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Le Canada et l’ONU > Newton Bowles Reports Ce document est disponible seulement en anglais.
Management and Money The management I will be discussing here is not management of the world but only management of that little bit of the world that is the U.N. Secretariat, with a glance at the affiliated organizations (UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNEP and others) stemming from the G.A. All of these come under the Secretary-General, although the affiliates with separate governing Boards and separate incomes have to be coaxed a little to get them inside. (The Specialized Agencies are truly autonomous, despite their common parentage.) As manager, this Secretary-General is unique in understanding what management is, why it is important and how to do it. He also has the advantage of being well acquainted with his house, his family. Reform was in the air when he took office. Although the G.A. has been slow to reform itself, it has given the Secretary-General a pretty free hand in reforming the Secretariat. You will recall that he was under heavy pressure to reduce staff and budget; and this he has done. From more than 12,000 posts in 1985, staffing now is under 9,000; and the budget is correspondingly down: for 1998-1999, $2.532 billion; for 2000-2001, $2.469 billion. This is zero growth, and zero growth means going down since some inflation is constant. Much of the pressure to cut back came from the U.S. Congress, saying they didn't want to subsidize a "bloated" bureaucracy, their transparent rationalization for not supporting the U.N. While Kofi Annan has presided over reducing staff by 1,000, he has done this with minimum pain in the family-- attrition and vacancies-- and all of this in the context of better management. The point of all this, he says, is not cost-cutting but efficiency. While the cut-back has certainly caused strain and stress in some departments, it is being offset by management reform, both structural and cultural (attitudes, direction, behaviour). As you know, reform began at the top with instituting an open cabinet system, the Secretary-General's regular Wednesday meeting with heads of departments and the affiliates. Offices in Geneva, Vienna, Rome, and Nairobi, which perform Headquarters functions, participate through video. (Night watch in Nairobi!) This is the first regular in-house family council in U.N. history. Attendance has moved from perfunctory to participatory. Along with this, all Departments have been functionally grouped:
Humanitarian Affairs Human Rights is in all four. Each has its Executive Committee to coordinate policy and operations. Tone emanates from Kofi Annan's serious, warm and consultative style. As his Deputy, Louise Frechette has added her intelligence, good sense and good humour. This has been much reinforced by Karl Paschke and his team in the super-sleuth brigade-- the OIOS-- Office of Internal Oversight Services. Reporting not to the Secretary-General but to the General Assembly gives Karl Paschke special authority, but his approach has been constructive, not punitive, seeking to make the Secretariat work better, though he can be tough on bad guys. Pressing for efficiency and accountability, his work has already effected savings of over $10 million. In general, instead of feeling threatened, people are turning to him with problems and ideas. Into his fourth year and one year to go-- he has a one-time 5-year tenure-- he is encouraged to find that over 70% of his recommendations have been followed, and that there is less rigid compartmentalization, more communication across the board than when he began. The worst performer is Human Resources (the People Department), slow and cluttered and rigid. Pointed critique has begun to penetrate. Micromanagement by the G.A.'s Fifth Committee has been a perennial pain for successive Secretaries-General. This is undoubtedly the worst of the Assembly's six Committees, being dominated by junior officials who, like juniors everywhere, tend to put their authority above making things work. For example, on the process of budgeting, they cling to the system that gives them control over every job in the house, a system which not only ties the Secretary-General's hands but has been used as a way to intrude political appointments into the Secretariat. For some time there has been pressure from within the U.N. house and from major contributors to move to "results-based" budgeting, linking funding and jobs to what you want to do, to goals or objectives. This would make management stronger and more rational, while keeping political hands out of the cookie jar. The G.A. has now gone so far as to say, next time around, show us some examples of what "results-based" would look like. What to do with efficiency savings? Backing up his claim that reform is for a better delivery system, Kofi Annan proposed to put those savings, now amounting to $13 million, in a Development Account to reinforce programmes in the field. (I don't know whether he has this in mind, but underfunded Human Rights is an obvious candidate.) The G.A. has approved but is raising all sorts of questions about its use. So it goes. Who is in charge here? Nevertheless, under Kofi Annan, ably supported by Louise Frechette, the show is definitely going better. This is a remarkable achievement, considering the absurd money squeeze that constrains planning and performance. It is absurd, isn't it? We of the "enlightened" North give far more to booze and cosmetics than to the U.N. The world's annual investment in arms is well over $700 billion. For everything in the entire U.N. system, we allot about $4.5 billion. The big dead-beat remains the founding-- foundering?-- father whose tribulations are advertized on the screens of the world. The European Union, casting euphemism aside, came right out and said it at the Assembly: Uncle Sam, pay up! The U.S. Congress came to, just soon enough to avoid the loss of U.S. vote in the G.A., allowing their Administration to release $585 million towards U.S. arrears-- for the regular budget $355 million, for peacekeeping $204 million, for the War Crimes Tribunals $26 million. Overall, the U.N.'s financial straits have improved not at all, with arrears in assessed contributions (legal obligations) standing at $2,029 million on 31 December 1998. Contributions Paid and Not Paid (31 December
1998)
The US share of arrears was $315 million regular budget, $3 million tribunals, $976 peacekeeping (total $1,294 million) or 63.7% of unpaid dues. The U.N. is able to keep its doors open by internal borrowing (remember, it cannot borrow outside), transferring funds contributed for peacekeeping over to the regular budget. Peacekeeping funds are for reimbursing troop contributing governments: they provide troops to the U.N. and get paid later. Borrowing from the peacekeeping accounts means delaying reimbursement-- in effect, interest free loans to the likes of the U.S. Even if troop contributors are tolerant, this make-shift can't go on much longer. Peacekeeping has fallen off, there is less money in those accounts,and troop contributors were owed around $860 million at year's end 1998. The Secretary-General's proposal, in his 1997 reform package, to create a $1 billion revolving credit fund, has in effect been killed by the G.A. on the grounds that the U.N. must live on real government support. Special contributions (Ted Turner) are for specific aid (development) activities, they are not available for regular expenses. A disturbing fact is that during the past year there have been more resignations than retirements from the Secretariat, and it is the young people who are quitting. This is serious. While the U.N. is getting by in the short term, the funding squeeze and especially the clouded outlook ahead make it hard to do strategic planning. Considering what the U.N. should be doing, we need to look a good 10 years down the road, setting goals and building capacity for the long journey. Without the young today, where will we be tomorrow? |
