Last week’s budget compromise in the UN General Assembly seems to be a satisfactory, albeit interim, measure to ensure funding for the Secretariat for the first half of 2006 without perpetuating the status quo. Maintaining momentum for meaningful management reform is critical, so it is helpful that member states will have to readdress these issues in a few months’ time. more

“If there’s one thing I would like to hand over to my successor when I leave office next year, is that it should be a United Nations that is fit for the many varied tasks and challenges we are asked to take on today,” U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters during his traditional year-end press conference last week.

The US permanent representative to the UN said this week that the US will be looking for a “superior administrative officer” as the next SG. The UN’s Charter mentions the role of the SG only briefly - explicitly referring to the SG’s internal role as the chief administrative officer, and making no mention on the post’s external role. However, over the years that external role - making peace, focusing policy-makers’ and the public’s attention on certain issues, convening talks on a particular conflict or maintaining the world’s focus on a broad issue - has become the majority of the workload that passes through the Executive Office. more

The Secretariat’s whistleblower policy comes into force on 1 January 2006. Whistleblower Policy

Member States are supposed to approve the UN regular budget for 2006 and 2007 by 31 December. The US has proposed passing a budget for only four or six months in order to allow the budget to be shaped by the various UN reform proposals the Secretary-General is expected to present to the General Assembly by the end of the first quarter of 2006. Nearly all the other Member States are willing to pass a full two-year budget - perhaps with the significant exception of Japan. However, it appears hard to argue with the logic of the US on this point. more

Louise Fréchette, as Deputy Secretary-General, is the second-highest ranking official in the United Nations. The post also has a lot of responsibility over the Secretariat’s internal reform agenda. Ms Fréchette announced last week that she will depart the Secretariat in April next year. Intelligent design could turn her departure into something helpful; a failure to appoint the right candidate early and transparently would reduce even further the chances of meaningful internal reform taking place next year.

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 Secretary-General has fired Carina Perelli, the head of the UN’s Electoral Assistance Division, for harassment of staff and abuse of authority. Holding a senior official accountable for management failures is exactly what a strong leader of an organization should do. However, the standard set by the dismissal of Perelli contrasts with the low standard of accountability established by the Secretariat’s muted response to the large, ongoing and widespread management lapses reported by the Volcker Commission. more