UN agencies are at risk of trading away public interests in the hope of receiving large-scale funding from corporations and private foundations under the rubric of “public-private partnerships”. Indeed, the UN is at risk of selling itself off.

This is the conclusion of a new publication, “‘We the Peoples’ or ‘We the Corporations’?”, which was launched by the NGO Forum for Health and the Swiss branch of the International Baby Food Action Network in January 2003 at the time of World Health Organisation’s annual Executive Board meeting.

The publication explores the public-private partnership trend between the United Nations and the corporate sector. Although the public sector has long interacted with commercial sectors – regulating industry practices, collaborating on research, negotiating to buy pharmaceuticals, contracting out services – these interactions have not been called ‘partnerships’, a term which implies mutual trust and benefits from the outset.

Almost all UN agencies are now actively promoting or seeking out some sort of ‘partnership’ arrangement between themselves and the corporate sector. Such partnerships are usually portrayed as a “win-win” for all parties involved. But author Judith Richter asks who wins what, who loses what, and who risks what?

Richter contends that the pursuit of public-private partnerships (PPPs) as a policy paradigm is radically restructuring the international public health arena and institutions such as the UN and its agencies. She focuses in particular on the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Unicef. In some of the new arrangements, corporations have important decision-making powers on national and international health policies.

The publication explores in some depth several of these new health public-private partnerships, including the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and a high-level interaction between the UN and business, the Global Compact.

Health activists are concerned that corporate donors will “cherry pick” public health interventions that focus on technical solutions and that provide clear benefits to business while more complex problems will be left to cash-strapped governments, UN agencies, NGOs and community-based organisations. Corporate benefits range from increased markets for processed foods to public subsidies for new vaccines to rehabilitated corporate reputations and a weakening of the UN’s resolve and ability to regulate transnational corporations in face of the ‘partnership’ trend.

Richter concludes that the pursuit of the PPP policy paradigm entails so many risks for democratic and evidence-based policy-making that UN agencies and public interest NGOs should abandon it immediately.

The publication calls for a moratorium on all new large-scale public-private partnerships for health until their limits, costs and broad risks have been thoroughly and independently assessed and compared with alternatives.

It also calls on public interest groups to urge UN agencies to ensure that public interests are at the centre of all their financial relationships and other interactions with the commercial sector or wealthy business donors.

‘We the Peoples’ or ‘We the Corporations’? Critical reflections on UN-business ‘partnerships’

by Judith Richter
published by IBFAN-GIFA, Geneva, January 2003
64 pages.

Printed paper copies available from the Baby Milk Action on-line Virtual Shop or by cheque made payable to 'Baby Milk Action' and sent with order to: Baby Milk Action, 23, St. Andrew’s Street, Cambridge, CB2 3AX, UK.

Price: for non-profit NGOs and UN agencies 7 pounds sterling, for for-profit groups and organisations 15 pounds sterling. The price includes postage.

Click here to download a pdf version for easy printing (235 kb). You will need the free software Acrobat Reader to view the file.

About the author: Judith Richter is author of “Holding Corporations Accountable: Corporate Conduct, International Codes and Citizen Action”, Zed Books, London and New York, 2001 (also available from the Baby Milk Action on-line Virtual Shop.

About the publisher: The Geneva Infant Feeding Association (GIFA) works to protect, promote and support breastfeeding against the harmful marketing practices of the infant food industry. It hosts the European office of the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN).