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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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Chronological Quotes "Some officials handle large sums
of public money; it is therefore necessary to have other officials to
receive and examine the accounts.
These inspectors must administer no funds themselves. Different cities call them
examiners, auditors, scrutineers and public
advocates." Aristotle, 325 B.C., as quoted in John J. Adair and Rex Simmons, "From
voucher auditing to junkyard dogs: The evolution of Federal Inspectors
General," Public Budgeting and Finance (US), Summer 1988, pp.
91-100.
"Accountability is the fundamental
prerequisite for preventing the abuse of delegated power and for ensuring
instead that power is directed toward the achievement of broadly accepted
national goals with the greatest possible degree of efficiency,
effectiveness, probity, and prudence." Royal Commission on Financial Management and Accountability, Canada, Final report, Ottawa, Supply and Services, 1979, p. 21, as quoted in Joseph G. Jabbra, Joseph G., and O. P. Dwivedi, eds., "Introduction," in Public Service Accountability: A Comparative Perspective, Kumarian, West Hartford, Conn., USA, 1989, p. 7.
"In recent years there has been a
growing emphasis on the implementation and evaluation phases of the policy
process
for good
reason: many policies based
on apparently sound ideas have encountered difficulties in practical
application.
In a world that changes programs
as they are carried out, implementation is the only source of experience
that managers can use to test and improve their programs. This is why this Third edition
ends with a discussion of learning.
Of course, learning is a Sisyphean
labor. How could it be
otherwise? How could mankind
ever finish its labors? Learning is the key to both
implementation and evaluation.
We evaluate to learn, and we learn to implement. Evaluation is a method of inducing
learning within an organization geared for implementing. And it is not
only evaluators but the program personnel, the implementers, who are to do
the learning. Were this not
so, were evaluation isolated from implementation, the latter would be
blind and the former would be dumb, and neither could change for the
better." Jeffrey L. Pressman, and Aaron
Wildavsky, Implementation: How great expectations in Washington are
dashed in Oakland: Or, why it's amazing that Federal programs work at all
,
3d ed., expanded, University of California, Berkeley,
1984.
"It is a curious puzzlement and in
interesting contradiction that for so long public management seems largely
to have ignored accounting, often called the language of
management.
The establishment of basic
accounting and auditing principles, standards, and techniques, those
uniquely suited to the public environment and so essential to financial
management, began in earnest only within the past two decades.
these collected works indicate
that the more complete melding of public administration and accounting can
only encourage more accurate and relevant accounting, reporting, and
disclosure. That, in turn,
may promote better service to taxpayers and a wiser use of their
monies.
Accounting, like so many
activities in life, is a powerful tool for good or harm. Public managers must better learn
to make wiser use of it.
Because accounting seems technical, dry, and silent, public managers and the public at
large often underestimate its potency as a management and policy tool.
These [articles from] many
knowledgeable practitioners and scholars of public financial management,
including accountants, political scientists, and others, offers a good
starting point for this discussion." Richard E. Brown, Accounting and Accountability in Public Administration, American Society for Public Administration, Washington, D.C., 1988, pp. vii - viii.
"One of the fundamental concerns
of the modern state is the manner in which power and authority are wielded
by those who govern in the name of pursuing societal goals and objectives.
It is obvious that the more
society is administered, the more power is concentrated in the hands of
ministers and public servants.
Thus the administrative state has emerged
Generally, public officials and
their organizations are considered accountable only to the extent that
they are legally required to answer for their actions. However,
From the public's
perspective, other aspects
are equally important
Thus,
the term 'accountability' in the
context of public policy and public administration ought to include at
least five elements: organizational or administrative, legal,
professional, political, and moral.
a broadly conceived definition
can be constructed: public service accountability involves the methods by
which a public agency or a public official fulfills its duties and
obligations, and the process by which that agency or the public official
is required to account for such actions."
In all of the countries
discussed [in this book] formal (although varied) control mechanisms are
intended to ensure the accountability of their public servants; their
challenge however goes beyond intentions. It requires the effective
implementation of formal control mechanisms to guarantee a meaningful
degree of public service accountability." Joseph G. Jabbra, Joseph G.,
and O. P. Dwivedi, eds., "Introduction," in Public Service
Accountability: A Comparative Perspective, Kumarian, West Hartford,
Conn., USA, 1989, pp. 1, 4, 14.
"
people in the most unlikely
nations have become the new inventors of democratic possibilities -- toppling the most rigid forms
of power with the force of organized people.
They have further restored an
understanding that, as Vaclav Havel said, democracy is the unfinished
story of human aspirations. 'Man must in some way come to his
senses,' Havel wrote from his prison cell. 'He must extricate himself from
this terrible involvement in both the obvious and hidden mechanisms of
totality, from consumption to repression, from advertising to manipulation
through television. He must
rebel against his role as a helpless cog in the gigantic and enormous
machinery hurtling God knows where. He must discover again,
within himself, a deeper sense of responsibility toward the world, which
means responsibility toward something higher than
himself.'" The
concluding quote is from Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the peace, Knopf,
1990, as quoted in and prefaced by William Greider, Who will tell the people: The
betrayal of American democracy, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1992,
pp. 414-415.
"
American democracy is in much
deeper trouble than most people wish to acknowledge. Behind the reassuring facade
. is
a systematic breakdown of the shared civic virtues we call
democracy. Governing elites, not
surprisingly, tend to their own self-interest but
the people are missing
from the processes
and government itself suffers from the
loss. The most troubling proposition
is that the self-correcting mechanisms of politics are no longer working.
Instead of a politics that leads the society
to confront its problems,
American politics has developed new ways to hide from them.
the deterioration of American
democracy is now enveloped by larger forces -- the politics of the world
There is the prospect of great
loss -- the steady erosion of
national sovereignty, the power to enforce laws, and the widely shared
prosperity that supports social amity. The democratic challenge now
requires new democratic sensibilities -- larger than the nation's borders.
The politics of restoration will
start
in many places, separately and together, when people decide to
close the gap between what they believe and what is. People may begin this work by
understanding what they are up
against." William Greider,
Who will tell the people: The betrayal of American democracy,
"Introduction: Mutual contempt", Simon & Schuster, New York,
1992, pp. 11, 12, 13, 15, 30-31. [Note: voted one of the ten most notable books of 1992 by the New York Times Book Review Note: The UN, with no elected representatives and far, far away
from "We the peoples", is even more prone to these basic ills than
national governments] "[There are] three basic
approaches to accountability in government.
Compliance accountability, [seeks] conformity with carefully
drawn rules and regulations
using negative sanctions
targeted
primarily at individuals
Performance accountability, centers on
incentives and
rewards for desired outcomes
using positive sanctions, again targeted
primarily at individuals
.
Capacity-based accountability, involves the creation of
organizational competence through technologies (that is, people, systems,
and structures) and
building organizations that are staffed, trained, and equipped to be
effective.
Compliance accountability has been the preferred method
[resting] more on fear
[it] generates a much greater
volume of findings of failure and therefore higher visibility,
and
recommendations for actions that are less expensive
and faster to
implement. The unanswered
question, however, is whether those recommendations lead to more effective
government." Paul C.
Light, Monitoring government: Inspectors General and the search for
accountability, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 1993,
pp. 3-4.
"The hallmark of public
bureaucracy is its accountability to the public for its policies and
actions. Without the
realization of such accountability, public bureaucracy loses its identity
of publicness, surrenders its public legitimacy, and may relegate itself
to the fetish of self-seeking private interests. It has increasingly been realized
that the existing institutions of public accountability are under
challenge, the effectiveness and credibility of [accountability
mechanisms] in question, and bureaucracy has become more unresponsive and
unaccountable.
On the other hand, much of the
discourse [largely excludes]
power structure as a determining factor for accountability. The main purpose of this study is
to examine contemporary challenges to bureaucratic accountability from the
perspective of social power structure." M.
Shamsul Haque, "The emerging challenges to bureaucratic accountability: A
critical perspective", in Ali Farazmand, ed., Handbook of
bureaucracy, Marcel Dekker, New York, 1994, pp. 265-286 [pp.
265-266]. "
. The number of 'failed states'
seems to be growing among the 130 countries of the developing world. The notion of failed states isn't
necessarily related to the absence of democracy .
It isn't tied to free
markets
. The developing
world's nations largely 'fail' because they lack sturdy public
institutions that engender the essential national requirement for
expediting social and economic progress:
accountability. In failed states, it's always
someone else's fault: the CIA, neighbors with hostile designs, the
heritage of colonialism, ethnic miscreants, a discriminatory global power
system.
.
. until failed states grasp the
nettle of contemporary global geoeconomic realities -- democratic governance lodged in
public institutions that work with accountability -- the proposals for the
developing world are grim." Pranay Gupte, "Spectacular failures: What's the essential requirement to rescue a basket-case country? Accountability", Newsweek (Int.), October 25, 1999, p. 4. [Note: Much of this succinct analysis would seem to apply to the UN's situation, and very defensive reactions, as well]
"As the international community is
increasingly recognizing, employees (especially public employees) are an
invaluable source of information about official corruption.
Whistleblower protection laws
are intended to make it safe for employees to disclose misconduct that
they discover during the course of their employment.
.
the international community has
begun to devise and adopt a variety of laws and procedures for protecting
and encouraging whistle blowing.
.
statutory protection for
whistleblowers is only part of the equation, albeit an important
part. Cultural change and top
down support must accompany whistleblower protection laws in order for
them to achieve their objectives." Elaine Kaplan, "The international emergence of legal protections for whistleblowers", The Journal of Public Inquiry, Fall/Winter 2001, pp., 37- 42 [37, 42]. "What do we mean by this
ubiquitous admonition to 'hold people accountable'? The phrase rolls off one
individual's tongue and into another's ears without registering in
either's mind. To 'hold
people accountable' has become a clichι and, like all clichιs, is a substitute for thinking.
Indeed, using the phrase suggests that no real thinking is going on
Yet when we talk about holding
people accountable, we usually mean accountability for one of three
things: accountability for finances, for fairness, or accountability for
performance.
we need to invest some resources
and time in experimenting with some alternative concepts and
institutions -- concepts that will not just
enforce accountability but will also foster responsibility; institutions
motivated less by personal self-interest than by our mutual, collective
public interest. We need to
experiment with concepts and institutions that will not just hold public
agencies and public officials accountable for improving performance. We need also to seek concepts and
institutions that actively promote government's
performance. We need to rethink what we mean by
democratic accountability." Robert D. Behn, Rethinking Democratic Accountability, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 2001, pp. 5-6, 217.
"Remarkable efforts were made
at international institution
building toward the end of World War II.
Today, nearly six decades
later, the world's trade and financial systems have been fundamentally
transformed
in favor of a system closer to one of globalized free
markets. [and] the community
of nations has become vastly more
diversified. However, the political
constituency and public support for new or stronger international
organizations is not large.
One group of IMF critics
essentially argues that
[presently] the community of nations does not
need the regulatory function and the surveillance of the IMF and that IMF
advice and financing are often misdirected and a source of 'moral hazard.'
A much broader spectrum of critics
has argued that the IMF charter and its purposes remain relevant
but
that, nevertheless, the IMF should be reformed to make it more democratic,
more transparent, more accountable, and more
participatory. This pamphlet is intended to
provide an overview of the major aspects of governance of the
International Monetary Fund." Leo Van
Houtven, Governance of the IMF: Decision Making, Institutional
Oversight, Transparency, and Accountability, Pamphlet Series No. 53,
International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC, 2002, pp 1-3. [Note: Mr. Van Houtven was the Secretary of the IMF from 1977 through 1996, and from 1987 also Counsellor to the Managing Director: the views in this essay are his and not those of the IMF.]
"The One World Trust's Global
Accountability Report is the first of the kind to compare the
accountability of inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), transnational
corporations (TNCs) and international non-governmental organizations
(NGOs).
300,000 IGOs, 60,000 TNC's and 40,000
international NGOs help shape the world we live in. {Their] decisions affect all of
our lives in many different ways
Individuals and communities who are affected
should be able to
hold them to account.
However, few mechanisms have been identified at the global level to
enable those stakeholders to exert such a right. The result is a growing sense of
disenfranchisement
These
organizations need to become more transparent and accountable to their
stakeholders
This will increase their legitimacy and lead to more
effective decision-making.
At the heart of this report is a
unique framework which explains what accountability means and identifies
eight core organizational dimensions crucial to fostering greater
accountability. This pilot
focuses on two of the dimensions in detail - member control and access to
information
and [provides] recommendations on how to increase
accountability." Hetty Kovach, Caroline Neligan, and Simon Burall, The Global Accountability Report 1 2003: Power without accountability?, The One World Trust, Houses of Parliament, London, 2002/2003, p. iv. [Note: Among the 18 organizations included in the first report is
one UN organization -- the
UNHCR]
"This article discusses the
experience of certified accountants and human resource professionals faced
with situations that caused them personal angst. Because of their organizational
impotence and fear for
[their careers], none felt able to significantly
challenge the practices in question.
The analysis contends that individual attempts to exercise moral
agency will be stillborn as long as significant power asymmetries exist,
accountability mechanisms are inadequate, the act of whistleblowing is
judged to be a more serious offence than the crime it reports, and
managerial imperatives allow organizational loyalty to supercede personal
integrity and societal interests." Alan
Lovell, "The enduring phenomenon of moral muteness: Suppressed whistle
blowing", Abstract, Public Integrity [US], , vol. 5, no. 3,
Summer 2003, pp. 187-204.
"The [2002 U.S. Congress]
Sarbanes-Oxley Act created the Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board
to provide vigilant oversight of the public accounting profession in the
United States. The law was a
response to
corporate accounting frauds that involved both corrupt
management and audit failures.
[Such oversight] is unprecedented in any profession; the accounting
profession has now moved from
relatively comfortable self-regulation to
intense governmental supervision.
An explanation for this change is offered, based on the premise
that accounting differs from every other profession in that its product is
public trust, which is attained only when individual accountants act with
integrity." Barbara Apostolou and Greg M. Thibadoux, "Why integrity matters: Accounting for the accountants", Abstract, Public Integrity [US], vol. 5, no. 3, Summer 2003, pp. 223-237.
Useful Sources
Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development, Public Sector Transparency and
Accountability: Making it Happen, OECD and Organization of American
States, Paris, 2002.
Caiden, Gerald E., "Book reviews: Ethics and corruption: No more
heads in the sand?, Public Integrity, Spring 2002, pp.
179-187.
Paul, Samuel, Holding the state to account: Citizen monitoring in action, Books for Change, Bangalore, India, 2002. Michael,
Bryane, and Bates, Michael, "Assessing international fiscal and monetary
transparency: The role of standards, knowledge management and project
design", International Public Management Journal, 6(2), 2003,
95-116.
Light, Paul C., Monitoring government: Inspectors General and the search for accountability, Brookings Institution (USA), Washington, D.C., 1993.
Brown, Richard E., Accounting and accountability in public administration, American Society for Public Administration, Washington, D.C., 1988. Carter, Stephen
L., Integrity, 1996, Basic Books, New York.
Jabbra, Joseph G., and
Dwivedi, O. P., Eds., Public service accountability: A comparative
perspective, Kumarian, West Hartford, Conn., USA, 1989.
Kettl, Donald F., The global public management revolution: A report on the transformation of governance, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 2000. Pressman, Jeffrey
L., and Wildavsky, Implementation, 3d ed., Expanded, University of
California, Berkeley, 1984.
Simmons, P. J., and de Jonge Oudraat, Chantal, eds., Managing global issues: Lessons learned, Carnegie Endowment, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 2001. Van Houtven, Leo, Governance of the IMF: Decision making,
institutional oversight, transparency, and accountability,
International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC, 2002.
Kearns, Kevin P., Managing for accountability, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA (USA), March 1996. Opacity in Latin America: The economic costs of opacity in Mercosur and neighboring countries, prepared by Thomas W. Hall, A Project of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Endowment for the Study of Transparency and Sustainability, May 2001. PricewaterhouseCoopers Opacity Index Project.
Walker, David
M., "Imperatives for governmental accountability", The Public
Manager (US), Fall 2001, pp. 5-7. Apostolou, Barbara, and Thibadoux, Greg M., "Why integrity matters: Accounting for the accountants," Public Integrity (US), Summer 2003, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 223-237. Rivlin, Alice
M., "Greed, ethics and public policy", Public Integrity (US), Fall
2003, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 347-354.
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