mandates, constituencies, and values, the UN agencies and the Bretton
Woods institutions continued to differ, the former insisting on social
justice, the latter placing more emphasis on economic growth.^91 These
divergent priorities were anchored in conceptions of equality that
were clearly delineated by the left–right opposition.
Inequality, it should be recalled, was a major issue on the UN agenda
of the early days. The issue was “marginalized” with the failure of the
new international economic order negotiations of the 1970s, but in
the wake of the Millennium Summit, the UN became increasingly
attentive to the exacerbation of global inequality.^92 The organization
presented the persistence of inequality between countries as a huge
barrier preventing the achievement of the MDGs and the promotion
of international security. Estimating that “about 70% of global
income inequality is explained by differences in incomes between
countries,” the UN insisted on placing the reduction of inequality at
the core of development policies.^93 In a comprehensive perspective,
the UN promoted simultaneously a greater equality of rights, of oppor-
tunity, and of living conditions.
While they had recently accepted the need to combat poverty, the
Bretton Woods institutions proved more reluctant to talk about
inequality. In fact, the very logic of markets and competition that
underpinned the neoliberal model of development advocated by these
organizations demanded a certain degree of tolerance toward inequal-
ities. Traditionally more open to progressive ideas than the IMF or the
(^91) John Gerard Ruggie, “The United Nations and Globalization: Patterns and
Limits of Institutional Adaptation,”Global Governance, vol. 9, no. 3, 2003,
301–21, pp. 303–05; and Jean-Philippe The ́rien, “Beyond the North-South
Divide: The Two Tales of World Poverty,”Third World Quarterly, vol. 20,
92 no. 4, 1999, 723–42.
Richard Jolly, Louis Emmerij, and Thomas G. Weiss,The Power of UN Ideas,
p. 56. See also UNDP,Human Development Report 2005: International
Cooperation at a Crossroads: Aid, Trade and Security in an Unequal World,
New York, Oxford University Press, 2005; United Nations,Report on the
World Social Situation 2005: The Inequality Predicament, New York, United
Nations, 2005 (http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/418/73/PDF/
N0541873.pdf?OpenElement); United Nations,World Economic and Social
Survey 2006: Diverging Growth and Development, New York, United
Nations, 2006 (www.un.org/esa/policy/wess/wess2006files/wess2006.pdf); and
United Nations,Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United
Nations, New York, United Nations, 2006 (www.un.org/esa/socdev/ IFSD/
documents/SocialJustice.pdf).
(^93) United Nations,World Economic and Social Survey 2006, p. vi.
Twenty-first-century rapprochement 191