort of, liberal vision that underpins some of what we do - which clearly drives him nuts.

GEORGE NEGUS: Let's talk about how nuts he was driven - 750 deletions or amendments to a 40-page document. Now, I would have thought that was almost physically impossible to do. Wasn't he saying, "This is a useless piece of paper. Let's just tear it up and start all over again the American way"?

MARK MALLOCH BROWN: Well you know, the fact is that that was not a piece of paper prepared by the UN. It was prepared by his 190 fellow ambassadors and I think some of them got their noses well and truly out of joint at being told the previous six months of work weren't of value.

GEORGE NEGUS: I can imagine. What would you say the outcome has been in this whole exercise? It's been tumultuous, is it a win-win, a lose-lose or a win-lose? I mean, who comes out on top in this situation?

MARK MALLOCH BROWN: Developing countries wanted a strong global commitment to development - we got that, that's the bedrock of the summit.

GEORGE NEGUS: But no target.

MARK MALLOCH BROWN: Oh yeah, with a target and with the Millennium Development Goals, the target of 0.7. We get the Human Rights Council, just, which is critical to the US and others. We get the Peace building Commission, which is intended to address the issues of failed states, a growing problem. And we get the Management Reform Package that we needed badly.
On security, it's much more mixed - a definition of terrorism which ain't perfect.....and nothing on non-proliferation.

GEORGE NEGUS: As I hear it, almost no definition at all.

MARK MALLOCH BROWN: I mean, it's weak, and maybe the hole at the heart of the summit is nothing on disarmament and non-proliferation, and we hope that that will, kind of, finally make nations confront the fact that we are increasingly a world without a strategy for managing weapons of mass destruction.

GEORGE NEGUS: What about your boss, if I could call him that, Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General? Will he survive? Should he walk? Would it be better for the UN if he did?

MARK MALLOCH BROWN: Well, first the Oil for Food report of Paul Volker concluded that there was no personal wrongdoing by him, so his personal probity is restored and untouched. The issue becomes his responsibility for the management failings and I think he believes, and I must say, I certainly do as well, that despite the sort of British or Australian tradition that a minister resigns when there is wrongdoing in the department or the government, that here that would completely miss the point because it would allow everyone to say, "Oh, it was a personal problem with the Secretary-General, we don't have a structural problem." We have a hell of a structural problem.
The Security Council and member states generally interfere in the management of this organisation. They've not given the Secretary-General the authority or the resources or the means to run a modern organisation that can be held properly accountable to its membership. We instead have a highly politicised interference in the day-to-day decision-making by ambassadors and their minions. So I think he wants to use this last year to break through on the reforms he's been pushing for years, to create a more modern management structure, to use this Oil for Food disaster and scandal, which it is, to get the reforms through he's always wanted and give his successor a legacy of a modern management structure.

GEORGE NEGUS: I guess you could say it's a classic example of an imperfect organisation in an imperfect world?

MARK MALLOCH BROWN: You could.

GEORGE NEGUS: Thank you very much for your time.