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Archive Introduction


UN Performance Problems

UN Management Accountability Struggles


Where is the Rule of Law?

Inadequate UN Oversight

Recent Developments

 
  

 

 


Overview Quotes          

                                                                                                                 

   

                                                   

AN OVERVIEW OF IO WATCH ARCHIVE QUOTES



This website consists primarily of an archive, plus a legal section.  The archive, already a large one, will expand considerably in the future.  It presently contains more than 1,600 pages of text in some 160 sections and subsections, with some 2,500 quotations, over 1,000 bibliographic citations, and connective analysis and commentary.  However, it really has only two intertwined topics.


 

First, the archive discusses the seemingly endless attempts over six decades to install management accountability in UN Secretariat operations.  The first 40 years brought a flood of more modest efforts (see Management Systems in this Archive).  In the last 20 years, a series of six major management reform efforts were undertaken (1986, 1993-1994, 1997, 2002, mid-2005, and another beginning in 2006.)  The UN Secretariat has, if nothing else, certainly become very good at generating new management reform policies when the General Assembly repeatedly demands them.


 

Second, however, the Secretariat has proven unable to actually implement management accountability systems -- that is, to establish compliance monitoring and prompt response when problems arise; the rule of law; rewards and sanctions; and related transparency and reporting.  Only if, and when, these elements are established and functioning properly will the many pious promises of UN management reform actually achieve a management accountability system for effective UN operations.  The Secretariat finally and bluntly admitted its failure in May 2005 (see quote excerpt on the home page).


 

Because of the large size of this archive, IO Watch presents here a chronological, and consecutively numbered, sample of very abbreviated quote excerpts from about one-tenth of the total archive quotes.  These excerpts trace the long and very reluctant 60-year journey of the UN Secretariat toward management accountability.  They also introduce the major issues, problems, constraints, answers, and above all great inertia involved in transforming the weak UN management culture. IO Watch encourages visitors to read, or just skim through or sample this list, to get a general introductory sense of these themes and their interaction.  


 

Since IO Watch resources are quite modest, the overall website will be updated only two or three times per year. This overview list, however, will be regularly updated to reflect significant new developments. 


Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes I covers the period 1943-1993


Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes II covers the period 1994-2004


Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes III covers the period 2005-June 2006

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes IV covers the period July-October 2006


Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes V covers the period November-December 2006 

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes VI  covers the period January-February 2007

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes VII  covers the period March-April 2007
 

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes VIII  covers the period May-June 2007

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes IX  covers the period July-August 2007

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes X  covers the period September-October 2007

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes XI  covers the period November-Dec. 2007 

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes XII  covers the period January-February 2008 

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes XIII  covers the period March-April 2008

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes XIV  covers the period May-June 2008

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes XV  covers the period July-August 2008