Fran O'Sullivan: Clark more than ready to step into UN role

Helen Clark can be excused for a moment basking as the latest New Zealander nominated to a major international diplomatic leadership role.

But if Clark is running true to form she will already be focused on the task she faces when she finally steps into a key managerial role at her beloved United Nations.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon finally confirmed yesterday the open secret that he has nominated Clark as the new head of the UN Development Programme to succeed Turkey's Kemal Dervis, saying she was selected for her outstanding qualifications and numerous accomplishments in her long career.

Clark had the needed leadership and international recognition that would allow her, as the new administrator, to build on the role as head of a body which is focused on poverty reduction, democratic governance, the environment and empowerment of women among a long list of responsibilities.

Clark's command of the major political shifts impacting the UN's work will have stood her in good stead in her formal job interview with Ki-moon.

These political shifts include globalisation, climate change, trade liberalisation, poverty and her own proven leadership diplomacy in securing trade deals like the historic bilateral free trade deal with China.

Also, in moving significant policies on to the agenda at forums like the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation leaders' meeting and the East Asia Summit.

But her strongest asset, as John Key admitted to me recently (with just the slightest envious glint), is her "Rolodex from heaven".

She has a plethora of top-level international contacts made over her nine years as New Zealand's Prime Minister, including former US president George W. Bush.

Bush is now, if not quite a footnote to history, firmly in the background as the Obama Administration takes charge.

But their own diplomatic gavotte is instructive. It was to be expected that Clark's frank opposition to the Iraq invasion (it would not have occurred if Al Gore had been president) put her offside with Bush's White House for a period.

But the personable Bush respected her irrespective of the obvious ideological differences between the Republican President and the Labour Prime Minister, who was insistent that his administration should secure United Nations' approval before entering Iraq.

It might seem ironic now but Clark was clearly chuffed when he told her during a later meeting that "she should be in his Cabinet".

According to Bush Administration sources, what impressed the former president was Clark's in-depth knowledge of the international political scene, her studious attention to detail and obvious managerial competence.

Over time, relationships improved to the point where the long-held differences over New Zealand anti-nuclear policy - of which Clark was a prime behind-scenes architect - could be put to one side while both countries worked together in the Pacific and elsewhere.

Clark's first opportunity to display her managerial competence at international level came when she chaired the annual OECD Council at Ministerial Level in Paris in April 2003.

She won rare behind-scenes praise from parties as disparate as Pascal Lamy (then EU Trade Commissioner) and Robert Zoellick (then US Trade Representative) for her skilful chairmanship at a time of great uncertainty in world economic and security affairs.

In particular, Clark managed to create an atmosphere where Lamy and Zoellick could keep the transatlantic trade dialogue openly moving when there were passionate differences between European countries opposed to the Iraq invasion and the United States which threatened to result in tit-for-tat trade wars.

The relationships forged then will no doubt strengthen when Clark has to deal with Lamy as director-general of the World Trade Organisation and Zoellick as World Bank president.

As Lamy told me in 2004, he rated New Zealand as being among a group of countries whose international negotiating weight is "far beyond the numbers - not the big elephants, but people who can go between".

Such an intermediary position can be very profitable to those nations.

"It is like in business, if you are a clever interface you get on both sides and it creates weight.

"Know-how, respect, consistency, openness, a sensitivity to human rights and the social environment acquired by nations like New Zealand lend this sort of actor" a comparative advantage.

She also built up a reservoir of international respect during meetings of the Progressive Governance Group which featured among its members at various times politicians ranging from former British prime minister Tony Blair and former US president Bill Clinton as well as leading international diplomats like current WTO director-general Lamy and his predecessor, our former prime minister Mike Moore.

It would be churlish to spend too much time on the accumulation of domestic baggage which put paid to Clark's chances at the last election.

But my sense is she long ago outgrew her local role as she readied herself to move on to an international diplomacy role.

It is a moot point now whether Clark could have secured Ban's job after Kofi Annan stepped down after 10 years as secretary-general.

But the electoral timing was against her and the United Nations was not then ready for a woman at the top. But don't rule her out in the longer term.