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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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Introductory
quotes "Some ordinary villages are
peaceful and well policed.
The global village is of another kind. It has feuds and vendettas which
often break into violence. All the inhabitants are armed. The part-time police force is
amateurish and weak. It is
run by a committee of villagers who rarely agree on what it should
do. Powerful neighbors
sometimes suppress violence by force. Peace will only come to such a
village when the rule of law is imposed." Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, Chapter 18, "The political containment of tribalism: Policing the global village", Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1999, p. 140. "A new group of power-seekers are
leaping on the world stage and seizing sizable chunks of the clout once
controlled by nations alone.
Some are good, some, decidedly evil.
the United Nations, which until
now has been little more than a trade association of nation-states, may
eventually be compelled to provide representation for non-states (beyond
the token consultative role now granted to certain
NGOs).
But whether or not such
speculations prove correct in the future, the new Global Gladiators -- corporate, criminal, religious,
and other -- already share
increasing de facto power with nation
states." Alvin Toffler, Powershift: Knowledge, wealth, and violence at the edge of the 21st century, Bantam, New York, 1991, pp. 450, 456-457.
"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
they may be."
"Reforming
the Sisters", The Economist, February 17th, 2001, pp.
20-21.
[Note: As the most astute chronicler of UN successes and problems
over the
years, The Economist would surely extend this wise advice to
the UN as well.]
"Above all, he warns,
never tolerate 'a concrete evil' in the name of 'an abstract good; expose the pretenses
of the system at every opportunity.'" Andrew Nagorski, ,a
phrasing of Vaclav Havel's beliefs, in a book review "The most potent weapon of all: How Havel prepared
for 'the gentle revolution'", Newsweek International, June 25,
1990. [Note: The book is Vaclav
Havel, Disturbing the peace, A conversation with Karel
Hvizdala, translated by Paul
Wilson, Vintage, New York, 1991.]
"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, July/August 2003,
pp.37-41. Chronological
quotes "The great essayist E.B. White was a leading booster of the United
Nations, probably its most articulate American defender ever. Nevertheless: by December 1956, 11
years after the UN was born, even White was fed up. He saw the
pattern. The U.N. made no sense, he concluded, if members were allowed to do
whatever they felt like behind the locked doors of their own 'internal
domestic affairs', no matter what kind of shrieking and hollering the
neighbors reported.
" E.B. White, writing in December 1956, as cited in Gelerntner, David, "Replacing the United Nations: Make way for the Big Three", The Weekly Standard, March 17, 2003, pp. 24-26. "
the question remains: how in practice to revitalize a flagging
organization which is somehow out of tune with the needs and moods of the
times?
I believe that a
shock treatment is called for and the present moment provides an unique
opportunity to apply that treatment
I have come to the conclusion that
the only practical way to revitalize the organization is through a major
consolidation and regrouping.
This must be no mere cosmetic surgery. It would require some drastic
staff reduction -- up to 50 percent in some areas -- and a major
redeployment of UN resources in those tasks in which it can be most useful
to its members and the world community." Maurice Strong, then the
Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human
Environment, in 1971, as quoted in Shirley Hazard, Defeat of an
ideal: A study of the self-destruction of the United Nations,
Macmillan, London, 1973, pp. 112-113. "A quarter of a century ago, with great hopes from all mankind, the
United Nations Organization was born. Alas, in an immoral world, it too
grew immoral." Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel
Prize in Literature, Acceptance Address, 1972, as quoted in
Houshang Ameri, Fraud, waste and abuse: Aspects of U.N.
management and personnel policies, University Press of America,
Lanham, MD (USA), June 2003. "
Member States
[difficulty] in obtaining a complete picture of the processes of planning,
budgeting, performance monitoring, and evaluation [was compounded because
there was]
no
information on the implementation of the programmes of the preceding
budget.' '
the new proposed
programme budget
had been
drawn up without the benefit of a critical analysis of ongoing activities
Member States were
therefore unable to form a precise idea of the efficiency with which the
resources were used or of the quality of the results
' "
more time ought to
be spent on evaluating the application and implementation of
programmes.' '
[given the lack of]
a fully operational monitoring system
[he had] serious
reservations concerning the provision of statements of programme budget
implications
priority setting
would be useful once
monitoring and evaluation functions had been placed on a sound
footing.' '[The General
Assembly and relevant bodies] should be given more information
to review the
proposed programme properly and take enlightened decisions
' '
he could not believe
that every programme element
was fully useful
Indeed,
Member States
[broadly believed]
there was
ample room for improvement, internal redeployment and reassessment of
priorities. What the United
Nations lacked was the machinery [for this purpose]
A new impetus must
be given to the identification of activities that were obsolete, of
marginal usefulness or ineffective.'" Critical statements made in
the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly, in "Summary records", General
Assembly, Fifth Committee document A/C.5/40/SR.22, paras. 3-5, 7, 15, 20
and 22, and A/C.5/40/SR.23, paras. 12-13, 38, 48, both of 6 November
1985, as quoted in Joint
Inspection Unit, "Reporting on the performance and results of United
Nations programmes: Monitoring, evaluation and management review
components"", UN
document A/43/124,1988, p.
3.
"Member States have
stressed the need to be told, more clearly and more extensively
. what has been the programmatic
performance of the Secretariat, which outputs have been delivered, and
with which result
. Let us strengthen the
monitoring and evaluation functions
Let us say clearly and dispassionately what has been done and with
which result, and equally what has not been done and
why
. Let us produce more analytical performance reports
. I find the essential
problem one of better and more transparent information, thus permitting
better decisions."
"Statement", Response to the
above criticisms by UN Under-Secretary-General for Management Patricio
Ruedas 12 November 1985, as quoted in Joint
Inspection Unit, "Reporting on the performance and results of United
Nations programmes: Monitoring, evaluation and management review
components"", UN
document A/43/124,1988, p.
3.
"
la confusion intellectuelle au
sujet des organizations mondiales est aujourd'hui compl่te: on leur
attribue une importance qu'elles n'ont pas; on leur reproche de ne pas
faire ce qu'on ne leur donne pas les moyens de faire; on ne comprend pas
ce qu'elles font r้ellement; on leur reconna๎t des d้fauts souvent
imaginaires, en ignorant leurs d้fauts r้els; on invente des explications
mythologiques des causes de leur inefficacit้; enfin on identifie tr่s mal
les quelques r้sultats importants qu'elles obtiennent
r้ellement." Maurice Bertrand, Refaire l'ONU: Un programme pour la paix,
ษditions Zo้, Gen่ve, 1986, p. 31.
"The crude truth about many of the UN agencies is that they don't
know what they are trying to achieve; and that cronyism, sloth and
incompetence would ensure they could not achieve it even if they did. The obstacles to reform are huge,
the courage to tackle them nowhere visible. Still, here are some
suggestions. The system reflects
the whims and false starts of 44 years
some parts should be
radically slimmed or closed entirely. Other parts are
paralysed by having too many separate aims, too many programmes
. Each should be
given a manageable set of objectives and focused on
these. Accountability must be improved. That would at least mean regular
and public reports on where and how the money goes, and on how far
pre-stated targets of achievement are being
met. Co-ordination between the various agencies is much talked
about. It should happen.
The quality and
morale of professional staff must be raised
start rewarding merit, not political or personal
connections. Not least, the length
of time anyone can run an agency should be strictly limited.
." "The United Nations agencies: A case for emergency treatment", The Economist, December 2, 1989, pp. 27-28, 30 [30]. [emphasis added] [Note: the article offered a set of sensible suggestions for improvement as of 1989. At present, most if not almost all still seem to have been ignored.]
"
. never in its
47-year history has the [UN] had so much to do in so many areas of the
globe.
'We've bumbled into a
world where everything effects everything' muses [40-year UN veteran]
Brian Urquhart.
. But the U.N. has not even begun to change in a way that will allow
it to take advantage of the revolution in world politics. The U.N. is overstaffed,
underfunded, and mismanaged.
Its activities are often badly conceived, wasteful and hobbled by
petty politics. [Secretary-General]
Butros-Ghali's predecessor, Javier Perez de Cuellar
., retired with
well-earned praise
. as a
peacemaker [but]
. His most
serious shortcoming during his decade in office was his unwillingness to
bring the U.N. bureaucracy under control. Observes Urquhart
. : 'The model home
designed by the founders in 1945 has become a sprawling, ramshackle
structure; people have long since forgotten the rooms that have been added
over the years.' Australian Ambassador Peter Wilenski, [a management expert urging
UN reform] says the U.N. 'is run as a club rather than as an
organization.' Notes Edward Luck, president of the UN Association of the USA, 'The
organization doesn't know how to set priorities -- and good management
starts there.'" Bonnie Angelo, "United Nations: Challenges for the new boss," Time, February 3, 1992, pp. 40-41 [41]. "The images are familiar:
blue-bereted U.N. peace keepers
humanitarian relief workers fighting
poverty and hunger
But behind these images lies an
enormous, largely uncontrolled bureaucracy, subject to abuses and
deficiencies that impair its effectiveness, a nine-month study by The
Washington Post has found.
. The United Nations, its internal
critics say, has been self-protecting and self-perpetuating, rather than
self-policing. .
[an official of Africa Watch says]
'I think there's a great deal of incompetence, there's a lot of
corruption, and there's no accountability.' Despite broad agreement on the
need for reform, abuses within the organization persist and often go
unpunished. The chiefs of
some autonomous U.N. agencies rule their fiefdoms like autocrats,
answering to no one. Regional
mafias of U.N. bureaucrats have taken roots, consolidating their power
through favoritism in hiring and promotions.
[a former UN
Under-Secretary-General] attributes many [UN] problems to a shortage of
management skills in an organization run largely by diplomats.
[An official of a Nordic U.N.
Project] studying UN reform said a lack of [UN]
accountability 'is
[largely] a systemic problem
We have a governmental system in the U.N. that is not geared to get
accountability." William Branigin, "The U.N. empire: polished image, tarnished reality", "As U.N. expands, so do its problems: Critics cite mismanagement, waste", Washington Post, September 20, 1992, pp. 1-3.
If, in the future,
the UN hopes to avoid failures like that in Somalia, it will need to
change on a more fundamental level.
. Above all, if the UN
is to be effective, it must be accountable. 'The UN is probably the
least accountable bureaucracy in the world -- a main reason not only for the
cataclysm in Somalia but for the persistence of famine through Africa',
said Alex de Waal, a British anthropologist who has studied the UN's
response to famines.
.
'Officials who are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths must
face the prospect of prosecution, not promotion.'
. There is also the need for a freedom of information act, so UN
officials cannot hide from the public everything from their salaries to
their mistakes to how much they're spending on public relations. And
finally, there must be an independent watchdog organization with full
power to investigate U.N. agencies. The General Assembly has the authority to establish a commission of
inquiry to examine what went wrong in Somalia, but it has never examined
its own performance." Ray Bonner, "Why
we went": How the United Nations turned its back on Somalia and subverted the best
chance for peace", Mother Jones, (USA), March-April 1993,
pp. 54-60.
[emphasis added]
"The [World Health Organization] like all United Nations agencies,
specializes in the production of pious verbiage, which skilfully combines
highmindedness with the self-interest of its staff
the fact
is that agencies such as WHO are inherently corrupt and corrupting
This is not to say
that the WHO does no good work at all
or that it does not
have sincere and competent staff in its lower echelons. But at its higher levels
politicking and jockeying for position overwhelm any lingering concern for
the health of the world's population.
. The WHO hires not by competence but by allocation of jobs among
member nations. This not only
[discriminates] in favour of the incompetent but ensures that political
skills matter more than technical capacity. I once worked in a
small tropical country where the WHO representative, though personable,
was the most incompetent man
I have ever
encountered.
he was
finally removed from the country
by promotion to the
regional headquarters. A UN official said
that
the WHO was [once]
the most efficient of the special agencies. This may have well been so, but
the standards by which he was judging it are
abysmal." Anthony Daniels, The
Sunday Telegraph (UK), 25 April 1993.
[Note: The WHO and other UN
system specialized agencies do indeed have such performance difficulties,
but most people who know the system would say that the situation is most
grievous in the United Nations Secretariat
itself.]
"The world is in a
new period of crisis, different in many ways from the past
. [and] it is time to
do something about the United Nations so that it can do more about keeping
peace.
. The United Nations
itself, with its sclerotic bureaucracy, its chronic budget crisis, its
hamstrung decision process, is not up to the job.
. There are basic
problems of management, corporatism shielding waste and slovenly work,
which require the rigorous techniques of big business.
. There is the
shibboleth of 'geographic distribution', which hands out jobs by
nationality with little concern for competence, and the custom of many
countries to designate failed or inconvenient politicians to these
reserved UN posts to get them out of the way. Effective hiring must come
first.
. The sad fact is that not only was the United Nations largely
paralyzed during the long Cold War, but infirmity brought serious
deterioration that will not be reversed spontaneously. The time to propose and start
negotiating reform is right now." Flora Lewis, "Update the
United Nations for a newfangled world", International Herald
Tribune, June 11, 1993.
"Over-stretched and under-funded, bureaucratically
and unimaginatively organized, the UN is perceived to straddle the globe
like a dinosaur.
I couple of years ago, I spent some months in New
York [to examine the work of] the Security Council and General
Assembly at close quarters. I was prepared to believe that the UN
was an interesting
institution with a possible new lease of life. I returned with a somewhat different set of beliefs.
Today's UN, I now believe, is an essentially and intrinsically
conservative institution
no longer capable of reform along lines that would enable it to change in
a progressive direction.
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.
. I believe we should regard it with
suspicion
and shed no tears if it were to disappear." Richard Gott,
"Nations divided by a lost vision", Guardian
Weekly, London, 12 September 1993, pp.
1-3.
"From the
Secretary-General on down, UN officials, military men, and diplomats sense
that the machinery of international action is not working [to meet the
challenge of new peacekeeping roles].
the bureaucracy of the United Nations [is] an organism apparently
impervious to external pressure and capable of self-preservation in the
most hostile climate. Stories of its inertia and folly have
passed into staff legend and acres of newsprint.
Within the Secretariat, [however,] several inescapable, if under-reported
changes are in train. The first is the transformation of the UN by
political pressure from an organization mainly devoted to arranging conferences
into an active body charged with enforcement, preventive diplomacy, and
intervention.
This will create as one official puts it, 'a culture crisis.'
Sir Brian Urquhart says that ' the identity of the
UN, which started as a means to deal with conflicts between nations, has
not been properly questioned
there is no basic discussion on the role of the UN.' 'It is' he
says, 'something of a miracle' that the Secretariat functions at all. Harmonious chaos is
an elegant description of the natural state of things, but it is not
desirable for an organization guiding the world into a new century." Michael Sheridan,
"United Nations: What's gone wrong? Structural defects: Chaotic harmony or
just chaos?", The Independent (UK), 1 November 1993.
"Gambertini
highlighted that in a few days the UN would celebrate its first fifty
years in an 'international bazaar'.
. An unnamed UN
official was quoted as commenting on the event: 'It will be an absurd
situation, almost an insult to us', and wondered where the money was
coming from. Gambertini stressed
that the UN was close to bankruptcy
Some observers wondered what was
being celebrated after the failures in Somalia, Rwanda, and former
Yugoslavia, while others questioned what purpose the UN served today and
whether it could survive in its present 'grandiose and vain' form.
. Gambertini
recalled that [recently US Ambassador] Albright described the Organization
as a society of 185 members, each with a loud and contradictory position,
coming from every culture, talking every language, with the objective 'of
getting a relative hired by the UN.' For the journalist,
the UN headquarters was a photocopy of Italy at the planetary level: 'Both
had the same age and suffered from the same illness. The member
states do not pay their dues and, therefore, the budget is permanently in
the red.'
He pointed to the excessive and inefficient bureaucracy, the
repeated embezzlement scandals and the system of patronage by countries to
ensure their quota of posts.
." Excerpts from the first of
a series of articles, "United Nations 50 years later", by its
special envoy Paolo Garimberti, on 17 October
1995, in the Italian daily La Repubblica ,
as translated by the UN Information Center, Rome. "United Nations,
heal thyself.
Such is the virtually unanimous sentiment being expressed this week
[at] the organization's fiftieth birthday. Calling for reform
is one thing: agreeing on the details is quite another. The United
States, Britain, and other wealthy Western countries tend to see the UN as
an inefficient bureaucratic behemoth that encourages corruption and waste
when it is not providing a forum for the spewing of anti-Western
rhetoric.
The West's message to the UN can be summed up as 'Do more useful
things and charge us less.' For the smaller and
poorer countries that make up the majority of the world's states, however,
the UN's problems appear in a rather different light. Their biggest
complaint is that the five permanent Security Council members -- Britain,
China, France, Russia, and the US -- use their elevated status to order
the planet's affairs in their own interests. 'The Security Council can no
longer be maintained like the sanctuary of the holy of holies,
acting as
high priests deciding on issues for the rest of the world', President
Frederick Chiluba of Zambia told his fellow leaders on Sunday." Tony Barber, "Life
begins at 50: can the UN show how?", The
Independent (UK), October 24,
1995.
"History, that
insufferable know-it-all, has its noble brow furrowed. While noting
much to commend in the way this lofty experiment has played out, it finds
the U.N.'s charter conference an affair doomed by internal
contradictions.
Haunted by the disaster of appeasement, the framers assumed all
humanity would rally behind the rescue of any country, no matter how
remote the peril to any other country's vital interest. They believed
each government would surrender at any time its warmaking powers to a
supranational force. They provided not at all for conflicts
within nations, and they considered open debate and resolutions of good
will to be a cure for all evils. As the globe's
potentates assembly in New York City next week to celebrate the U.N.'s
formal 50th anniversary, the occasion augurs more than traffic gridlock
unlike any that Manhattan has ever seen. Outside the champagne parties on Turtle
Bay where the UN has its quarters, the anniversary stands to produce a
feast of cynicism about the visions of 1945. From this
angle, the organization's ambitions look overblown and its bureaucratic
arthritis embarrassing. As fashion statement, the U.N. is
growing scandalously d้mod้." "Cover: Reform or
die! The
United Nations at 50", Time, October 30, 1995, pp. 22-47.
"No one loves the
United Nations.
Not its stern but neglectful parent, the United States, which gave
birth to the U.N. 50 years ago, but has fallen about 10 years behind in
child-support payments. Not the other member-states, which have
their own motley complaints (
the U.N. should spend more money on our pet
projects and less on yours). Not UN staffers; despite their
generous, tax-free salaries, morale is awful. Certainly not
journalists, who are subjected to an Orwellian flow of 'public
information' but still find the organization 'so transparent it's opaque,'
in the words of one career U.N. employee (who, tellingly, didn't want his
name used). Even the U.N.'s boosters are skeptical
these days.
Says Ed Luck, former president of the United Nations Association
[of the USA], 'Your friends should be the first to tell you there's
something wrong.' With friends like
that, who wants to throw a birthday party? The U.N. decided to call it a
'commemoration' instead."
Carroll Bogert,
"The United Nations: Midlife crisis: On its 50th anniversary, the United
Nations is one of the world's least happy organizations. But we still
need it", Newsweek International, October 30, 1995, pp. 14-18. "Conclusions
Today the
United Nations Secretariat is in a shambles. It suffers
from considerable malaise which is due to a wide range of causes. These include
doubts about such central questions as its independence, integrity and
competence, as well as the existence of corruption, 'waste, fraud and
abuse.' [**]
There is also concern that demands for 'equitable geographical
distribution' have had the effect of relegating the principle of merit to
a secondary position. But these causes also include problems
regarding the declining quality of the staff, poor personnel management,
the politicization of the Secretariat's policies and practices with regard
to recruitment, appointment and promotion of the staff, as well as the
lack of a proper career development plan." Houshang Ameri, Politics of staffing the United Nations Secretariat, Major Concepts in Politics and Political Theory, Vol. 8, Peter Lang, New York, 1996, pp. 549-550. [Note ** the author
observes in a footnote that these three sentences are drawn from
criticisms made by three senior US officials deeply involved with the UN
in 1993 (Madeleine K. Albright, Richard Thornburgh, and Melissa Wells) and
that "While these criticisms are for the most part, justified, they should
nevertheless be seen in their proper political context."]
"When the [UN] was
founded in 1945,
. Very quickly, the Cold War not only paralyzed the
central peacekeeping capacity but distorted practically all UN activities
through the filter of ideological and strategic confrontation.
Nonetheless, the United Nations not only survived but expanded and
enlarged its long list of activities.
. At last came the
happy day when the Cold War ended and big power hostility need no longer
be taken for granted. [However,] there
hasn't yet been the invigorating, determined new launch that ought to be
available in what could amount to a second UN incarnation.
. it is a
time to review what the United Nations does and is expected to do, what
methods exist to make a better match of missions and means, what
credibility is about and how to establish it.
. But there
needs to be a lucid distinction between feel-good measures and
for-the-record measures in cases where effective action is just not
possible.
. there needs
to be an effort of reflection and a search for consensus so that the UN
can [better] fulfill its functions
. This isn't impossible. It's just
that America can't be bothered, and others are too busy bickering." Flora Lewis, "It's
time to give the United Nations a new start", International Herald Tribune, December 31, 1999-January 1, 2000.
"President Vaclav
Havel [of the Czech Republic says] that 'the UN
'should do everything to
make people see it as their own organization, representing everyone, not
as some sort of club of governments and diplomats.' While governments
represent their citizens at the UN, 'perhaps in some cases it's not a very
authentic representation,' he said, adding 'It's important that
people don't regard the United Nations as an organization of the powerful,
but rather as their own organization." Steven Erlanger, "'Hear the voices of the people',
Havel implores world bodies", International Herald
Tribune, August 23, 2000.
"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 they may be."
"Reforming the Sisters", The
Economist, February 17th, 2001, pp.
20-21.
[Note: As the most astute chronicler of UN successes and problems
over the
years, The Economist would surely
extend this wise advice to the UN as well.]
"In the many conflicts and crises of the post-1945
era the UN's record has been mixed.
Despite its many weaknesses and
perennial financial crises, the UN has become the first genuinely global
international organization, bringing almost all sovereign states under one
set of principles."
Adam Roberts, pp. 868, 874, "Despite a less
than perfect record
the UN has served an irreplaceable function. A robust
United Nations
has great potential to address the complex problems of
today's world.
Translating that potential into reality, however, means that the
deficiencies of the UN system must be remedied.
Enhancing the
capacity of the United Nations
also means finding a new way of
structuring the Organization to increase its effectiveness and make it
more accountable."
Lloyd Axworthy, pp. 868-869, "The United Nations is a deeply flawed institution
that has, nonetheless, served foreign policy interests from time to
time.
The most likely future role for the UN will be an
approximate continuation of its muddled, incoherent, and marginally
important present status.
Any international organization that purports to
assert governmental power, even indirectly, and certainly one that
embodies no indicia of democratic accountability, is automatically (and
properly)
viewed as suspect.
[Its history] unambiguously demonstrates that the UN
is a forum for the conflict of national interest, not a place of worship
for what some believe are humanity's higher ideals." John R. Bolton, p.
871. All three of the
above articles are in Joel Krieger, ed.,
"United Nations", The Oxford companion to politics
of the world, Oxford, London, 2001,pp.
865-874
"The legitimacy, effectiveness and credibility of the
United Nations continue to erode. The UN suffers from a "democratic
deficit" that was an integral part of the original design but needs to be
remedied now.
The UN's moral authority is seriously undermined because its laws
or principles are enforced selectively to suit the interests of the rich
and the powerful.
The United Nations
is the core of any international system of governance. Therefore, it
is essential to contemplate reform that would make it more credible, more
legitimate and more effective. It must act in accordance with its
charter.
It must be democratic in achieving representation and making
decisions, through participation, transparency and accountability. It must move
toward political independence in relation to the powerful geopolitical
actors.
Some institutional changes are obviously desirable.
" Deepak Nayyar and
Julius Court, Governing globalization: Issues and
Institutions, Policy Brief No. 5, United Nations University and World
Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER), Helsinki, Finland,
2002, pp. viii, 11. "The global
landscape has changed dramatically in the past 50 years, but the
institutions serving it have not. The array of institutions is
bewildering.
Within the U.N. system alone, there are 112 agencies. More than 20
agencies deal with water, for instance. Functions overlap,
mandates conflict, and each agency has its own standard of accountability
(or no accountability) to member governments. The [UN system]
agencies cannot reform themselves: two generations of institutional
contamination and tenured self-interest ensure that this deadlock
continues.
But this lack of coherence damages their collective credibility,
frustrates their donors and owners, and gives rise to public
cynicism." Mike Moore, "Multilateral meltdown", Foreign Policy, March/April 2003, pp. 74-75.. [Note: Mr. Moore was Director General of the World Trade Organization from 1999 to 2002 and is a former Prime Minister of New Zealand. He is the author of A world without walls: Freedom, development, free trade, and global governance, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK, 2003. ]
" To a baby-boomer kid growing up in New York, the
United Nations was a revered, almost magical place. Le
Corbusier's sleek glass-and-marble building rising from the East River was
a symbol of our hopes for the world's future. I remember my
first grade-school trip there, marveling at people from all over the
globe
and at the cavernous General Assembly hall where delegates used headphones
to listen to the proceedings in languages they could understand. Somehow it's hard
to image Kofi Annan racing off to one of the world's hot spots. The United
Nations --
and the world's expectations for it -- has declined drastically over the last
few decades."
Roger Cohn, "Editor's note", Mother Jones, July/August
2003, p. 4.
"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, July/August
2003,
pp. 37-41.
"Secretary-General
Kofi Annan said Monday that the United Nations must consider sweeping
reforms in the wake of the Iraq war and warned that the organization had
lost the confidence of many across the globe. In unusually strong
language
. Annan suggested that the credibility of the Security Council,
the General Assembly and other UN bodies was at stake. 'If they are to
regain their authority, they may need radical reform,' Annan said before
making public his report on the organization's future." "UN needs big changes, Annan says", AP, AFP, International Herald Tribune, September 9, 2003. "The bombing of the
U.N. headquarters in Iraq was the United Nation's 9/11. Now a
stricken organization must regain its equilibrium, knowing that its
personnel are a target in Iraq, and perhaps elsewhere. As always, though, the future of the United Nations
lies not in what is said or done in the dispirited buildings along New
York's East River, but in what the United Nations' leading members do to
strengthen the organization they created in 1945 to deal with just such a
challenge.
. The days immediately following the death of [UN
senior official Sergio Vieira de Mello] and his colleagues were sorry ones
for the United Nations. Instead of the tragedy's triggering a
coming together of major nations to lay out a plan to protect U.N.
personnel, it produced an embarrassing American proposal that was little
more than a plea for other nations to serve in the existing American
command; an all-too-predictable French counter-attack from Foreign
Minister Dominique de Villepin, and a toothless Security Council
resolution calling for better protection of U.N. personnel. It was an
insult to the memory of those who had died in Baghdad.
." Richard C.
Holbrooke, "The U.N.'s day of reckoning", Newsweek
International, September 8,
2003, p. 22.
"
after all these years,
the United Nations is still struggling to adjust its human resources
policies and practices to the reality that surrounds it.
This is no time to
stand idly by.
In the era of development, the Bretton Woods institutions threaten
to marginalize the UN system. In the area of global trade, the WTO
overshadows UNCTAD. IN peacekeeping and peace building,
large regional organizations such as NATO move in when their interests are
at stake (as in the Balkans) and play dead when there is nothing to be
gained (as in Rwanda). In the delivery of humanitarian
assistance, NGOs and bilateral agencies are becoming the agents of choice
(as became manifest in Kosovo). In this highly competitive environment,
the UN will have to reform its reforms, or go down reforming. Several dilemmas
that have crippled the UN for generations, however, remain unresolved, and
this organizational pathology stands in the way of the UN's efforts to
remain meaningful.
For most
pathologies, there is a cure. For the UN, faith healing will not
suffice." Dirk Salomons, "Good intentions to naught: The pathology of human resources management at the United Nations," in Dennis Dijkzeul, and Yves Beigbeder, eds., Rethinking international organizations: Pathology and promise, Berghahn, New York and Oxford, 2003, pp. 111-139 [136-137].
"Why GAO did this
study The U.N. Secretary
General launched two reform agendas, in 1997 and 2002, to address the
U.N.'s core management challenges -- poor leadership of the Secretariat,
duplication among its many offices and programs, and the lack of
accountability for staff performance.
In 2000, GAO reported that the
reforms were not yet complete. What GAO found
First, the
Secretariat has taken positive steps to strengthen its human capital
management, but reforms in this area are ongoing and additional challenges
remain.
Second, the U.N. has begun to adopt results-oriented budgeting, but
its monitoring and evaluation system does not measure program impact.
UN reform faces
several challenges. For example, the Secretariat does not
conduct comprehensive assessments of the status and impact of U.N.
reforms.
In addition, the reform agendas lack clearly stated priorities,
interim goals, and target dates for overall completion. Other
challenges include resistance to change from program managers and possible
resource constraints. What GAO
recommends
the [US]
Secretary of State and [US Mission to the UN] should work with other
member states to encourage the Secretary-General to (1) report regularly
on the status and impact of reforms; (2) identify short- and long-term
goals and establish target end dates for remaining reforms; and conduct
assessments of the resulting resource implications." U.S. General
Accounting Office, United Nations: Reforms
progressing, but comprehensive assessments needed to measure impact,
GAO 04-339, February 2004, "Highlights" page.
[emphasis added.]
[Note: available at www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-339 .]
"A new survey of
[UN integrity perceptions has found that] while structures for reporting
and combating
corruption exist, most staff members are either unaware of how to
use them or afraid to do so for fear of high-level retaliation. 'The UN has a 'phone book' of rules and regulations
which are totally useless as they are never practiced', a staff
member is quoted as saying
[Another says,] 'Senior
leaders caught in serious breaches of ethics should be punished, not
promoted as usual.'
[The study] is being made public at a time when Secretary-General Kofi
Annan has been forced by the widespread publicity [about corruption in the
Iraq oil-for-food program] to appoint a high-level panel to look into [it]
The new study records relatively high levels of
worker satisfaction
but its most negative findings have to do with ingrown leadership and the
lack of response to reports of corruption. 'Get rid of the old boy network,' one staff member
[says.] 'That network is wide, tenacious and
powerful.
So long as
you can wind your way into that network, you are OK.
Opposing the network is certainly the end of a UN
career.'" Warren Hoge, "Report
criticizes the way UN fights corruption", International Herald Tribune, June 16, 2004.
[Note: The actual survey is "United Nations organizational
integrity survey", Final Report, prepared by Deloitte Consulting LLP, June 2004.]
"[The UN integrity
survey] is of course just one of the UN's various investigations into
itself.
Does anyone see a
problem here? The basic flaws are
simple.
Any time you create a large institution, accord it great privileges
of secrecy, give it a big budget and have it run immune from any sane
standard of accountability, you are likely to get a corrupt organization.
The problem with
the Secretariat isn't "tone" at the top. It's accountability at the top and
secrecy throughout.
Someone needs to
help this institution, and it's not a consulting team hired by the same
institution, nor is it a batch of investigators operating under terms
defined by the U.N, nor is it a grand gathering of staff members being
urged to risk reprisals by telling tales of earlier reprisals. A better place to
start is to
withhold part of the U.N.'s budget
[or] tackle the system
that engendered Oil-for-Food
For now, I'm [starting to believe] that in
reforming the UN, the only thing worse than having the U.N. ignore a
problem is to have the U.N. investigate it." Claudia Rosett,
"The problem with the Secretariat", The Wall
Street Journal, June 16, 2004.
The UN is not in
good shape and the world is in worse shape.
[UN critics know
their chosen target is vulnerable. As a [US expert] put it, The UN is
useful, but it is also a terribly flawed and defective organization. [A panel is
looking at changed threats and Security Council changes]
[major
countries seek new permanent Security Council seats]
Investigations of
widespread corruption in the UN-directed oil-for-food program in Iraq
continue.
All of this is unsettling. [But then came] the
startling declaration from
[Secretary-General Annan] that the war in
Iraq was illegal.
it may provide a
basis for a battery of lawsuits against the United States from Iraqis
demanding reparations and from every sharp lawyer with a dislike of
Americas role on the planet. I
believe that a
strong case can be made that [the war] was legal. Good lawyers
in good faith have disagreed.
Complex issues,
yes, but with a brutally simple bottom line: unless the UN can [develop] a system that
is more streamlined and efficacious, and less open to legal dispute, it
will not be adapted to the realities of todays world.
Roger Cohen, As world leaders meet, UN is at a crossroads, International Herald Tribune, September 22, 2004. [emphasis added]
The United
Nations 60-year old machinery has never seemed so ill-equipped for its
work, and its credibility has plummeted.
Regrettably, most
[UN groups]
have an interest in resisting reform. None of the permanent
Security Council members wants to give up its veto; smaller powers delight
in their General Assembly votes, which count as much as those of the major
powers; repressive regimes cherish participation in United Nations human
rights bodies, where they can scuttle embarrassing resolutions; and the
Western powers whose troops and treasure are needed to strengthen U.N.
peacekeeping have other priorities. Even within the U.N. bureaucracy, many
veterans shy away from dramatic reform it has taken them decades to
become masters of the old procedures, and change is risky. And while
U.N. officials, including the secretary-general, are quick (and correct)
to blame the member states for the constraints they face, they too rarely
find the courage to spotlight those specific states whose obstinacy,
stinginess, and abuses undermine the principles behind the U.N.
Charter.
[Three highly
visible UN components]
the Security Council, the Commission on Human
Rights, and the peacekeepers in the field
[are] in dire need of reform
and rescue. Samantha Power, The worlds most dangerous ideas: Business as usual at the U.N., Foreign Policy, September/October 2004, pp. 38-39. Samantha Power is also the author of A problem from hell: America and the age of genocide, Basic Books, New York, 2002. "U. N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said yesterday he was disappointed in his son
for accepting payments from a key contractor in the oil-for-food programme
for more than four years longer than
previously acknowledged.
But the appearance
of a payoff to the Secretary-General's son was just the latest
of
revelations about the Iraqi oil-for-food program
While the
organization scrambles to respond to oil-for-food inquiries, other
troubles are piling up at the organization's doorstep. ... The U.N.
peacekeeping program is wracked by accusations of rape, sexual harassment
and extortion by blue helmets and civilians in the U.N. mission in Congo.
International
pressure also is building on the United Nations and the Security Council
to do more to protect civilians in Darfur, Sudan.
Internally, a
[staff]
group seeks to reopen an investigation of [the head of the OIOS]
over charges of sexual harassment and favoritism
The U.N. staff
union also has criticized Mr. Annan's willingness to exonerate Deputy
Secretary-General Louise Frechette for failing to protect U.N. staff
members in Iraq
[Mr. Annan] also
threw out an internal report finding merit in a [recent] sexual harassment
complaint against
[UNHCR head] Ruud Lubbers." Betsy Pisic, "Another oil-food scandal emerges", The Washington Times, November 29, 2004. "[In April 1994,
Hutu gangs]
killed almost 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus -- the
fastest genocide in human history.
Rwanda was a
failure at almost every level, but certainly it was a failure of the
United Nations.
It was the major powers -- the United States, Britain, and France
that determined the exact nature of the peacekeeping mission.
This logic holds
even more in the messy scandal over the Oil-for-Food programme, a badly
managed affair surrounded by corruption.
And yet and
yet. The
United Nations is not simply a reflection of its major members, but a vast
organization with a distinct culture and code -- one in desperate need of
repair.
Given the enormous
expansion of its responsibilities
it has not structured itself to
provide professional and competent management. It has some
remarkable successes to its credit
but also real failures. Oil-for-Food
and the sexual scandals in Congo are examples of abysmal management, and
there must be consequences. Kofi Annan has been the most
reform-minded secretary-general in the U.N.'s history, but he needs to do
much more, and fast: otherwise he will find himself doing too little, too
late." Fareed Zakaria, "When the UN fails, we all do", Newsweek International, December 13, 2004, p. 15.
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