PRESS CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY UNITED STATES ON REPORT BY WORLD PEACE FOUNDATION ON UN REFORM
Press Briefing
PRESS CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY UNITED STATES ON REPORT BY WORLD PEACE FOUNDATION ON UN REFORM
19961121
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Introduced at a United States-sponsored press conference held at Headquarters yesterday, a report entitled The United Nations Tangle: Policy Formation, Reform and Reorganization called for the pruning of structures of the Organization that were redundant, obsolete or wasteful.
Declaring the news conference open, a representative of the United States Mission, Brendan Miller, said that the report's contents and the views expressed at the occasion did not represent those of his delegation. The report was published by the Massachusetts-based World Peace Foundation. The press conference was addressed by the President of the Foundation, Robert Rotberg, the report's author and professor emeritus at Princeton University, Leon Gordenker, and Thomas Weiss, a professor at Brown University.
According to the report, the composition of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU), the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) and the Board of Auditors, manned by governmental nominees, suggested that they lacked objectivity and neutrality and "these structures have an obvious aura of redundance and perhaps also hidden agendas".
The report's author included as candidates for elimination the regional economic commissions, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Professor Gordenker is one of the first staff of the United Nations Secretariat, according to his 59-page report, copies of which were distributed to correspondents. The document describes the World Peace Foundation as having been created in 1910 to encourage international peace and cooperation. It tries to promote peace through study and analysis, focusing currently on the prevention of intercommunal conflict and humanitarian crises. It also examines how to encourage preventive diplomacy and to eradicate the underlying causes of intergroup warfare.
Speaking at the conference, Mr. Rotberg said that the Foundation had persuaded the report's author, Professor Gordenker, to undertake a study on the best way to prune the system of its "obsolescent, inefficient, redundant, wasteful or corrupt branches". The report put its recommendations and potential cost-savings in a broad context. Professor Gordenker, whom he
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described as an expert and authority on the United Nations system, had concluded that the Organization's decision-making apparatus was "cumbersome and contorted and constrained by the expression of national interests of larger or smaller members".
Addressing correspondents, Professor Gordenker said that his report provided some criteria for simplifying the Organization, something that many reports on reform had not made explicit. For instance, he listed some deficiencies which could make an organization a candidate for elimination: if it was corrupt, disreputable, free-wheeling, too costly, obsolete, redundant and if it had a hidden agenda. Using those criteria, he concluded that some organizations could be eliminated. The elimination of the obsolete organs would lead to some savings.
He emphasized that his report concentrated on structures, not on programmes of the United Nations system. The report concluded that the reorganization of the United Nations was a long-term process requiring dedicated coalitions of Member States. As long as governments were responsible for organizational decisions, the outcome of any reform process would end up as something that was acceptable only diplomatically, not what should be attained from the point of view of logical organization, he said. It was also clear that an organization could not be eliminated without its supporters being offered something in return. Coalitions were, therefore, necessary to carry out reforms in the Organization.
In response to a question as to who his intended audiences were, he said that his first public was comprised of national representatives at the United Nations. The second would be those who had interest in United Nations aims and those who had clear visions for the future. Efforts should also be made to reach a broader public in order to create some consultative group which would be consulted informally. "I don't want to see the nephews and brothers- in-law of our present governors there, or anybody serving long-term. I would put an emphasis on younger people, below forty-five", he explained.
Asked whether he had in mind any major organ that should be restructured fundamentally, he said an obvious candidate was the Trusteeship Council, which should disappear. Many reforms could be introduced in the work of the Economic and Social Council, he added.
Requested to give examples of organizations that could be candidates for abolition, Professor Gordenker said that the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and UNESCO could be considered for such a fate. The UNIDO was redundant while WIPO's work was on the agenda of the World Trade Organization.
He said that the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), UNCTAD and the UNRWA could be terminated,
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since they were either moribund, redundant or obsolete. Another body that could be abolished was the Geneva-based International Trade Centre -- jointly run by UNCTAD and the World Trade Organization.
"The regional economic commissions could well be candidates for disappearing", Professor Gordenker went on to say. Other candidates for elimination were the Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples and the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
Speaking on oversight and the budget, he said that there were several bodies involved. "The question is whether this really contributes to anything except an ability for governments to slow down the whole process of work." The bodies include the Committee for Programme and Coordination (CPC), the ACABQ, the JIU, the Board of Auditors and the ICSC. They duplicated each other's work or activities carried out elsewhere.
Similarly, much of the work of the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) was duplicated elsewhere and was not effectively clear, Professor Gordenker said. The United Nations Administrative Tribunal might also be redundant. He pointed out, however, that some of the programmes of the organizations were useful.
In response to a question as to whether he would remove decisions on financial and economic matters from the United Nations and whether he would have the mandate of the Economic and Social Council changed, he said that the organizations he had listed were largely policy, not financial bodies. Global policy should be set and carried out logically and redundance eliminated. The Economic and Social Council did not perform its functions as a coordinative and policy-originating organ. The reduction of many of the Organization's tangles and redundancies would help the Council in its task.
Asked how anyone could bring about the necessary governmental support for his radical changes, he said that the diplomats should pursue such aims out of their spirit of idealism, not orders from their capitals. Support for the reforms should come from delegations, who should then persuade their governments to approve the changes. If the reforms were carried out, savings in the region of about half of the United Nations regular budget could be achieved.
In response to a question on how the implementation of his proposals by a new Secretary-General would affect United States readiness to pay its bills, Professor Gordenker said it would make it easier for the United States Administration to argue to the United States Congress that the reforms it had superficially demanded were actually being carried out.
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