In an NY Times op-ed, political scientist Ruth Wedgwood suggests that “outside competition” may be the key to prompting institutional reform at the U.N. Wedgwood proposes that member states might consider using regional organizations (such as Nato) and non-U.N. conventions (such as the Cybercrime Convention) as transnational means of achieving common objectives, the purpose being to prompt the U.N. to perform better (via meaningful reforms) or face irrelevancy. more

5320 UN staff from around the UN system responded to a survey on what they thought about the UN. The good news: 85% would join the Organisation again today, and half believe in the current reforms. Most believe bureaucracy is the UN’s biggest weakness, and two-thirds believe having connections is the best way to work your way up the career ladder. And 7 out of 10 of the respondents find their work stimulating and only a third have looked for work outside the UN since joining the Organisation. The results and background to the survey are here.

The New York Times’ 14 September editorial laments the shortcomings of the UN Summit’s Outcome Document. The article decries the lack of management reform proposals, stating that the world leaders’ declaration “should have given the secretary general the power to bypass patronage and rely on merit in choosing and retaining senior officials, creating a crucial institutional safeguard against a replay of the oil-for-food fiasco.” Low Level Panel members couldn’t agree more.

A frank Mark Malloch Brown interview from the Secretariat News. more

“There’s unlikely ever to be a more pro-American U.N. secretary general than Kofi Annan — that’s the real irony.” more

In addition to the perennial problems of dysfunctional institutions, inadequate resources, and ephemeral political will, the United Nations has always faced crises of expectations. At the beginning of the 1990s the United States, while proclaiming itself the victor of the Cold War, magnanimously asserted that this provided an opportunity for the UN to fulfill its long-promised role as the guardian of international peace and security. The Security Council saw new possibilities for action without the paralyzing veto; Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali laid out grand plans with An Agenda for Peace. In the words of US President George H.W. Bush “the rule of law would supplant the rule of the jungle.”
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“You can’t have reform if you don’t withhold dues,” Republican Representative Henry Hyde, the panel’s 81-year-old chairman, said today in Washington. “You can wish, you can pray, you can do all sorts of things. But if you don’t withhold the dues, it’s an empty gesture.”

“Given the important role the UN is playing in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Darfur and scores of other places, I fail to see how going into arrears at the United Nations will promote America’s national security interests,” said Tom Lantos of California, the senior Democrat on the panel.
The full article is here.

If the UN community was not busy contemplating the possibility that US Congress may try to pass a law withholding up to 50% of UN dues, it would probably be wondering how seriously to take Rice’s leaked comments on UN reform high and low. The Washington Post cites a leaked memo of a meeting between Rice and members of a congressional task force on UN reform in which Rice is reported to have come out against a permanent Security Council seat for Germany, and called the principle of allocating jobs in the UN on the basis of geographic distribution a “disgrace”.

“Resignation is the easy path. Nane and I could have a wonderful life, travel, sit on the farm I dream about.” A weary smile plays on his face. “No one is indispensable.”
From a recent New York Metro article on the SG.

Last night Associated Press published an article on the US Congress’ draft bill - the [Hyde-Lantos] UN Reform Act of 2005. The draft bill is a clear indication that the Republican assault on the UN has not reached its peak. The bill proposes linking the payment of US dues to certain reform ideas. One of the objectives of the draft bill is to prevent US contributions to the regular budget funds from going to several named programmes - including UNODC - in an attempt to force those programmes to seek more voluntary funding. The full article is here.