UN staff protest over Annan reform plan
United Nations staff have strongly objected to secretary-general Kofi Annan’s blueprint to radically overhaul UN operations.
His plan won initial support from the US and the European Union, but staff strongly objected to his call to consider outsourcing a variety of UN services, from translations to billing.
Mr Annan presented the 33-page report to the General Assembly yesterday and urged its 191 members to invest in management reform so the UN can help millions of people around the world facing hunger, disease, violence and terrorism.
He then sat centre stage with his top management at a contentious and raucous meeting with disgruntled UN staff who peppered him with questions about their job security and outsourcing.
The proposals are a direct response to last year’s investigation into the UN oil-for-food programme which concluded that shoddy management was partly to blame for widespread corruption.
The inquiry cited weaknesses in oversight, accountability, responsibility and structure.
Mr Annan stressed that the management reform report is also an effort to transform the UN’s post-Second World War management structure and practices so the world body can deal with 21st century problems.
After decades of piecemeal reform that addressed symptoms more than causes, he said “a radical overhaul” is needed because the UN’s current rules and regulations “make it very hard for the organisation to conduct its work efficiently or effectively”.
Since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, he said, the United Nations has been transformed from an organisation that primarily held conferences and meetings to a global body engaged in many countries in peacekeeping, humanitarian relief efforts, electoral assistance and human rights monitoring.
More than half of the UN’s 30,000 civilian staff now serve in the field while 80,000 UN peacekeepers are deployed in 16 global hotspots.
More than 70% of the UN’s $10bn annual budget now relates to peacekeeping and other field operations – up from about 50% of a 4.5 billion dollar (£2.6 billion) budget 10 years ago, the report said.
Mr Annan’s proposed shake-up would create a mobile civil service and convert 2,500 short-term peacekeeping positions into a new rapid reaction team whose members could be deployed quickly in urgent peacekeeping and political missions.
It would change the way the UN buys goods and services – an area that has seen widespread corruption and is currently the subject of several investigations.
The reforms would also modernise the UN’s information technology systems, and consider relocating, outsourcing and telecommuting a range of UN services including translation, editing, printing, publishing, payroll, medical and staff benefits, and information technology support.
The Staff Union, which represents about 4,500 workers at UN headquarters, scheduled a press conference today to discuss the report, titled Investing in the United Nations.
The US has been pushing for a major management overhaul that would give the secretary-general more power and flexibility.
While the US has not studied every proposal, US Ambassador John Bolton said “the notion of a radical overhaul is exactly what we’ve been suggesting”.
“Now the burden … is to persuade the other UN member states it’s not just a US reform. The secretary-general is proposing it. I think it’s got support. Now we need to push it through,” he said.
The European Union, in a statement from the Austrian presidency, also welcomed the report as a bold and decisive step for the future of the UN
But the General Assembly, dominated by developing countries, controls the UN’s purse strings and must approve most of the reforms – and it is not expected to give up any power easily.
Already members are at odds over where the report should be debated – in a meeting of all members or the UN budget committee.
