UNITED NATIONS ENDOWED WITH TALENTED, LOYAL AND MOTIVATED STAFF CAN BE `POWERFUL, POSITIVE FORCE', SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS

Press Release
SG/SM/7558
OBV/162

UNITED NATIONS ENDOWED WITH TALENTED, LOYAL AND MOTIVATED STAFF CAN BE `POWERFUL, POSITIVE FORCE', SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS

Following is the text of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's address today at Headquarters on the occasion of Staff Day:

This is a special year. Obviously, we are here today to attend this annual event, but it is more than an annual event because this year, this millennium year, we are meeting after fantastic events: the non-governmental organizations summit, the religious summit, the summit of the parliamentarians and the summit of heads of State and government. I think you would all agree that those events, and particularly the Millennium Summit, have given us our marching orders. But it was also wonderful to see so many leaders coming together to reaffirm their belief in the United Nations, our United Nations, and to challenge us to do better. So this morning I am not going to be a man who brings you news about gloom and doom, but to challenge you, to challenge us, to do better and to accept what the leaders who came here at the beginning of the month asked us to do.

For 55 years, the Secretariat of the United Nations has been a key part of the world's struggle for progress and peace. Working closely together with the Member States, you and your predecessors have served as a bridge between peoples and nations, between past and future, between government and civil society. From your ranks have emerged new ideas that have helped shape the way the world thinks about the environment, international law and development.

You have helped to save lives, to protect rights, and to reclaim communities from the depths of conflict. The Secretariat, at its best, has been an instrument of change and the world's institutional memory. The result is a noble tradition of international public service -- a tradition worth building on, a tradition worth defending, a tradition worth modernizing where it has acquired bad habits or failed to live up to expectations.

Lives saved, sadly, have also meant lives lost. Many of our beloved colleagues have given their lives in the service of United Nations ideals. Tragedy struck again in the past year, brutally and with grim regularity. The United Nations family mourns these terrible losses -- more than 60 military, police and civilian personnel since last year's Staff Day, or more than one death per week. Our hearts go out to the families and friends of those dedicated men and women, whose humanitarian imperative led them into danger zones to fulfil the time-honoured United Nations mission of bringing help to the needy, and solace to the suffering.

Obviously, it would be impossible to eliminate all risk from our work. But where we can make a difference, we must. I am about to submit a report to the General Assembly that seeks significant changes in the way we provide staff security: in the number of personnel, in the training they receive, the services they provide and the equipment they use. Of course, this will cost money, and I will make a strong case to the General Assembly. Security is not a luxury or an option. Member States must live up to their primary responsibility not only to provide security, but also to bring to justice those who violate it. That is the very least that those who serve the international community are entitled to expect.

This is the fourth time I have spoken to you on Staff Day as Secretary- General. During these past few years, we have begun the job of adapting the United Nations to meet the demands of a new era in world affairs. We have embarked on a path of fundamental reform. We have absorbed more and more mandates from the Member States, even as the resources and the will to support those mandates have not always been forthcoming. We have engaged in unprecedented scrutiny of United Nations peace operations that have gone wrong. We have asked tough questions about our approaches to development. In the same way, together, we have been looking closely at the way we manage our human resources.

I have just submitted a report to the General Assembly that sets out a comprehensive implementation programme for the management of our human resources.

The measures, initiatives and proposals in the report rest on the proposition that the system must evolve if it is to serve a twenty-first century organization. They are the result of considerable work carried out over the last two years -- work that has also included extensive dialogue and consultations with the staff. I know you all heard from your President that the consultations were not adequate, were not sufficient, were not to their satisfaction. But two years of consultations, before we move forward -- how many years do we need to consult? How long should these consultations go on?

I believe in staff-management consultation. I have always made it clear that we should consult the staff, consult in good faith, and consult before we take decisions. But I have also made it clear that that does not mean co- management. I, as Chief Administrative Officer of this Organization, have a responsibility for administering this place, for making recommendations to the Member States. And once we have consulted, and consultation is exhausted, I make a recommendation to the Member States. I have to decide and I have to manage. And I hope you will bear with me if, after lengthy consultations, we do not wait for the least common denominator, the least and the slowest common denominator, but decide that time is of the essence and we must move on.

The proposals which I will submit to the General Assembly will not solve long-entrenched problems in a single stroke. But they will bring much-needed positive change to our Organization, to your Organization, and point the way towards further changes down the road.

No one would deny that the United Nations must be able to move more quickly than it does at present, especially in terms of recruitment and placement. Like many other large organizations, the process is painfully slow and cumbersome.

That is why we will be introducing methods designed to speed things up, and attract and promote qualified staff, especially young people for whose talents we have to compete with nimble dot.com enterprises and other alluring opportunities presented by the New Economy.

The United Nations must also respond to a dramatic transformation in the very nature of its work: from a Headquarters-based Organization to one with a strong field presence. Two thirds -- and I repeat, two thirds -- of our staff are currently involved in field operations of one sort or another. This compels us to loosen the administrative and other shackles that prevent us from deploying staff quickly when and where they are needed, and which prevent staff themselves from experiencing both Headquarters and field realities.

That is why we are moving ahead with efforts to encourage and reward mobility in the Secretariat -- mobility across functions, departments, occupations, duty stations and organizations. In the peace and security area this is even more vital, as the Brahimi Report makes abundantly clear.

I know there are concerns about how the new mobility might disrupt families and private lives. This must not mean that we give up on our objectives; it means we must find ways to improve the support system so that the needs of staff, their families and the Organization can be met.

Accountability is another key area where the status quo does not work. Accountability is needed for all staff, at all levels, up and down the chain of command, and for inaction as well as action. But if we are to hold everyone responsible for their jobs, then everyone must have a clear understanding of what is expected of them; everyone must have the tools and the training to do those jobs; and they must be assessed fairly.

That is why we have introduced new mechanisms for performance management. Our aim is a system that is fair, equitable and transparent -- one which measures, and recognizes, performance and achievement.

For my part, I have created a "compact" with senior managers, outlining, for each year, a set of specific goals to be met, including in the area of human resources, and then reviewing with them how they are doing in meeting these goals.

We have many terrific managers -- men and women who show great leadership, are open to ideas and give staff challenging assignments, and who instil at all times a real sense of teamwork. But we also have managers who fall short of those ideals. Yes, managers must provide good analysis and meet deadlines. But an integral part of the job is to care about the people who work for them, and to nurture their growth. We will soon be introducing a system in which managers will be assessed by all their immediate colleagues, regardless of their place in the hierarchy. It is my hope that this so-called 360-degree feedback mechanism helps this key understanding take deeper root.

I know that not all of you will be satisfied with these ideas, and that is understandable. Some might even see a threat in too much change, and others a danger too little. Some might even claim to see the international civil service placed in jeopardy, whereas in reality it is being made more relevant and more effective.

The frustrations are legion, I know. We share with many other large multilateral organizations a variety of seemingly built-in limitations: our size and our systems often limit our effectiveness, and those very problems, in turn, prevent us attracting and retaining the best people and eliciting the best from those people.

As in many other public sector bodies, there are obstacles to career development; byzantine contractual arrangements; management by fiat and fear; not enough rewards for those who perform well, or penalties for those who don't. Young people, especially, filled with idealism and passion, are terribly demoralized whenever they see the Organization diverted from its founding mission by such practices.

The job of reforming our management of human resources has proved harder than any of us could have imagined. But our eyes must remain on the prize: our common goal of a United Nations able to respond to the changing world around us and the demands placed on us by our constituents: the peoples and the nations of the world.

I appeal to all of you to be open to change, to remain open to change. Things that don't work must and can be adjusted; things that do work must be strengthened and expanded; and things that are incomplete can be added to.

As I have said, this is a process. And let us not forget that there is even more change on the near horizon.

We realize, for example, that we need to remove some of the impediments to spouse employment, since these make some of our staff less mobile than they could be.

We need to consider more flexible work schedules, such as part-time and four-day work weeks, since few staff have been able to make use of the current staggered hours policy.

And we need to improve the internal system of justice. Staff and management alike have expressed their dissatisfaction with current arrangements, which are highly formalized, expensive and time-consuming. A proposal to create an ombudsman -- or ombudswoman -- an expert, high-level figure independent of both management and staff -- was given to the staff representatives at the last session of the Staff-Management Coordination Committee. I believe it would be a good step forward.

If one listened carefully at the Millennium Summit earlier this month, one could hear a new refrain from Member States as they debated the role the United Nations should play in the twenty-first century. They spoke about strengthening and reforming the United Nations in a new way -- not in the language of drastic cuts and consolidation, but with a growing appreciation for the key role the United Nations can play in world affairs. That is both an opportunity and a responsibility. And let me repeat, for us it is both an opportunity and a responsibility.

I have asked the General Assembly to take some difficult decisions in its areas of authority, and especially to avoid unnecessary delay. The Secretariat, too, must do its part. We must discuss, we must consult. But ultimately, we must not wait; we must move ahead. We need to take decisions and move ahead.

A United Nations endowed with the political and material support it needs from outside, and with the talented, loyal and motivated staff it needs from within, can be a powerful, positive force in the world. I have heard many staff say that when the work at the United Nations is good, there is no finer place to be. You have my pledge that I will not rest until all staff in this Organization feel that way. Thank you very much, my friends, and have a good day.

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