'Group of 18' on UN efficiency and financing makes 71 recommendations on organization's functioning.

'Group of 18' on UN efficiency and financing makes 71 recommendations on Organization's functioning

The Group of High-level IntergovernmentalExperts to Review the Efficiency of the Administrative and Financial Functioning of the United Nations has formulated 71 recommendations to streamline the structure of the Organization, which the experts described as "too complex, fragmented and top-heavy".

The wide-ranging proposals--whichcover personnel measures, Secretariat structure, intergovernmental machinery, and monitoring, budget and implementation procedures--include a call for a 15 per cent staff cut within a period of three years and a 25 per cent cut in the number of Under-Secretaries-General and Assistant Secretaries-General within a period of three years or less.

The 18 experts also asked for significantreductions in the number of United Nations conferences and meetings, and of resolutions, reports and other documents; consolidation of United Nations departments and offices throughout the world; improved co-ordination in work programmes to eliminate duplication; and reducing official travel by 20 per cent.

Measures to ensure the recruitmentof more women and persons from developing countries were asked for. The reduction of annual leave for United Nations staff from six to four weeks, and the elimination of the education grant for post-secondary studies should be considered for prompt implementation, the Group stated. The mandatory retirement age of 60 should be strictly applied.

More involvement by MemberStates in setting priorities for United Nations activities and in developing budget procedures was recommended. Particular attention was given to restructuring in the area of economic and social activities, which the experts stated required 31 per cent of assessed contributions under the regular budget--more than any other category.

The 40-page report (A/41/49),presented to Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar on 18 August by Group Chairman Tom Eric Vraalsen of Norway, is to be considered by the forty-first General Assembly.

The Group asked that the Secretary-Generalbe requested to implement the recommendations within his purview "as soon as possible" and within a set time-limit, and that he report to the Assembly by 1 May 1987 on such implementation.

(Secretary-General Perez de Cuellaron 15 September extended the mandate of the Steering Committee he had established to advise him on action to be taken in connection with the Group's report, with Patricio Ruedas, Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Management, continuing as Chairman. He also designated Assistant Secretary-General Margaret J. Anstee as Special Co-ordinator to ensure implementation of the decisions he might take in this area.)

The Group also asked that theCommittee for Programme and Coordination (CPC), assisted, as required, by the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other bodies, co-ordinate and monitor implementation relating to intergovernmental machinery, with the CPC reporting to the Assembly before the opening of the forty-second session in 1987.

The Secretary-General and theCPC were to report to the 1989 Assembly on implementation of all Group recommendations.

67 meetings: The Group of Experts,established by the General Assembly on 18 December 1985 under resolution 40/237, began work in February 1986, holding 67 closed meetings during four sessions over a six-moth period. Its mandate was not to address the immediate and short-term financial problems of the United Nations, but to identify medium- and long-term measures.

Chairman Vraalsen, at an 18August press conference, said that all recommendations, except for one pertatining to fixed-term and permanent appointments, had been adopted unanimously. The Group, he said, had confined itself to the United Nations and its affiliated bodies and had not dealt with the specialized agencies. Implementation of its recommendations would lead to a more effective Organization and "significant" savings.

The Group concluded its recommendationswould contribute to improving the efficiency of the administrative and financial functioning of the United Nations, "which would contribute to strengthening its effectiveness in dealing with political, economic and social issues".

While it considered that it had dischargedits mandate, the Group said it had "only begun a reform process", which must now be carried further by other intergovernmental bodies and the Secretary-General. "The continued commitment of Member States to the United Nations and to the process of multilateral diplomacy that it represents is indispensable if this process is to succeed".

On 24 September 1985, Japan's ForeignMinister, Shintaro Abe, while speaking in the general debate, proposed the formation of a group to review the efficiency of the United Nations, noting that United Nations bodies had steadily expanded over the last 40 years, and some activities might be "outdated" or "redundant". Expressing concern that the United Nations might be losing support around the world, he felt the Organization should make a determined effort towards effective administrative and financial reform.

Group members, in addition to Mr.Vraalsen, are: Mark Allen (United Kingdom), Maurice Bertrand (France), Bi Jilong (China), Fakhreddine Mohamed (Sudan), Lucio Garcia del Solar (Argentina), Ignac Golob (Yugoslavia), Natarajan Krishnan (India), Kishore Mahbubani (Singapore), Hugo Margain (Mexico), Elleck Mashingaidze (Zimbabwe), Ndam Njoya (Cameroon), Vasiliy Safronchuk (USSR), Shizuo Saito (Japan), Edward Sanu (Nigeria), David Silveira da Mota (Brazil), Jose Sorzano (United States) and Layachi Yaker (Algeria).

Change and expansion: "Changinginternational circumstances and new challenges have led to a gradual but significant expansion in the scope, range and volume of the work of the Organization", the Group stated. Agendas, the number of meetings and the volume of documentation have grown, as has the regular budget, which for the 1986-1987 biennium stands at $1.6 billion. (Other United Nations activities are financed through $1.2 billion in voluntary contributions.)

There has also been a parallelgrowth in the Secretariat, from 1,546 in 1946 to 11,423 in 1986. "A leaner Secretariat will enhance productivity and improve efficiency", the Group stated.

(The recommended 15 per cent cutwould mean a loss of approximately 1,650 posts, Chairman Vraalsen estimated. Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar said if the Assembly approved the recommendation, staff reductions would be attained, as far as possible; through attrition, and where not feasible, in conformity with staff regulations.)

Management capacity, especiallywith regard to the need to maintain overall administrative efficiency, productivity and cost effectiveness, has lagged behind the pace of growth, the Group stated. "Too often the considerable resources allocated to conferences and meetings are not put to maximum use."

It also concluded that theSecretariat was divided into too many departments, offices and divisions, with 9 political and some 15 economic and social departments and offices, and that the number of Under-Secretaries-General and Assistant Secretaries-General, now 57, was "excessive".

"Such fragmentation inevitablyleads to duplication of work, dispersion of responsibility and blurred lines of authority, accountability and communication", the Group stated, recommending a review of political departments and offices that carry out a wide variety of functions, with a view to consolidating and streamlining organizational structure in this field.

The Group drew attention to the"magnitude and complexity" of intergovernmental machinery, particularly in the economic and social fields, in which there were more than 150 committees, commissions, sub-committees, sub-commissions and working groups.

It recommended a careful and indepthstudy of the intergovernmental structure of those fields. "The multiplicity of offices dealing with economic and social matters and their dispersion create additional problems of co-ordination and communication that are not found in the political field", the Group said.

Offices responsible for research,analysis and operational activities in economic and social matters were "not sufficiently responsive to the changing realities at the global and regional levels".

Administrative and related functionsof the Secretariat required a sizeable share of the Organization's budget, and those costs should be reduced. Present financial and administrative procedures should be simplified, and procurement procedures and practices improved. Automation and use of modern technical equipment should be further pursued where it resulted in net savings compared to personnel costs.

Increased efficiency could beachieved in the administrative and related functions of the Secretariat, without affecting the quality of the services provided, through the elimination of duplication, strengthening of authority by suppressing hierarchical layers, and by improving the personnel policies, particularly through the use of objective methods of recruitment.

Personnel measures: The Groupcalled for a more coherent and orderly personnel policy, stating that personnel policy and management in the United Nations "has suffered as a result of the considerable political and other pressures that have influenced the selection of staff".

The Secretary-General should exercisegreater leadership in personnel matters and ensure that the selection of staff was done strictly in accordance with Charter principles. He should improve the management of human resources, protect the authority of the official in charge of personnel and instruct all other senior officials to refrain from influencing the selection of staff. The office responsible should be renamed "Office of Human Resources Management".

The Organization's personnelmanagement must be based on "clear, coherent and transparent" rules. "Present inconsistencies and ambiguities" should be eliminated. A greater proportion of appointments should be made at the junior professional levels (P-1 to P-3), with an increasing proportion of professional posts, particularly at the higher levels, filled by women.

It would be in the Organization's interestto revew periodically the leadership of departments and offices. The Secretary-General should not, as a rule, extend the service of Under-Secretaries-General and Assistant Secretaries-General for a period exceeding 10 years.

Total staff entitlements--salariesand other conditions of service--had reached a level "which gives reason for serious concern" and should be reduced.

Intergovernmental machinery:The Group recommended "significant reductions" in the number, frequency and duration of conferences. A comparative analysis should be made of the agenda, schedule and work programme of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council and related subsidiary organs such as the the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Monitoring, evaluation and inspection:The Group said monitoring, evaluation and inspection of United Nations activities were needed to secure

administrative efficiency and proper use of funds. The JIU should make sure activities were carried out in the most economical manner and that optimum use was made of resources. JIU reports should be dealt with adequately at the intergovernmental level. More emphasis should be put on evaluation, and inspectors' reports should be improved.

Planning and budget procedure:The present procedures for medium-term planning and preparing the biennial programme budget were inadequate. Member States should exercise intergovernmental leadership in the budget preparation process, particularly with regard to setting priorities. Currently, the budget was being presented ready-made by the Secretariat. Governments should be allowed to take part in the process from the very beginning, and during off-budget years.

Group members were unable toagree on ways to improve the budgetary process and, specifically, to clarify the relative roles of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) and the CPC. Three approaches were submitted for the General Assembly's study.

One approach called for adjustmentof the intergovernmental decision-making process, to take into account the methodological change in programme budgeting. Existing machinery, its supporters maintained, separated the consideration of the financial and administrative aspects of the budget from the review of the content of the programmes. They called for an intergovernmental mechanism which could make recommendations on the medium-term plan and the programme budget, particularly with regard to priorities, resource allocations reflecting those priorities and redeployment of resources for high-priority areas.

Supporters of a second approach feltthe proposal for the mechanism lacked clarity, and that would inevitably lead to major conflict between the Committee for Programme and Co-ordination and the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions in considering the programme budget.

A third group wanted the budgetingprocess and the programme planning process in the United Nations merged, with those functions entrusted to a single intergovernmental expert body which would work on the basis of consensus. This body would determine the overall limit of future budgets on the basis of the amount of resources Member States could and were prepared to make available to the Organization. The expert body, the decisions of which should be reached by consensus, should also set priorities and co-operate with the Secretary-General in preparing budget estimates.

Specific recommendations: TheGroup drew a distinction between questions that required greater indepth examination and those on which it was possible to submit precise recommendations for consideration by the Assembly.

In addition to its call for staff cutsand other measures, the experts also recommended:

* The Economic and Social Councilshould be invited to meet once, instead of twice, a year.

* The trend towards holding biennial,instead of annual, meetings of subsidiary bodies of the General Assembly and Economic and Social Council should be "vigorously pursued".

* Only one major conference beheld annually.

* No new subsidiary organs shouldbe created by the Assembly unless existing ones were discontinued.

* United Nations bodies shouldmeet at their established headquarters.

* Construction of United Nationsconference facilities should only be undertaken when sufficient resources were available.

* Reimbursement of travel costs forrepresentatives of Member States attending the General Assembly should be limited to least developed countries.

* Immediately reducing by 30 percent the amount spent on outside consultants (now $8 million every two years), and abolishing the practice of hiring retired staff members.