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UN Performance Problems UN Management Accountability Struggles Where is the Rule of Law? Inadequate UN Oversight Recent Developments
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SUBSECTION
TABLE OF CONTENTS: -- A small, outdated unit in a big, fast-changing world -- Can a non-performing JIU go on
forever?
The UN General
Assembly has a number of external oversight bodies available to exercise
"expert" vigilance and advice on administrative matters. Only one of them, the Joint
Inspection Unit, works on a full-time basis, but its professionalism has
always been low, and its impact has been at best variable and in recent
years trending sharply downward. The JIU history is,
above all, a remarkable example of how "barons" of the UN and their
diplomatic friends in Member State missions in New York, once they locate
highly-paid senior posts with few duties, will defend them zealously and
forever against all comers.
No other UN unit has been so consistently criticized and
deprecated, to no effect. A second crucial
lesson is also involved
-- how those same
barons and their allies in the General Assembly can seize even a critical
managerial function -- independent oversight and improvement of UN
operations -- for more than 35 years, providing "horse and buggy"
oversight services even into the 21st century. The story of the little-known JIU
thus deserves some detailed exposition, to show just how the processes of
amateurism and "jobs for the boys" can entrench themselves and greatly
retard effective UN operations.
The continuing JIU ineptitude is even more disturbing because it is, as it
always repeats, the one and only independent, system-wide "subsidiary
organ" available to ensure the proper use of funds, and efficient
programmes, not just for the UN but throughout the entire UN system as
well. Based on the analysis
which follows, IO Watch concludes that, until its resources are finally
transferred to professional oversight units, the UN external oversight
system in the 21st century can only be regarded as a
farce. |
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