EU Speaking Points - UN Secretariat and Management Reform

Informal Consultations of the Plenary of the United Nations General Assembly on Secretariat and Management Reform; Statement by Ambassador Gerhard Pfanzelter, Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations, on behalf of the European Union, New York

• The EU supports the Secretary-General in making proposals to improve the rules, regulations and policies of the Organisation and is looking forward to the report at the end of February.
  
  
• The UN Secretariat has become increasingly field-oriented. Currently more UN staff is employed in missions abroad than at major duty stations. Poverty, conflicts and violations of human rights require an increasingly holistic approach from the international community. Such engagement ideally calls for staff members, trained in multiple disciplines and with first-hand experience from the field. Adapting the UN staff to these realities, by means of enhanced mobility and a new work ethic will bring us an important step further in modernising the organisation.
  
  
• Any reform of the UN must assure that the Secretary-General has the management tools he needs to run the organisation. It seems that too often the Secretary General cannot exercise his authority in the way the Charter had intended. We will have to look at rigid and inflexible procedures, which are obstacles for an efficient and effective programme delivery, at the present budget format with its tendency for micromanagement and fiefdom-building and at new tools which could enable the SG to respond quickly to new demands.
  
  
• The administration of the organisation must be aligned with best practices in matters of management, accountability and transparency. In the past, member states have discussed and introduced a number of improvements in the way the UN works. However, this process has often been a piecemeal approach, producing mixed results and only limited success. We do not want to throw overboard our achievements of the past, and we want to keep in mind that the UN is an organisation of unique character and cannot be transformed into a privately-run company. However, it is our responsibility to identify best practices for management wherever they can be found - at private, public or international entities - and to apply them to the UN.
  
  
• At this stage, while the reform report has not been presented to us yet and the upcoming proposals are not known in detail, we can only agree with the broad outlines for change. A detailed discussion of the proposals can only take place at a later stage. It is now up to the Secretary General to identify the areas ripe for reform within the organisation and to provide the General Assembly with proposals for improvement. We encourage him to do so in an ambitious way. The World Summit has asked for a comprehensive review of regulations, rules and policies.
  
  
• As to the process, we believe the discussion will need to follow the prevailing practice of the General Assembly: Decisions of a strategic and political nature need be taken at the plenary level. Whenever such a decision touches upon detailed administrative and budgetary questions, a technical review by ACABQ and the Fifth Committee will be required. Whether a technical review is needed now or at a later stage, will be judged by the level of detail provided in the report. However, any technical review will not be able to substitute for a strategic guidance, which needs to be given by the Plenary of the General Assembly.
  
  
• It is crucial that the management reform process is assisted by the Secretariat at the highest level. After the announcement of the distinguished D-SG to leave her post at the end of March, we would be interested to learn about how the Secretariat intends to support and monitor the reform process in the future.

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• EU Presidency Statement - Fifth Committee, Estimates in respect of special political missions (21/3/2006)
• EU Presidency Statement - UN Management Reform  (7/3/2006)
• EU Presidency Statement - Fifth Committee, Programme of Work  (6/3/2006)
• EU Presidency Statement - Fifth Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (6/3/2006)
• EU Speaking Points - GA Revitalization (3/3/2006)
• EU Presidency Statement - Security Council Public Meeting on United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (22/2/2006)
• EU Speaking Points - General Assembly Revitalization  (16/2/2006)
• EU Speaking Points - Secretariat and Management Reform  (15/2/2006)
• EU Speaking Points - UN Secretariat and Management Reform (30/1/2006)
• EU Presidency notes - Informal meeting on UN Management Reform (6/12/2005)