ECOSOC President Marjatta Rasi  (U.N. Photo)

The Security Council, charged with keeping the peace, has rarely been out of the limelight since — certainly not in the last 10 or 15 years.  

However, its twin, the Economic and Social Council, known as ECOSOC, sank into obscurity over the decades, upstaged not only by the Security Council but also the General Assembly and a host of agencies and programs working on what should have been primarily ECOSOC's issues:  development, health and human rights.

Those Americans who are perennially outraged by events around the United Nations are more often than not shocked by decisions made by ECOSOC's commissions or committees — on human rights, women's rights, sustainable development and such — or annoyed with the council's control over nongovernmental organizations' access to U.N. conferences.  

For many outsiders, the conduct of ECOSOC, where blocs of nations can gang up to prevent effective action on a range of subjects, is the epitome of international politicking gone wildly awry.

Presidents of ECOSOC, chosen annually by its 54 member nations, come and go, often arriving with high hopes and leaving with frustrations.

This year, a president with exceptional qualifications holds the chair, and she — the first woman elected to the post — has some innovative ideas about revitalizing the council.  

The new president, Ambassador Marjatta Rasi of Finland, was her country's director general for international development cooperation and humanitarian assistance before being assigned to New York as ambassador four years ago.  

A career diplomat, she had also been ambassador to India, where she picked up valuable development experience in the field.  

As head of Finland's mission in New York, she became known for her businesslike manner and boundless curiosity about all phases of U.N. life.

In an interview in her mission office, a showcase of Finnish contemporary design, she said that like other European diplomats (and others) she believes that reforming the United Nations means much more than just reconfiguring the Security Council, the focus of most current attention because of its central role in the battle over how to proceed in Iraq.  

All the component parts need attention, she says.

What went wrong with ECOSOC?  Is it numbers?  The council grew from 18 members in 1945 to 27 in 1965 and 54 in 1973.

"Some of our colleagues argue that it's too big, because if you are 15 or maybe even 20-plus, you could have serious discussions and negotiations," Rasi said.  

"On the other hand, there are many member states who consider ECOSOC too small because they believe that all these matters, the economic issues, should be discussed in the General Assembly, and all member states should be part of these very, very important discussions."

Unlike many of her predecessors as ECOSOC president, however, she doesn't narrow her efforts on her office alone.  

Sharing Secretary General Kofi Annan's perception that what is needed are fewer fiefdoms and more interaction in the organization, she wants to bring ECOSOC back into the loop by forging links with her counterparts in the General Assembly, whose president is also elected annually, and the Security Council, where the presidency rotates month by month.

"I would like to have very serious discussions with the president of the General Assembly and the Security Council," Rasi said.  

"Why is it that we can't have more cooperation?  We all emphasize that we all must work in coherence.  But when it comes to the issues, then it's difficult.  

Like today, Haiti is very much on the agenda.  

ECOSOC has been dealing with Haiti, as has the General Assembly and the Security Council, and now it seems to be on everybody's agenda.  

We should very carefully coordinate when, or if, the time comes [that] the U.N. is required to do something in Haiti."

Rasi also wants to plug ECOSOC into the work of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and other U.N. bodies working in economic development.

"ECOSOC, unfortunately, has always been looked down on a little bit," she said.  "If you read the U.N. Charter, it's a very important U.N. body but somehow its relevance doesn't match."

Critics would say that is because the council marginalized itself under the influence, on one hand, of a group of developing nations opposed to the leading industrial countries and the policies they promoted.  

On the other hand, the United States has occasionally aligned itself with conservative Islamic governments and the Vatican to slow movement on issues such as women's rights or AIDS education.  

Few nations are blameless here.

Arid stalemate and growing irrelevance are the result.  

ECOSOC's issues get taken over by others at a time when the overworked Security Council should be sending some problems to ECOSOC instead. 

"One role we are at least starting to do well is our cooperation with the Bretton Woods institutions," Rasi said, referring to the World Bank and IMF.  

That new cooperation includes consultations on how to achieve the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty, set at a U.N. summit in 2000, and how to get action on a plan for financing development proposed at another summit in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2002.  

An annual spring ECOSOC meeting now takes place with the Bretton Woods institutions and WTO. 

"It has become quite an important event," she said.

Rasi hopes to bring the same coherence to what some would call the runaway ECOSOC commissions by instituting regular meetings between her office and the various commission heads and getting them all to think together about concrete ways to deal with the social and economic problems that can lead to civil wars and terrorism.  

In July, the ministerial-level meeting of ECOSOC will be built around the needs of the least developed countries.

"We all know that more than 70 percent of the U.N.'s work is social or economic," she said.  

"But media, for some reason, is only interested in Iraq, and the Middle East.  

"So this kind of work is mainly invisible work.  

"When you talk about Millennium Development Goals or the Monterrey consensus it's not very dramatic or media attractive.  

"I think that with very intensive work, we can make a difference," Rasi said.  "But it won't happen overnight."