Background:
Dr. Buṭrus Buṭrus Ghālī (November 14,1922 – February 16,2016), the sixth Secretary-General of
the United Nations (UN) discusses the main issues for a reform of the UN. He says there is a
need for preparations of a new system of the UN. Many issues have arisen which need to be dealt
with in a new way. Such issues include the political ending of the post-Cold War period and the
issue of globalization which in turn led to communicational and economic defaces, disease and
terrorism. The UN needs to take into consideration that due to the aforementioned points made,
there is a need for reform because it is a continuous process, not something that is static, Ghālī
says.
Joseph E. Connor (1933-May 6,2009), Undersecretary-General for Administration and
Management at the UN, suggests three types of reforms for the organizational structure of the
UN which are management, organizational and intergovernmental reform.
Side A:
In reference to the North-South relations in Sudan, Ghālī believes the dispute is very crucial and
now also related to globalization as globalization might provoke the marginalization of many
countries and even within certain countries in the form of sectarian tensions.
Ghālī says that he is pro-market economy, but also believes there is a needfor defending solidarity
and says that, “we must help those countries who don’t have the infrastructure to participate in
globalization.”The short-term issues that the UN deals with are related to peace and war, but
long-term issues focus more on development, such as the division between the North and the
South of Sudan. Ghālī says that in reality the UN’s accomplishments in terms of peace-keeping
only represent 20%, and that the other 80% is actually focused on long-term issues.
In 1985, the UN had twelve thousand staff members. Undersecretary-General for Administration
and Management at the UN, Joseph E. Connor, says that at the time of the interview there are
only nine thousand. The UN downsized more than any other government in a shorter period of
time. Connor argues that the management reforms are well-advanced in several different
respects, which is why the-then Secretary-General formed an efficiency board eighteen months
prior to when the interview was conducted. Connor says they found that also the administration
of the UN could have been done better by means of switching from paper work to digital. Instead
of documenting everything on paper, the documentation now became available online in many
official languages thus, using less paper. Additionally, every meeting or event was mentioned on
the website along with the content discussed of that meeting creating, in turn, more transparency
regarding the activities of the UN.
Side B:
Connor discusses the pros of technological development as it has helped perform background
checks at the speed of a click and so maintain an overview of the employees. Furthermore,
Connor believes that one of the good things that happened to the UN was the decision by the
Russian federation to completely pay off its debt on a regular budget (supposedly 40 million
dollars a year, but essentially managed to pay the full 400 million dollars at once). The UN told
the member states that if the Russian federation is to remit in total 400 million this year, then the
UN would disperse 275 million to troop providers, so 91 member states are cheering for the
Russian federation according to Connor.
In 1994, there was an early meeting for an operating task force of the UN to be sent to Rwanda.
There were enough member states who offered volunteering troops (especially African states) to
provide a commune effect. However, these member states could only get involved if they were
able to equip their men because the UN did not have the funds to do that for them. Hundreds of
thousands died in Rwanda because the African member states could not go to Rwanda due to
lack of funds. There is only so much the UN can borrow and so many miracles they can perform.
Financial flexibility is an issue, argues Connor, “one cannot start the engine, with nothing in their
pockets.” One of the great reforms to fight financial inactivity is to find a way to automatically
change an assessment into guaranteed cash flow which can be done through sovereign debt, he
says.
This is so that the organization and the wishes of the member states are not held captive to the
inability to provide the financing that will eventually come in.
