UN Reform?

Annan appears to be proposing to streamline the UN bureaucracy by "buying out" a lot of the workers.

Secretary General Kofi Annan announced on Tuesday a $500 million proposal to streamline the U.N. bureaucracy by offering staff buyouts, increasing salaries and benefits for thousands of overseas employees, and upgrading a poorly integrated communications system.

What does that mean?

I can understand the trimming of staff that can be done more cheaply, such as the translators. It does strike one as a bit silly to have to pay high salaries in order for these people to live in NYC.

A senior U.N. official, who briefed reporters after the speech on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to upstage Annan, said the United Nations might save as much as $35 million by moving some of the organization's 312 translators out of New York City, and could potentially cut $100 million to $400 million in expenses a year by improving its procurement practices. But the official provided few details on how those savings could be achieved.

The one thing that definitely is lacking is the details in all of this. There are a lot of words for streamlining, but no explanations as to who or how.

As was to be expected, the poorer countries are yelling foul.

The report's release set off a dispute between poor countries -- represented by the 132-nation Group of 77, who have viewed Annan's initiative as a U.S.-driven effort to check their influence -- and the United States, Japan and European nations, which pay for nearly 80 percent of the U.N. budget and which have embraced the streamlining effort.

Dumisani Kumalo, speaking for the Group of 77, proposed that the fate of Annan's proposals be determined by experts in the General Assembly's budget committees, where the group exercises great influence. But the United States, Japan and the European Union insisted that any decision be made by the General Assembly.

Not surprising, they have the vote and don't want the fixes. But then, they aren't paying for all of the money that is being wasted.

The UN Staff Committee head sounds pretty peeved on the topic.

UN staff committee head Rosemary Waters says 700 employees will campaign "to halt the constant effort of the management to erode the rights and benefits of staff" and management's attempts to eradicate jobs.

UN officials say Mr Annan is responsible for some 13,000 staff in the field and elsewhere, with some 4,200 in New York.

Hmm. I'd say there is a place to start the 'erosion.' Someone must be missing the point that there is no such thing as a 'right' to a job. The UN Staff Committee is a Union, so there really is no surprise in the assumption of non-existent rights. The international staff has been quite abusive of funding in the pase as we have all read about the four star hotel reaction forces from the UN. Wouldn't it be nice if you got to go to the top of the line hotels on business trips?

The report "Investing in the United Nations" hasn't been released according to the news. It would be an interesting, if irritating. read. This article goes into more details on some of the changes proposed. The list of complaints is rather informative.

The report has a laundry list of complaints:

- The United Nations suffers from a highly detailed, cumbersome and insufficiently strategic budgeting process, with over 55,000 pages of documentation produced, more than 150 separate U.N. Trust Funds, and 35 distinct peacekeeping accounts, each with its own support costs and arrangements;

- The recruitment process at the Secretariat is "simply too slow and reactive for the dynamic, frequently changing demands of a highly operational Organisation". On average, it takes 174 days from the time a vacancy announcement is issued to the time a candidate is selected for a job;

- There has been "inadequate progress" to improve geographical distribution and gender balance, both of which are essential for a truly diverse international civil service. The proportion of women at professional levels and above "is still unacceptably low at 38 percent" despite a General Assembly resolution calling for 50:50 gender parity;

- One-third of professional posts in peacekeeping operations remain vacant -- "an unacceptable and unsustainable state of affairs";

- The United Nations spends one percent of its staff budget on training and development, compared to three or four times that amount in other international organisations;

- The Organisation uses a plethora of different types of contractual arrangements for hiring staff, which are cumbersome, difficult to administer, and result in staff being treated unfairly;

- The internal justice system is "slow and cumbersome, and fails to strike the necessary balance between effective managerial control and staff members' right to due process".

I'm going to bet any fixes on the contractual arrangements of hiring will run aground of the Group of 77. I'd put money that they love that part. It makes it hard to impossible to remove a worker and ensures that they are payed no matter the results of their work. What the UN really needs is a good ol' capitalist CEO running operations, not a bunch of diplomats.