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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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In May 2001 the head of the UN's Department of Public Information gave a
very positive and optimistic view of information at the UN in an
interview: "How do you ensure that DPI
isn't seen as a propaganda tool, yet that it serves the UN's
objectives? By telling the truth! Information isn't propaganda
unless you doctor it to distort reality or hide inconvenient facts. We don't do
that. I think you'll admit that under
Secretary General Kofi Annan we have the most transparent United Nations
imaginable --- one that has officially authorized all staff to speak to
the press within their areas of competence, one that has openly admitted
its failures and mistakes (on issues as major as Srebren[ica] and Rwanda),
one that has encouraged media access at all levels. That's the spirit that will animate everything that DPI does
" Pranay Gupte, "Q & A: Shashi Tharoor: 'Why information matters at the UN'," Earth Times, May 2001, p. 16. [Note: the article began by citing Mr. Tharoor as "an established novelist, columnist and nonfiction author, a familiar byline in many of the world's top publications, also a highly sought-after figure on the lecture circuit. His new novel, 'Riot', is scheduled for publication and is already generating considerable buzz." One wonders how Mr. Tharoor ever finds time for his weighty responsibilities as a senior Department head and top publicist for the UN. A further article on Mr. Tharoor, who still serves as head of the DPI and appears regularly on "op-ed" pages and as a columnist in Newsweek International , is Lynda Richardson,
"Public lives: Polishing public profile of UN is a job for a novelist", New York Times, March 9,
2001. Things were not always so at the UN. In fact, for
decades the Organization had fearful attitudes about outside exposure, and
relied on secrecy and very restricted information, as shown by the
following seven quotes: "Of all the regrettable legacies from the moral
collapse of the United Nations in the early 1950s, the most insidious has
been timorousness.
A group of leading officials who stood by
while
scores of their subordinates were, with formal United Nations sanction,
made victims of a national reign of terror
could hardly have been
expected to grow braver with the years; nor have they. And their
attitudes have permanently affected the entire UN body -- gathering
momentum, so to speak, as they merged with the not inconsiderable
tributaries of native bureaucracy. Two expressions are constantly repeated
in the United Nations these days, in response to any outside plea for more
constructive approaches, past or present: 'It
wouldn't have done any good' and 'It's
inevitable.'" Shirley Hazard, Defeat of an ideal: A study of the
self-destruction of the United Nations, Macmillan, London,
1973, pp. 121-122.
"[Recently, as
President of the Staff Union], I met with
. senior UN officials, [who
warned me] that the staff must be extremely careful about its actions
because the UN was on the verge of collapse and the tiniest upset might
bring the whole structure crumbling down. I asked
. 'Gentlemen,
do you really believe that the UN is such a fragile flower?' A solemn yes
was the reply I received. (This, I might say, is [a line] used
rather consistently over the years to silence criticism and unrest. I recently
saw an article from the 12 March 1947 edition of The New York Times where
the first Secretary-General, Mr. Trygve Lie, was quoted as saying to a
meeting of the staff, 'Everything you say will be used against this
Organization by the enemies of the United Nations.')
." Lowell Flanders, "The future of the UN . In whose hands?", address at a preparatory meeting of the United Nations Community Forum, Secretariat News (NY), April 16, 1979, pp. 10-11. "Over-stretched and under-funded, bureaucratically
and unimaginatively organized, the UN is perceived to straddle the globe
like a dinosaur.
Always an opaque organization, it is not easy to understand its workings,
and almost impossible to follow the threads of its myriad activities. Sometimes it
seems more like a church for the faithful, with its attendant mysteries,
than a political institution run by rational individuals. Only four groups of
people [diplomats, journalists, academics, and members of the secretariat]
are familiar with its arcane ceremonies, and all of them usually conspire
to sing its praises.
. [They] all have such a vested interest in the UN
.... that they rarely question the organization's existence." Richard Gott,
"Nations divided by a lost vision", Guardian
Weekly, London, 12 September 1993, pp.
1-3.
"Many studies on
the UN are produced in academia, and governments conduct their own
enquiries, but from a journalist's point of view the UN is one of the
world's most under-reported organisations. So much is taken at face value and so
little is known. A fog of misinformation envelopes the
Secretariat, a situation which ideally suits its member governments. It is not
always possible to keep some matters secret for ever and the evidence
gathered here will go some way to explain what happened to the world's
last, best hope. The world of
international diplomacy is a closed shop and curious outsiders are often
dismissed.
The covert behaviour practised in this twilight zone helps to
ensure that information is reserved for those with an inside track. There is an
ever-present inclination toward cover-up." Melvern, Linda, The ultimate crime: Who betrayed the UN and why,
Allison & Busby, London, 1995, p.
434.
"Introduction: A good idea fallen among
thieves The UN has the
media relations of a 1950s state bureaucracy. It
doesn't
like reporters looking into its inner workings, and it threatens
dire penalties to staff found leaking information to the media. Time and time again, when journalists have exposed
scandals in the UN, senior officials set up an enquiry -- into who
leaked!" Ian Williams, The UN for beginners, Writers and Readers
Publishing, New York, 1995, p. 1.
"
the [OIOS] report is a guide to a variety of UN scandals, most of them
unknown beyond the walls of the Secretariat because of entrenched
traditions of secrecy. Senior UN
officials do not seem to understand -- or perhaps they understand only too
well --
the role of transparency in avoiding waste and fraud. As we have
noted before, the bidding process for the award of multimillion dollar UN
contracts is entirely secret. Even the opening of bids from
contractors, which UN regulations require to be 'public' takes place
behind closed doors, and information is released neither to the Press nor
to any intergovernmental body." "Reviewing 3+ years
of work, [OIOS] sees continuing problems - but reforms are afoot," International Documents Review, 2 November 1998, pp. 1-4.
"How Not to Although 'reform'
has been with us for ages now
.it cannot exactly be considered a
success.
Which comes as no surprise to the average U.N. staff member who,
from the 'vantage' point of the inside view, has seen a succession of bad
answers being administered to the wrong questions.
. EU Commissioner Neil
Kinnock seems to be one of the outsiders done in by the deceptive legwork
of our 'reformers.' [Seeking] working models for reform of
[EU] institutions, Mr. Kinnock finds his inspiration
. in the 'successful
internal overhauls of the U.N.' This snake oil is deemed to be
effective in eliminating the 'problems of poor morale, slow promotion and
mismanagement.'
Wish it were true. The only amazing accomplishment [his] illusions
illustrate is the remarkable success of the U.N. policy of
muzzling the staff to the point where, almost fifty-five years later, high officials of non-U.N.
organizations can still be led to believe that sound management is the
rule here." Eric Blair,
"Miscellany: From our man in Absurdistan", UN
Special (Geneva), March 2000, p. 31. [emphasis
added.]
In more recent times, however, the UN has worked much
more aggressively to refine and invigorate its public information, or
public relations (or propaganda) activities. It began with a detailed 1987
analysis on "making the UN a winner" and assessing how it could best "sell
itself". Since then, there has been much internal activity on such things
as "enhancing the public image of the UN system", "Communication as a
reform tool", and training workshops to improve senior officials' media
presentation skills. Pace-UK
International Affairs, Making the United Nations a
winner, London, 1987. The new efforts led as well to some major media
extravaganzas, though not without some awkward moments, as shown by the
following three quotes. "The United Nations
is getting ready to celebrate. Up to 160 heads of state and government
are expected [at] a special three-day commemoration of the UN's 50th
anniversary
. in New York. And there will be
educational and celebratory events sponsored
in more than 100
nations.
United Nations Associations are the driving force
. in many
countries. Events include a
world tour by Britain's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
an international
conference on counseling for tolerance in Valetta, Malta, and a science
and culture symposium in Tokyo.
a model United Nations assembly [in
Tampere, Finland] at the 80th World Esperanto Congress .
[in India] a
seminar on the UN in the 21st century, and the UN plans to look at itself
in Vienna
. with a forum on administrative coordination for the next 50
years.
.
San Francisco .
will be the center for many observances, from
think-tank meetings to dance festivals.
.[and] the Gorbachev Foundation
is organizing a forum on the state of the world
. A $15-million trust
fund has been pledged by the international business community,
governments, non-governmental organizations, and individuals
[mostly]
for communications and educational materials in schools and universities
around the world
." Elvi Ruottinen,
"Plans for a serious party", Gemini News
Service (Third-World oriented), London, December 16, 1994, as presented in World Press Review, June 1995.
"It is supposed to
be the feel-good event of the fall, a melding of music, technology and
anti-poverty action. On Saturday, millions around the world
will watch pop stars
. perform in London, Geneva and New Jersey for
NetAid, a United Nations-sponsored effort to engage wealthy Westerners in
the hardships of the developing world. The concerts will be carried live on
television in 60 countries and radio broadcasts will reach 120
nations.
The shows will promote NetAid's website.
. But even before the
first chords are struck, the charitable alliance is caught up in
controversy, deflecting charges of self-interest. Harry
Belafonte, the actor and musician who helped organize the event, said he
and the actor Danny Glover were quitting in disgust. The event, he
said, had 'been reduced to a trade show', promoting the UN bureaucracy and
a corporate sponsor, Cisco Systems. UN sources said that in his letter of
resignation, Belafonte also complained that proceeds would be funneled
back into the UN Development Program and Cisco before money reached the
world's poor." "People", International Herald Tribune, October 9, 1999.
"In retrospect, it
is difficult to understand why United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
and his senior advisers
were so determined to organize a summit
conference of world leaders
on the occasion of the first General
Assembly of the new millenium. In many ways, the 1990s was a decade of
peacekeeping failures and conferences for the world organization. The failures
are all too obvious; and most of the conferences, if they are remembered
at all, exist only in the institutional memories of the organizations that
participated in them.
This [Millenium
Summit] is of course a public relations ploy, not a serious idea. The problems
of the world organization cannot be solved by summits, millennial or
otherwise.
Yes, almost every
major head of state dutifully trooped to New York to address the summit --
for an allotted time of five minutes each! That alone should have been enough to
demonstrate what an inconsequential event the entire summit really was.
Tellingly, almost no one at the United Nations today talks about the
summit, although the event took almost two years to plan and occupied the
attention of some of the institution's best minds. It is almost
as if it never happened. And, in a sense, it never did." David Rieff,
"The Millenium Assembly", Global Governance, 7
(2001), pp. 127-130 [127, 130].
Of course, the UN has had, or created, its own media
"star" in Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is continuously visible at
events and on visits worldwide: very much a jet-setter, compared to his
quieter precedessors as Secretary-General. As a 2002 story noted: "New Yorkers,
competing to lure Kofi Annan to their dinners and benefits, are making him
the most sociable, plugged-in United Nations secretary general this city
has ever
known.
Sometimes that translates into as many as five nights out a week,
he says.
That is on top of all those official lunches, diplomatic receptions
and traveling: 20 countries so far this year. He is not
complaining.
'You have everybody here, lots of interesting people' he said in an
interview
'He's not bought in
completely to the fact that he's the current social star of New York
parties',
says [one friend]. Sir Brian Urquhart,
who has known all the secretaries general, except the first
says Mr.
Annan mixes more in New York society than any of his predecessors.
'Dag Hammarskjold
did not go out very much' he says of the contemplative Swede. 'He
didn't like routine social life. U Thant just went home and read. Kurt
Waldheim? I'm not sure he got asked very much.' (Others said he certainly
tried.)
Javier Perez de Cuellar frequented
[museum] galleries. And everyone
agrees that Butros Boutros-Ghali, from Egypt, was an uncompromising
intellectual and workaholic who never relaxed." Barbara Crossette, "Outside UN, a secretary so social", New York Times, May 30, 2002. Mr. Annan has indeed apparently created a formidable
persona (at least until late 2004). He has even been described by some
diplomatic admirers as "a rock star of international relations" and as
having "a saint-like sense about him." This role clearly helped him win a
Nobel Peace Prize, which the enthusiastic Norwegian jury awarded half to
Mr. Annan himself, and the other half to the 35,000-50,000 UN or UN system
staff.
Colum Lynch, "Honor
awarded to Annan and UN", International Herald
Tribune, October 13, 2001, Edith M. Lederer,
"UN's Annan elected to second term", June 30
2001, "Text from Nobel
Peace Prize citation", Associated Press, October
12, 2001, Alister Doyle and
Evelyn Leopold, "Nobel Prize recognizes UN as a global force", Reuters, October 12,
2001.
One has to wonder, however, how far this media
stardom of Secretary-General Annan can or should go, and what the impact
his persona will have on future UN operations, especially after all of his
very personalized quests to expand the Organization's contacts and
commitments in grand global partnerships. For instance, as discussed
under Global Compact
hypocrisy in the next subsection
on Other Major
Problems , the UN Global Compact
seems now apparently to be referred to, perhaps carelessly or not, as
"Annan's Global Compact." In this respect, it should be noted
that Mr. Annan himself once stated that: "
I have sought to speak out in favor of universal human rights and in
defense of the victims of aggression or abuse, wherever they may be.
I have sought to make the office of
secretary-general a pulpit
for promoting the values of tolerance,
democracy, human rights and good governance that I believe are universal."
To apply those lessons
wherever and whenever possible is a secretary-general's highest calling
and foremost duty -- to himself, to his office, and to the United
Nations.
My great
predecessor, Dag Hammarskjold, once said that it 'is a question not of a
man, but of an institution.' It is, therefore, for the United Nations itself, and
the hopes and aspirations that it has embodied for more than half a
century, that
we must succeed."
Kofi A. Annan,
"About the United Nations and its Secretary-General", International Herald Tribune, January 21, 1999 . [emphasis added.] For some
enthusiastic strong praise, see Joshua Cooper Ramo, "The five
virtues of Kofi Annan," [subtitle: "Drawing on his days in the classrooms
of M.I.T. and the playing fields of Ghana, the U.N. leader pursues a moral
vision for enforcing world peace"], Time, September 4, 2000, pp. 40-47. Despite all these recent UN public relations
activities and media strategies reality inevitably intrudes, particularly
in the harsh world of UN peacekeeping and humanitarian programmes in the
field. Four quotes can serve to indicate the many alternative "mud on the
boots" views of UN actual performance as opposed to the PR messages
released; the sometimes far too-smug commentary of the UN's spokespersons;
and the discrepancy between dramatic "photo ops" and cruel refugee
realities. "[Two years after
the United Nations launched a drive .. to raise funds for clearing land
mines inside Afghanistan, a UN official has charged that money, including
about $10 million donated by the U.S. government, is being wasted. Rae McGrath, a land
mines specialist who spent 18 years in the British army before joining the
UN
program as its field supervisor, said that the United Nations had
grossly exaggerated the impact of its program, in part to raise money
He added that large
sums had been wasted on poorly planned and badly monitored educational
programs for refugees. "We're not running a mine eradication
program, which is what the donors are giving the money for and what needs
to be done" Mr. McGrath said. After a dispute
with his superiors
[he] is leaving the United
Nations.
Others associated with the program
said they agreed with the
thrust of Mr. McGrath's criticisms. In its solicitations for funds, the
United Nations says it has trained 20,000 Afghans in mine awareness and
mine clearance.
But it has sent only one team of 27 into Afghanistan to clear
mines." Steve Coll, "Afghan funds wasted, UN official says", Washington Post Service, International Herald Tribune, 22 March 1990. "The United Nations
is losing an estimated £270 m. each year because of corruption, waste and
mismanagement, an investigation by the Sunday
Times Insight team has discovered. The new evidence of
widespread financial abuse
comes [from]
'Operation Irma", the trouble-ridden
evacuation of wounded refugees from Bosnia. The disclosures
will fuel growing international criticism of the U.N.
An estimated £1 m. has
been raised in one week in public donations, but aid agencies are bitter
and angry that hundreds of times that amount of cash has been squandered
by the U.N. so far this year. Jeffrey Clark,
deputy director of the Refugee Policy Group, an international agency
helping refugees in Bosnia, said: 'At the very moment when the U.N. needs
to persuade people and governments to spend more on expanded operations
its credibility is undermined by waste, mismanagement, ineptitude, and
pure stupidity.'" Nick Rufford, Ian Burrell and David Leppard, "Scandal of U.N. 'lost' millions", The Sunday Times, 15 August 1993, p. 1. [Note: as excerpted
in the UN Special (Geneva), October,
1993, pp. 20, 22, 27.]
"The
responses to
allegations of black-market dealing and drug smuggling among peace-keeping
troops in Yugoslavia are already looking unpromising. Sylvana Foa,
the spokeswoman for the U.H. High Commissioner for Refugees, found it odd
that anybody should be surprised that 'out of 14,000 pimply 18-year olds a
bunch of them should get up to naughty tricks'". The Spectator, September 4, 1993, p. 5, as quoted in Houshang Ameri, Politics of staffing the United Nations Secretariat, Major Concepts in Politics and Political Theory, Vol. 8, Peter Lang, New York, 1996, p. 399 [Note: For more information on UN refugee and peacekeeping drug and sex scandals that involve not merely "pimply 18-year olds" who are, after all, risking their lives in a war zone and perhaps engaging in "naughty tricks", see the section entitled Refugee sexual abuses .]
"[In Somalia]
squadrons of hacks flew in on day-trip charters
then
obediently
[reported] that the UN and overseas charities had magically put a stop to
the famine overnight. Next in the parade came the
movie
actors and the rock and roll stars. [We] flew to a
refugee camp ,,, with UN 'goodwill ambasador' Sophia Loren
A semicircle
of cameras whirred and clicked as she 'fed' a skeletal infant by holding a
spoon to its lips.
The actress swept
off between sprawled bodies, with photographers treading at her heels.
[Afterward] I found
Somali nurses fussing over a naked, starving child whose leg had been
stamped on by one of the marauding photographers because it had been too
weak to crawl out of the way. The UN officer
pleaded with me not to tell the story of the [injured] kid because it
would stop people contributing toward the famine
[so
reluctantly I wrote my piece.] I asked my UN
friend what his agency was doing with an actress who was, in my opinion, a
has-been.
'I know" he
shrugged.
'We discussed Madonna, but she's just too sexy for a famine. Pity really
" Aidan Hartley,
The Zanzibar chest: A memoir of love and war,
Harper Collins, London, 2003, pp.
228-229.. [Note: Mr.
Hartley's excellent book covers in part his work as a wartime journalist
in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia and elsewhere in the 1990s]
Two other UN "public relations" matters should also
be noted. In the introductory quote to this subsection the UN "chief
communicator", Mr. Tharoor, praised UN openness in the form of a new
policy officially authorizing all staff to speak to the press within their
areas of competence. There had been rumors that the policy
would be a very harsh one, but in fact the UN Administration got to have
it both ways.
The policy sounds nice: "For the first time
in its history, the UN has issued written guidelines on how its officials
will deal with the news media. And to the surprise of many, the new
rules allow almost anyone to speak on the record. How this will work
in practice is something else, of course. The organization, many of whose member
countries are not known for condoning a free press, has often been
extremely secretive about even the most mundane information. 'The United Nations
is committed to being open and transparent in dealings with the press',
say the new guidelines
. now being circulated
. Under
[Secretary-General Kofi] Annan's predecessor, Butros Butros-Ghali, most
officials in the Secretariat
. were forbidden to give interviews, or were
afraid to talk. [However, under the
new guidance], 'Every employee in effect becomes responsible for judging
what a 'sensitive issue' is and when to [defer to more senior
officials.]'" Barbara Crossette, "UN's guidelines give media open
access to its officials", International Herald
Tribune, August 10, 1999.
In practice, however, this process is a mine
field.
Veteran staff who have from time to time been firmly warned to be
discreet to the point of total silence because media people are "asking
around" know that almost any issue can be "sensitive" and "when to defer
to more senior officials" [the answer is, almost always, if you know
what's good for you], and know that nothing has changed -- for them. The only time UN staff can speak on the record to the
media is -- as it always was -- when they submit their resignation and are
walking out the door, as in the first "field" example of public relations
problems cited above. The new "speak on the record" policy,
however, does make a big change for senior UN officials. They now
appear quite frequently on the "op-ed" pages of major newspapers along
with Mr. Annan and Mr. Tharoor. In addition, the UN's DPI has long been an object of
discussion and debate, both because of its sprawling size and the
perpetual question of how much information and how much - and often whose -- information
or propaganda it is disseminating. Over the years, it has undergone
several and various reorganization attempts. In his 2002 report on an
agenda for further change, Secretary-General Annan continued this effort,
stating that: "The Department of
Public Information has suffered from a fragmentation of its efforts as a
result of too many mandates and missions. It will be restructured so as to be
better able to develop coherent communications strategies and take
advantage of new media and communications technologies. A
comprehensive evaluation of the impact and cost-effectiveness of all the
Department's activities will be carried out over the next three years.
" "Strengthening of
the United Nations: An agenda for further change: Report of the
Secretary-General", UN document A/57/387 of 9
September 2002, p. 2. In 2004 the US GAO report on UN reform progress
provided a rather detailed update. The GAO found that the DPI reforms were
still in the early phases. It identified three interesting areas
of changes made or getting underway: -- First, the DPI now has three divisions -- an
Outreach Division to interact with civil society and educational
institutions, a News and Media Division to expand UN access to global
media organizations, and a Strategic Communications Division to develop
communications strategies in key programme areas. -- Second, the Secretariat was moving, slowly, to
finally assess DPI impact as requested for decades: in 2003, DPI and OIOS
began a three-year effort to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of DPI
through an annual review process. -- Third, the Secretary-General had sought to
identify outdated or duplicative publications from more than 1,200 which
are produced annually. Some, like a UN Chronicle
publication for students and teachers costs $1 million annually. More
publications may go online, and in December 2003, the General Assembly did
approve the discontinuation of 192 publications and reports. U.S. General
Accounting Office, United Nations: Reforms
progressing, but comprehensive assessments needed to measure impact,
GAO 04-339, February 2004, pp. "Highlights"
page.
[Note: even in transition, the UN does now have a formidable arsenal of information (or public relations or propaganda) to feed to the media, as outlined in The UN's Official Versions under UN Performance Problems .
Meanwhile, the UN public information and public
relations machinery has indeed proceeded with its latest of its many
reorganizations, and gearing itself up to release an ever-expanding flood
of material on the UN's activities and leadership ambitions throughout the
world.
As described in late 2004: "
the Department
of Public Information has undergone a major reorganization of its priorities,
structures and processes
based on the premise that its role is to manage
and coordinate the content of United Nations communications and to strategically convey this
content to achieve the greatest public impact.
A [recent]
feature
was
the establishment of small expert groups to deal with the public
information consequences of emerging crises
[including a group]
of
information officers from the Middle East and the Arab world
to bolster the flagging image
of the Organization in that region.
[DPI]
has set in
place new strategies aimed at generating support for new and expanding
[peacekeeping] operations among Member States, the general public
and the local populations [involved]
The use of external
public venues for United Nations observances and commemorations has proved
to be a most successful innovation
The use of
multi-site videoconferences and Internet exchanges, linking students and
civil society partners around the world, has boosted our capacity to
encourage public dialogue
United Nations
Radio continues to provide daily and weekly news reports and features in
the six official languages
to hundreds of radio stations around the
globe
United Nations
Television estimates that an audience of 2 billion people sees its
programming, including hundreds of hours of coverage supplied to the
world's broadcasters [of]
meetings of the General Assembly, the Security
Council, and other events and conferences.
" "Report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization", UN document A/59/1, 20 August 2004, paras. 263, 266-267, 269-270, 279-280.
All these reorganization, celebrity, and public
relations activities at the UN indeed raise "big questions" about the use
and misuse of modern media, propaganda, and the advertising of public
goods. Two very useful recent books by Mark Alleyne and Paul Rutherford
address these questions. They will be added into the IO Watch archive
"mix" at a later date. Mark D. Alleyne, Global lies?: Propaganda, the UN and world order, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2003, and Paul Rutherford, Endless propaganda: The advertising of public goods, University of Toronto, Toronto, Buffalo NY (USA), London, 2000.] For the moment, a provocative article on the misuse
of "global brands" by Clifford Bob in Foreign
Policy is helpful, not least because it includes an excellent resource
guide. The article summary states: "Which global
injustices gain your sympathy, attention, and money? Rarely the
most deserving.
For every Tibetan monk or Central American indigenous activist you
see on the evening news, countless other worthy causes languish in
obscurity.
The groups that reach the global limelight often do so at dear cost
-- by distorting their principles and alienating their constituencies for
the sake of appealing to self-interested donors in rich nations." Clifford Bob, "Merchants of morality: Brand name bullies: how good marketing beats good deeds", Foreign Policy, March/April 2002, pp. 36-45. Further, in a summary perspective on the uses and
impact of public information activities and use of the media by modern
public and private organizations, an Amnesty International report in March 2000 warned
corporations that they risk their reputations (and jeopardize their
self-interest) if they do not adhere to international human rights
standards in their operations and accept outside scrutiny of their
performance. As the UN steps proudly to
center stage to lead the march to a newly accountable and
transparent global society and system, it too must willingly subject
itself to the same public scrutiny that it advocates for everyone
else. Alan Cowell, "Human
rights issues present new kind of corporate risk", International Herald Tribune, April 7, 2000, and Human rights: Is it any of your
business?,
Amnesty International, London, 2000.
Meanwhile, the UN can convey all the enthusiasms,
stories, policies, and promised changes that it wants and can afford. The
1987 PACE study that marked the Organization's entry into the wild world
of global media, however, offered very wise advice about DPI work, still
largely ignored almost two decades later: make UN publications much less
boring and more attractive, assess their worth by selling them (and
obtaining sales figures) where possible, and concentrate on internal
communication within the Secretariat as well to build an informed and
motivated UN staff. However, the PACE study's most powerful observations
came in its conclusions: "
the image of
the United Nations must stand up to the increased scrutiny that greater
public awareness will place it under. Image-making is about communicating the
positive truth and being honest and open about fundamental problems in a
positive way.
It is not about hiding failings or scandals because they have an
unfortunate habit of surfacing in the media
Neither is it
a facelift which masks the unchanged reality. All these
types of image solutions are remarkable for their short-lived
effectiveness and offer no way forward for the respectable,
well-established institution under constant public scrutiny. That is why,
ultimately, the image of the United Nations can only
benefit
from a thorough reform of its management system, which should help
make its operations more effective and simpler to understand. This
reform would also create a
marvelous opportunity for the United Nations to be seen as implementing
the changes necessary to spruce up its image. Reform of the
system is, therefore, the ideal opportunity for the United Nations to look
again at the elements that compose its collective being in order to create
a more focused identity.
" Pace-UK
International Affairs, Making the United Nations a
winner, London, 1987, p. 77. [emphasis
added.]
Much of the content of this archive indicates that
the UN is, unfortunately, still not implementing needed changes, not reporting
problems (except for unavoidable statements on a few very serious ones),
but is trying to
paper over failings or scandals in the media, and is very much engaged
in "face-lifting" efforts. Further, the UN is still not taking the "marvelous
opportunity" to demonstrate that it is implementing necessary management
changes.
This latter key step, however, is not the fault of the DPI
(although it too continues to be stubbornly resistant to
evaluation and assessments of its work even after decades of urging), but
of the entire UN, which still obstructs real management accountability
reform, and therefore cannot and will not report clearly on its impact,
effectiveness, and problems. This grave void and seemingly perpetual
reality is discussed under the following topic. |
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