" … only on a scrutiny of truth can a future of peace be built."

Dag Hammarskjöld, to the UN General Assembly, 3 October 1960, as quoted in Shirley Hazzard, Defeat of an ideal: A study of the self-destruction of the United Nations, Atlantic Monthly, Little Brown, Boston-Toronto, 1973.

"The United Nations presently is almost totally lacking in effective means to deal with fraud, waste and abuse by staff members … [as recently highlighted in] … the news media. …

 … [Reform is crucial because] … as noted in the Volcker-Ogata report, 'support for improved financing will be dependent upon a perception that funds are economically managed and effectively spent.'  Major donors, and indeed all Member States, deserve the reassurance that … their assessed and voluntary contributions are being wisely and prudently utilized … [to convey] to their taxpayers, the ultimate supporters of all United Nations activity."

Dick Thornburgh, UN Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Management, "Report to the Secretary-General of the United Nations" ["The Thornburgh report"], 1 March 1993, pp. 29-31.                [emphasis added]

"For years Western governments have complained about the lack of accountability prevailing in UN organizations, but in practice they have tolerated a degree of opacity that would be considered totally unacceptable for any civil service in a democracy. …

                [No] amount of exhortation – as the years have proved – can compensate for the lack of routine inspection under established rules of ‘open government.’  … Many UN staff members would welcome more rigorous scrutiny …”

Rosemary Righter, Utopia lost: The United Nations and world order, Twentieth Century Fund, New York, 1995, pp. 280-281.                [emphasis added]     

" … No amount of money or resources can substitute for the significant changes that are urgently needed in the culture of the [UN] …

Wide disparities in staff quality exist … better performers are given unreasonable workloads to compensate for those who are less capable.  Unless the United Nations takes steps to become a true meritocracy, it will not be able to reverse the alarming trend of qualified personnel, the young among them in particular, leaving the Organization.   Unless … the Secretary-General and his senior staff … seriously address this problem on a priority basis, reward excellence and remove incompetence, additional resources will be wasted and lasting reform will become impossible."

Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations [the "Brahimi report"], UN document S/2000/809 of August 21 2000, p. xiv.   Available online at www.un.org/documents/ under "Security Council", "SG reports".    [emphasis added]

"...Conventionally 'internationalist' administrations… are too inclined to see the IMF and the World Bank as ends in themselves, as signs of enlightenment and virtue, however much a mess they make of things. It is quite right to ask … whether these bodies need to exist at all, exactly what purpose they are intended to serve, and just how well they are discharging their duties, whatever these may be."

"Reforming the Sisters", The Economist, February 17th,  2001, pp. 20-21.         

"It is precisely those committed to struggling for a better world who stand most in need of abandoning the fantasy of an idealized international system."

David Rieff, "Goodbye, new world order", Mother Jones (US), July/August 2003,  pp. 37-41.                              

"Unprecedented challenges' faced by the UN have shown that the world body must immediately reform …

'Perhaps the most obvious shortcomings identified by the Volcker Inquiry and other crises are in the area of oversight and accountability. The current 'control' systems for monitoring management performance and preventing fraud and corruption are insufficient and must be significantly enhanced,' [UN Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette] said."

"Fréchette unveils UN reforms responding to Volcker panel's criticisms",UN News Service, 17 May 2005.    [emphasis added]                              

"The main conclusions are unambiguous.

The [United Nations] requires stronger executive leadership, thoroughgoing administrative reform, and more reliable controls and auditing. …

… There was corruption within the United Nations at a critical management point.  There was exposure of important administrative and control weaknesses … The consequences?  An avoidable loss of assistance to Iraq's population and a grievous loss of credibility to the United Nations. …

… There appears to be a pervasive culture of responsibility avoidance and resistance to accountability …"

Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme (the "Volcker panel"), "The Management of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme", 7 September, 2005, Volume I, pages 1, 9, 13.  All four volumes are available at http://www.iic-offp.org/ under "Documents".               [emphasis added]

"A radically expanded range of activities calls for a radical overhaul of the United Nations Secretariat -- its rules, structure, systems, and culture.  Up to now, that has not happened. …

We have too few skilled managers and a system that does not integrate field-based staff. … The present top management structure of the Secretariat is not well equipped to manage large and complex operations …

… Our management system … lacks the capacity, controls, flexibility, robustness and indeed transparency to handle multi-billion-dollar global operations, which often have to be deployed at great speed …

In several key areas -- … and perhaps above all the management culture -- the operating model has not changed significantly since at least the 1970s.  Indeed, systems have continued to weaken as challenges have grown." 

"Investing in the United Nations: for a stronger organization worldwide: Report of the Secretary-General [Kofi Annan]", UN document A/60/692, available online at  www.un.org/documents under "General Assembly", "Session Documents", "60th", under the report number, 7 March 2006, pp. 1, 2, and paras. 7-9.  [emphasis added]   [Note: This unusual expression of candor, in the midst of all Mr. Annan's management reform optimism, was too late by far in his 10-year term of leadership.]

“Individual institutional reforms in the IMF, the World Bank and the United Nations … are critical, but … not sufficient to sustain themselves or to … [increase] the effectiveness of the international system as a whole. …

The central basis for democratic legitimacy is the people. … The [heads of the UN, World Bank, IMF and] other appointed leaders … [lack the legitimacy of national government leaders, so]  global governance reform cannot be based … [solely on them.] …

There is no global governance group at the apex of the international system. … [In] the twenty-first century, … interconnections among challenges, sectors, and institutions are central. … [Therefore] the void at the apex is now critical. … 

Taking the ten industrial economies (including the EU) and the ten emerging market economies … in the G-20 finance ministers group is one strong … option. …  The key requirement is that the new forum be substantially more inclusive, broader in its focus, and based on a new commitment to asserting stewardship of the international system …

If the international system does not … meet the challenges of the global age, it will fail to have ‘practical meaning’, and it will falter.”

Colin I. Bradford, Jr., and Johannes F. Linn, eds., Global governance reform: Breaking the stalemate, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 2007, Chapter 9, “Conclusions and implications”, pp. 116, 118, 127-128, 130-131 passim.

[emphasis added]

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