Towards a new clarity for UN work.

Calling for a restructured UN to lead the way towards a new definition of economic and social progress, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali warned the Economic and Social Council on 30 June that "unless we move forward to create an economically and socially more balanced world, peace, and security will be endangered".

Amidst a complex reform process that has touched virtually every major organ, responsibility and aspect of the post-cold-war United Nations, a restructuring of intergovernmental machinery in the economic and social fields was "both necessary and overdue", Mr. Boutros-Ghali told the highlevel segment of the Council's five-week substantive session (29 June-30 July, Geneva).

"From the outset of my mandate I have been convinced that the structure of the Organization must mirror as closely as possible, the tasks it assigned to undertake", he said. "An institution must reflect the objectives it pursues, and I hope, to be able to make this happen wit:h increasing accuracy.

The UN therefore faces "the difficult task of relating our aims to our means, of updating and reforming institutions set up at different times and with different imperatives", he said.

Indeed, with the Organization struggling to deal with the deadly mixture of starvation and civil war in Somalia, the humanitarian nightmare of ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia, a vast election and infrastructure rebuilding exercise in Cambodia, and the tensions of fledgling democracy and economies in transition in former Soviet republics, a main goal of UN reform has been to realize an organization which views its economic, social and development aims "with the same sense of urgency as its political and security commitments", the Secretary-General's Special Adviser, Kenneth Dadzie, told the Fifth Committee on 30 March.

Far-reaching administrative reform has been implemented by the Secretary-General to eliminate duplication and refocus the work of all parts of the UN on its original, basic mandate.

In June 1992, the Secretary-General issued a wide-ranging strategy for the future work of the Organization, entitled "An Agenda for Peace", in which he set out proposals for strengthening UN effectiveness in discharging its responsibilities. The proposals, which concentrate on UN activities in the areas of peace-keeping, preventive diplomacy and post-conflict peacebuilding, form what Mr. Boutros-Ghali has described as "a consistent and integrated set of measures to address human security in all its aspects". (For a detailed account of "An Agenda for Peace" and its follow-up, refer to UN Chronicle, No. 3, September 1992, and "The 38th Floor" sections in subsequent issues.)

In his "Agenda", Mr. Boutros-Ghali proposed that the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) report to the Security Council on economic and social developments which might pose threats to international peace and security. He also urged that a flexible high-level, intersessional mechanism be introduced to enable ECOSOC to react in a timely way to new developments.

The Secretary-General's restructuring efforts also aimed to promote coordination and decentralization within the UN system, foster greater cooperation with non-governmental organizations and regional bodies, and create more effective UN financing and budget-making mechanisms.

Dramatic demands

Just as the UN is working to adapt its structures in the economic and social sectors to the new challenges before the global community, the operational, field-oriented arm of those sectors is adapting as well.

In particular, reform of the governance and financing of UN operational activities for development is currently at the forefront of UN efforts.

As the Secretary-General stated in his annual report on the work of the organization (A/48/11), "a new, workable and widely-agreed concept of development still eludes us".

Moreover, the vast challenges of famine, drought, the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), civil wars, uprooted and dislocated populations, and deepening human misery in many parts of the world "make dramatic demands on the UN system to strengthen significantly its field presence, as well as its operational capabilities and responsiveness", the UN joint Inspection Unit reported (JIU/REP/92/6/PART II) in 1992.

"Never before have the operational activities within the UN system been called upon to respond to such diversified requirements, often involving the provision of crucial and direct aid to peoples in deep distress and involving also sensitive new fields as part social, economic, and political transformation", concurs Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General of the new Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, established to provide support for the central coordinating and policy-making functions vested in the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly's Second and Third Committees.

"We must build upon the unique capacity of the United Nations system field structure", said Mr. Desai. "Through this country-level presence, the United Nations system maintains day-to-day contact with national officials and is in a position to provide demand-driven development assistance."

Measures for change and adaptation of UN field work to ensure greater effectiveness and coherence at the country level were included in a comprehensive resolution (47/199) on operational activities of the UN development system, which was adopted by the General Assembly in 1992 (see box, page 40).

The text called for the UN system, through the Resident Coordinators, to: work with individual countries in formulating a country strategy note for UN operations; adopt a programme approach of linked projects to an overall goal; strengthen the role of resident coordinators; and build national capacities for programme execution to take place at the country level, rather than at the international level.

The package of reforms, said World Food Programme of the United Nations Executive Director Catherine Bertini speaking before the Council on 7 July, indicated that not only coordination was important, but that "business as usual was not good enough".

Ms. Bertini added: "United Nations agencies are a collection of programmes created by people of goodwill, at various times, to handle specific problems. It is now time to weave those mandates and activities together - to avoid duplication and to save precious resources - and to maximize efforts to help those in need."

Rethinking, recasting 

The challenge of weaving UN mandates and activities together also extends to the Organization's intergovernmental machinery, particularly in the economic and social fields.

The work of the economic and social sectors was generally less focused than UN activity in the fields of peace and security, due mostly to proliferation of intergovernmental bodies and lack of effective coordinating mechanisms, Mr. Boutros-Ghali told the Economic and Social Council on 30 June. "We have to rethink what we mean by social development and economic progress. And we have to recast our institutions in the light of our new thinking,"

That process, he said, "must start ... in ECOSOC". The Council "should be providing leadership on economic and social policy for the United Nations. It should also guide the overall management of operational activities."

Thus, he went on, "lines of communication between the Assembly and ECOSOC must be clarified and streamlined. The relationship between ECOSOC and its subsidiary bodies also needs to be redefined."

However, despite many months of meetings and negotiations, "practically no progress has been achieved", he declared. "The negotiations have stalled. The reform process has been set back."

Intense negotiations

In June 1993, after months of intense negotiations, a resumed session of the forty-seventh General Assembly postponed action on a draft package of reforms (A/47/L.58) aimed at avoiding duplication of work in the General Assembly and the ECOSOC and providing guidelines for the division of labour between the two.

The proposals resulted from long, exhaustive informal consultations, under the guidance of Ramiro Piriz-Ballon of Uruguay, who headed the open-ended negotiating working group established in October 1992.

Among other things, it was suggested that the governing bodies of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) be transformed into smaller executive boards under the overall authority of the Economic and Social Council.

Similar arrangements would apply to the Committee of Food Aid Policies and Programmes, which sets policy for the World Food Programme (WFP) joint organ of the UN and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. Another proposal would affect the procedures of the Economic and Social Council.

The draft also proposed that the Council's two subcommittees - on economic and on social issues - be subsumed into the plenary.

In 1992, the Secretary-General had reported (A/47/434) that Council members were frustrated by repeated discussions of the same issues on four separate occasions during the same calendar year (in the Council's subsidiary body, in the committee session, in Council plenary and in the General Assembly).

By eliminating the subcommittees, it was felt, the Council could refrain from duplicating their substantive debate and concentrate instead on the adoption of subsidiary bodies' recommendations.

Nordic initiative

Many proposals relating to restructuring in the economic and social fields sprang from an initiative - known as the "Nordic UN Project" - undertaken by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

In 1988, the Nordic Under-Secretaries-General for International Development Cooperation launched a review of the problems of coordination, financing and staffing policy, and proposed changes in the UN Secretariat, the Economic and Social Council, and the programmes and agencies of the UN system.

The Nordic initiative sought to establish a clear division of roles and mandates between the General Assembly and ECOSOC, to avoid overlapping of work between these two governance layers and to establish small executive bodies for each UN fund and programme.

Their final report (A/C.2/46/7), presented to the General Assembly, in 1991, supported ongoing discussions towards reform and renewal of the economic and social work of the UN.

Among its proposals, the report suggested establishment of a high-level international development council to discuss development issues and supply general policy guidance for the UN system. The Nordic countries proposed that the Council's functions could be incorporated into existing structures by either:

* maintaining ECOSOC as it is;

* merging the Second and Third Committees of the General Assembly: or

* strengthening and enlarging ECOSOC so it becomes a universal body in session in parallel with the General Assembly. (The Second and Third Committees would be abolished.)

Overall, the report concluded: "it is the firm belief of our Governments that an acceleration of the reform process of the UN system is imperative".

Reform delayed

However, rather than speeding up, the reform process slowed down as Luis Fernando Jaramillo of Colombia on 25 June moved to delay Assembly action on the draft text on restructuring and revitalization of the UN in the economic, social and related fields. That text, he said, posed difficulties for a large number of "Group of 77" developing countries.

"There was a consensus on all provisions of the draft, with the exception of the paragraph on the numerical and regional composition of governing bodies of funds and programmes of the Organization", he explained.

Controversy focused on the aspiration of the smallest countries to participate actively in the governing bodies from which they felt excluded, due to the "drastic reduction" that would take place in the number of members, he said.

Johan Friis of Denmark, speaking on behalf of the Nordic countries, said that the "no action" vote on the reform package had "sent out a loud and clear message to the whole international community" that the majority of UN Members "were not prepared to agree on very necessary changes that would have improved the efficiency and effectiveness of the United Nations development system".

Council President Juan Somavia of Chile, in a 28 July letter to the Assembly President, called for action on the reform proposals. The necessary measures for restructuring and revitalizing the Economic and Social Council, he said, must be "adopted expeditiously, in order to enhance further the capacity of the council to undertake the responsibilities envisaged for it in the Charter of the United Nations".

That view, stated Mr. Somavia, had been "constantly and widely expressed" during the current Council session by delegations of all regional groups and by UN officials throughout the high-level, coordination and operational segments.

"Therefore", he concluded, "the Bureau wishes to convey to you that there is widespread feeling shared among the member States of the Council on the urgent need to come to an agreement on this matter before the closure of the current session of the Assembly." However, the forty-seventh Assembly session adjourned in September 1993 without having acted on the draft.

First wave

Although current negotiations had stalled, a first wave of restructuring in the economic and social spheres had taken effect.

Beginning in 1992, the traditional biannual convening of the Economic and Social Council had been replaced by one substantive session, divided into three segments: a high-level meeting with ministerial participation; a coordination segment; and an operational activities for development segment.

In August 1992, the Secretary-General began consultations with a panel of independent high-level advisers on the future course of UN development activities.

That led to the creation, within the UN Secretariat, of the Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, the Department of Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis, and the Department of Development Support and Management Services.

During earlier restructuring, several UN departments and offices in New York had merged into the Department of Economic and Social Development, to create what the Secretary-General described as "new synergies among the three pillars of Headquarters work": system-wide coordination and policy guidance; research, analysis and studies on important global economic and social issues; and technical cooperation activities in developing countries".

New linkages

However, the task of Secretariat reform in the economic and social area has not been completed, stated the Secretary-General recently (A/48/428). "The creation of new linkages and synergies should be the key components of further reforms in the future." These could be achieved, he reported, by:

* Improved inter-agency linkages and coordination at the field level, between research and analysis on one hand and operational activities on the other, and among the global activities of the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions.

* Strengthening the UN's ability to deal with the increased demands for peacemaking, peace-keeping and related field operations through greater coordination within an integrated structure, improved budgetary planning, enhanced management control, and audit and programme evaluation. Ensuring the safety and security of staff in the field is a related challenge.

* Pursuing a more comprehensive approach to preventive diplomacy by developing a network of early warning systems, ranging from environmental threats, the risk of nuclear accidents and natural disasters to mass population movements, the threat of famine and the spread of disease.

* Carrying forward the reform process in a number of duty stations as part of a decentralization process. A key concern will be more effective Organization-wide distribution of responsibilities and improved coordination between functions performed at Headquarters and those carried out at regional and country levels.

A ~people-centred' view

The overall aim of reforms in these areas, said Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali on 30 June, is a "people-centred view of development in which societies foster a new sense of inclusiveness and belonging for all, in which equality of opportunity becomes a reality, and from which exclusion, marginalization and alienation are banished".

He continued: "We must overcome the contradictions, conflicts and antagonisms which invariably prevail in this sector and which, often, merely testify to our inability to imagine what lies ahead, our intellectual laziness in the face of the future or the imaginary fear which prevents us from devising an innovative economic and social policy.

"Unless we make headway in these areas, the new clarity of focus which the United Nations system so desperately needs will elude us."

Coordinating the UN mission

In December 1992, the General Assembly, in resolution 47/199, stressed the need for development activities to "be streamlined and rationalized, especially in the interrelated areas of programming, execution, decentralization, monitoring ancl evaluation, thus making the UN system more relevant and responsive to the national plans, priorities and objectives of developing countries, and more efficient in its delivery systems". The UN Chronicle spoke with Nitin Desai Under-Secretary-General of the Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, which is entrusted with ensuring an integrated approach to UN development activities.

What are the main functions of your Department?

We want to move away from an imposed vision of development to a shared vision of development. We are not an actor in delivering development, but rather in setting policies of coordination for progragmmes will be carried out at the country level. Coordination at that level is the most important aspect of UN operational activities.

What is the major aim of resolution 47/199 and what are its key proposals?

The basic theme of the resolution is greater coherence and coordination within the UN system to make operational activities for development more relevant and more cost-effective for countries.

One major provision is the formulation of a "country strategy note", which aims to provide an overall mission statement for the UN defined by the national Government, in cooperation with the Organization. The mission statement leads to a linked set of activities by different members of the UN system to achieve common overall goals that have been established by the country itself.

Another key component of 47/199 is the programme approach, which basically requires linking projects of the various organizations so that each one strengthens and reinforces the others. The programme approach is not an entirely new way of operating for UN organizations. What is new is trying to get the various agencies to agree on a common interpretation of the approach. They also have to come up with clear, agreed criteria for programme evaluation.

National execution - meaning administration of programmes through local entities from start to finish - is another important aspect of the new approach, requiring both capacity building and training at the country level.

How do these reforms relate to the overall restructuring efforts under way at the UN?

The point of these reforms is to respond to changing circumstances. As requirements have become more complex, it has become clear that you cannot separate economic and social programmes. Basically, the system has learned that effective interventions have to be multisectoral in character. The basic agenda of the UN cannot be realized without a recognition of the importance of economic, and social issues."