INVESTING IN THE UNITED NATIONS
For a Stronger Organization Worldwide
Report of the Secretary-General
Introduction
A changing world and a changing United Nations
1. Throughout its history, the United Nations has played a vital role as a meeting place for the discussion of global issues and setting of global standards, and for much of that history the key function of its Secretariat and staff, working mainly at Headquarters, has been to service those conferences and meetings. Much of this work has been, and is, important and substantive. The global norms set during this period have changed the world profoundly.
2. But the global political and social environment of today is very different, and our Organization reflects that. In the last 20 years, it has lived through a dramatic expansion of operations, budgets and functions. The United Nations today carries out complex operations and directly delivers critical services around the world. In so doing, it works with a wide range of partners – including national Governments, regional organizations, civil society groups, philanthropic foundations and privatesector companies – on an equally wide range of activities, from peacekeeping and peacebuilding to the struggle against poverty and HIV/AIDS and the promotion of the Millennium Development Goals.
3. Peacekeeping, it is true, dates back to the early days of the cold war. But the typical peacekeeping operation of that time involved a simple interposition of soldiers between the armed forces of warring States to monitor the observance of a ceasefire. And in the first 44 years of the history of the United Nations, only 18 peacekeeping missions were set up.
4. In the 16 years since 1990, 42 new missions have been authorized (see figure 1). Yet today's peacekeeping is a far more complex matter. It usually involves restoring institutions, organizing elections and training the police; and it includes many other tasks needed to turn a peace agreement signed by the leaders of armed factions into real security and at least a chance of prosperity for the people of a country ravaged by long years of conflict. In two recent cases – one of them still current – the United Nations has even been required to supply the executive functions of government in the territory concerned.
5. Even though independent studies show that the United Nations performs these tasks at a lower cost than nations working on their own or working in ad hoc coalitions, these new more complex missions require more people to run them. Just in the nine years since I became Secretary-General, the number of personnel – civilians and soldiers – deployed on peacekeeping missions has risen from under 20,000 to over 80,000, driving up the total peacekeeping budget from $1.25 billion to over $5 billion (see figure 2). Indeed, the number of civilian staff employed in peacekeeping missions in the field is now more than double the number of all Secretariat staff employed in New York, while peacekeeping expenditure amounts to more than half of all United Nations spending.
6. By contrast, the regular budget, which is at the heart of so many of the intergovernmental debates about the control and direction of United Nations activities, represents less than 20 per cent of total spending. The remaining share, excluding the criminal tribunals and the capital master plan, consists of extrabudgetary expenditure funded by voluntary contributions (see figure 3) and is devoted mainly to "operational" activities – refugee and humanitarian relief, criminal justice, human rights monitoring and capacity-building, and electoral assistance. In general, these are new activities and complement growing spending by United Nations funds and programmes such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP), which is currently of the order of $10 billion per annum. The United Nations therefore spends almost $20 billion a year overall. The present report addresses only the Secretariat half of that figure.
A once-in-a-generation opportunity
7. Such a vastly expanded and altered range of activities calls for a radical overhaul of the United Nations Secretariat – its rules, its structure, and its systems and culture. This has begun to happen in the United Nations funds and programmes but not sufficiently in the Secretariat. Our staff are working all round the world and doing more than ever before, many of them in difficult and dangerous situations and with great idealism and integrity, but our management system does not do justice to them. It lacks the capacity, controls, flexibility, robustness and indeed transparency to handle multi-billion-dollar global operations, which often have to be deployed at great speed.
8. There have been many efforts at reform. I myself have introduced two main sets of reform proposals during my time in office – one in 1997 (see A/51/950 - PDF, 5,772K) and a second in 2002 (see A/57/387 - PDF, 175K) – as well as the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (see A/55/305-S/2000/809 - PDF, 565K), issued in 2000, and the report on a strengthened and unified security management system (see A/59/365 - PDF, 103K), issued in 2004. In partnership with Member States, important changes have been made, and I believe the Organization is more efficient and effective than it was 10 years ago.
9. But these earlier efforts addressed the symptoms and not the causes of our underlying weaknesses. They were not sufficiently comprehensive and strategic to meet the demands of an era of such rapid change. In several key areas – notably the management of human resources, the basic structures of management itself, the mechanisms of intergovernmental control and perhaps above all the management culture – the operating model has not changed significantly since at least the 1970s. Indeed, systems have continued to weaken as challenges have grown.
10. As a result, the Secretariat has struggled to cope with the changed environment. It has faced many operational problems and a number of crises. Against the odds, a dedicated staff have delivered more every year. The time has now come for fundamental reform, designed explicitly to enable the Secretariat to meet the new operational requirements of the United Nations in the twenty-first century. Just as our iconic Headquarters building, after more than 50 years of ad hoc repair and maintenance, now needs to be fully refurbished from top to bottom, so our Organization, after decades of piecemeal reform, now needs a thorough strategic overhaul, which can only be achieved through a consistent, sustained commitment at all levels of leadership.
11. Member States have clearly understood this. In the 2005 World Summit Outcome (General Assembly resolution 60/1 - PDF, 283K), the Heads of State and Government of all Member States invited the Secretary-General to frame a comprehensive blueprint for change. In paragraph 162 of the Summit Outcome, they requested me to make proposals to the General Assembly, for its consideration, on the conditions and measures necessary for me – and my successors – to carry out my managerial responsibilities effectively. In paragraph 163 of the Summit Outcome, they also called on me to submit proposals for implementing management reforms, aimed particularly at making more efficient use of the Organization's financial and human resources, for consideration and decision in the first quarter of 2006. Such an opportunity for much-needed change may not soon recur. We must seize it and exploit it to the full.
12. The present report responds to both of these requests and seeks to reinforce other more specific policy reviews already commissioned by the General Assembly. It aims to provide the blueprint for comprehensive management reform that I believe most – indeed all – Member States genuinely wish to see. It contains proposals in seven main areas: people (sect. I), leadership (sect. II), information and communications technology (sect. III), ways of delivering services (sect. IV), budget and finance (sect. V), governance (sect. VI) and the process of change itself (sect. VII). These areas are all interrelated and also relate to the ethical standards of the Secretariat – which with the help of Member States I have already taken steps to reform –and the systems of oversight and internal justice, which are the subject of separate reviews. Failure to carry through reform in any one of these areas can greatly reduce or even nullify the value of reform in all the others. Accordingly, even though they are not the subject of its proposals, I have included in the present report brief summaries of the reforms already enacted or envisaged in the areas of ethics and oversight, as well as an appeal for a far-reaching reform of the internal justice system. In this way I have presented a complete tableau of all the changes that I believe are needed.
13. I recognize that if the General Assembly were to enact all the changes in the rules and regulations that I request, that action alone would not transform our Organization. We have to build a modern, empowered management capacity, which will not be achieved by a vote but by sustained organizational – change over time. Indeed, nearly every process in the Organization will need to be revisited as we seek to eliminate redundant steps and engineer more efficient ways of doing things. The present report must be the beginning of a process of change management that will be implemented over the next several years. One of the weaknesses of the old culture is precisely the view that a report or a vote in itself represents change. In practice, reports and votes enable and authorize change, but change itself is the long march that follows.
Working together
14. Let me state this clearly: strong management can only work if it responds to strong governance. These reforms are in danger of failing unless there is a trusting relationship, a strategic partnership, between this institution's governance – the Member States' intergovernmental mechanisms – and its management, namely myself and my colleagues.
15. Two developments threaten this partnership, and must be resolved. First, many States have cause to feel excluded from any real say in the affairs of the Organization and are driven to assert their influence by using the only means they believe is available to them – that is, by withholding their support from some of the many decisions, particularly on administrative and budgetary matters, for which consensus is required. This puts them at loggerheads with other States who feel, on the contrary, that their financial contribution entitles them to a decisive say on these same issues. This dispute is undermining what should be a common commitment to an effective United Nations.
16. Second, this conflict has broken down the division of labour between myself, as Chief Administrative Officer, and Member States. It has led to intervention in almost every decision about the allocation of financial and human resources. It is vital that we find – or rediscover – a basis for partnership. Effective oversight and ability to set the Organization's direction must be restored to Member States, while the right of the Secretary-General to manage the affairs of the Organization in a manner that delivers the goals set for him by Member States must be respected.
17. Indeed, if change is to happen, it is vital that the Secretariat and Member States work together to make it happen. The details of all the proposed changes remain to be worked out and they must be worked out in full consultation, including consultation with those to whom they will make the most immediate difference and on whose continued loyalty and dedication their success will most directly depend – namely, the United Nations staff. The process of change must be based on full and clear communication between all stakeholders, leading to well-defined roadmaps and transparent lines of accountability for all the leaders involved.
18. These reforms have been developed in the context of a debate about how the United Nations can achieve savings through reform. Indeed, there are real savings to be made through these proposals, which over time will reduce the costs of many activities by ensuring that they are carried out more simply. But the present report is not a cost-cutting exercise: its primary financial message is that there has been massive underinvestment in people, systems and information technology, and that these deferred expenditures must now be made up for if the United Nations is to operate effectively. To reach the level of effectiveness that our staff, our clients, our Member States and our peoples are entitled to expect, will cost significant amounts of money.
19. My intention is to ensure that all Member States have at their command an Organization that, because it is well organized and transparent, is easy for them to direct and can be relied on to respond quickly and effectively to their instruction. Above all, my intention is to ensure that the United Nations delivers the best possible value to the hundreds of millions of people throughout the world who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in need of its services: those threatened by extreme poverty; by hunger, malnutrition and endemic or epidemic disease; by desertification and other forms of environmental degradation; by natural disasters; by civil conflict, anarchy, violence and transnational organized crime; by terrorism; by oppression and misgovernment; and by genocide, ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity. It is these people who are the true stakeholders in an effective and democratically controlled United Nations.
Box 1: Ensuring ethics and accountability
A key ingredient of any successful Organization is an ethical and accountable culture pervading its staff from top to bottom. For the United Nations, as an Organization founded on the high ideals of its Charter and seeking to set an example in the countries where it works around the world, this is doubly important. Unfortunately, in recent years it has become clear that we have too often fallen short of these high standards. An internal staff survey in 2004 contained disturbing perceptions of management weaknesses. In addition, disclosures ranging from the findings of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme to the absolutely impermissible acts of sexual exploitation by some of our peacekeepers in the field have all too clearly demonstrated the need for a more rigorous, enforceable set of rules and regulations, and tougher sanctions. In response, during the course of 2005 I introduced a number of changes aimed at correcting the situation and giving senior management the tools necessary to ensure that all employees of the Organization adhere to the highest standards. In particular, the United Nations has:
- Established a dedicated Ethics Office, approved by Member States.
- Promulgated strengthened rules to ensure protection against retaliation for those who report misconduct through a new "whistleblower" protection policy.
- Put in place more stringent requirements for financial disclosure and declaration of interests, covering broader categories of senior officials and the entire procurement staff.
- Established strict guidelines for the acceptance of pro-bono services from private-sector companies.
- Implemented a comprehensive set of measures to prevent sexual exploitation in field missions, investigate allegations and hold perpetrators accountable; over the past 14 months, in response to such violations more than 100 individual United Nations staff and peacekeepers have been either dismissed or expelled and a number of entire military units have been repatriated.
This package of reform will shortly be supplemented by the enactment of a new code of conduct on post-employment contacts with the Secretariat for business purposes, and by new measures to strengthen our capacity to detect and prevent fraud and corruption.