UN Reform Update: Time to review mandates

by William Pace

At the World Summit in 2005, UN member states adopted the Outcome Document (WSOD), which detailed an ambitious array of outlines and proposals for strengthening the United Nations. 

During the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly (September 2005–September 2006), the implementation of WSOD proposals saw significant progress on several issues, such as the establishment of the Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council. Further improvements included the establishment of an Ethics Office and increased collaboration between the presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council.

However, many specific proposals and discussions with regard to Secretariat and Management Reform are among those that have been deferred to the 61st session because sufficient agreement could not be reached. This includes the ‘review of mandates’ in which 9,000 mandates undertaken by the UN over 61 years are examined for relevance, effectiveness, and duplication.

For follow-up regarding humanitarian, development and environmental activities, the Secretary-General appointed a High-level Panel on System-wide Coherence which held consultations during 2006. The report is expected to be presented to the General Assembly in November 2006.  The 61st session is likely to consider the panel’s key proposals intended to better coordinate and strengthen the UN activities in these areas.

The momentum that the World Summit created towards strengthening the UN regrettably slowed down in mid-2006 because of an increasing North-South divide, especially between the 132-nation G-77 and China on the one hand, and the United States, Japan, and Australia (occasionally joined by the EU) on the other. The latter group, exerting their power as the biggest contributors, used discussions on management reform and mandate review as a platform to propose cutting costs, especially in the areas of development, economic and social mandates. These governments reportedly wish to diminish the UN in these areas in favour of concentrating expenditures on addressing the areas of peace, terrorism, security and reform of the Secretariat.

In turn, the G-77 and China have adopted a strategy of blocking almost all further negotiations on the reform of the budget, finance, management, oversight, and related issues.

The G-77 has further stressed that the mandate review should not only be an exercise in reducing mandates, but that it should also consider increasing resources for certain mandates, especially in the area of development.

Many government experts report that the divisions among government groupings are growing and that the debate is being controlled by the ‘extremist’ governments on both sides. For the first time in many years, this open distrust and power struggle has resulted in a vote on a draft resolution in the Fifth (Budget) Committee, instead of agreement by consensus. The ‘North/South’ divide may cripple a large number of WSOD proposals and many UN experts are increasingly concerned that the growing divide will reverberate throughout the UN decision-making process.

Editor’s Note:  Bill Pace is the Executive Director of the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy.  During the last two years, WFM-IGP developed the www.ReformtheUN.org. This website posts UN documentation, government statements, draft resolutions (often before officially translated and distributed by the UN), background and working papers (e.g., questions and answers between the GA/Fifth Committee and the Secretariat). The site also provides reports from other NGOs, academics and the press on reform issues.