Habitually maligned by populists, ever frustrating to idealists, highly ritualistic, arguably indispensable. As the United Nations approaches its 80th birthday, it was already facing steep challenges even before the current MAGA wave of venom and de-funding. In the wake of this, discreet discussions among member states are under way to re-define and re-energise the UN. To maintain its relevance and boost its effectiveness, they will have to turn the crisis of US disengagement into an opportunity, because they may not get another chance.
This is not the first paroxysm of self-doubt on the part of the UN’s many stakeholders. The Congo crisis of the 1960s, which got Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld killed; the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which UN peacekeepers stood by; the bombing of its Baghdad headquarters in 2003 — all made people wonder if the UN could and should carry on. Yet there’s been surprisingly little structural or substantive change over the decades. The current discussions can change that. But there are pitfalls they must avoid — some mirrored in past attempts at UN reform, some specific to the current moment.
Clarifying responsibilities of states and agencies
The first thing is to make clear the difference between the UN’s ‘Member States’ and its implementing agencies. The UN was constituted to be of, by and for governments. They are its board of directors: they set the rules and make the decisions. The UN organisations, like the Department of Peace Operations and UNICEF, are an international civil service meant to implement the member states’ directives. These agencies have some leeway in how they go about it, but they must get member-state approval for any significant change in rules or objectives.
When people hear that the Security Council couldn’t agree on imposing some measure such as a ceasefire, that’s the member states’ responsibility, not that of the implementing agencies. It’s easy to transfer that frustration to the agencies, but their problems are different.
The UN80 draft envisions some major re-structuring and consolidation of the Secretariat departments and sprawl of agencies (or ‘Agencies, Special Funds and Programmes’ in pedantic UN-speak). Such surgery is needed. However, it doesn’t address a fundamental weakness: any reforms aiming to streamline the agencies and boost their efficiency should challenge the paradigm of “mandates”.
Reconsidering the role of mandates
The member states have long used mandates to authorise agencies’ core actions and define their boundaries. But in reality, mandates are too often a recipe for stasis and institutional defensiveness: agencies sometimes wave their mandates like scripture to defend their turf. The member states historically haven’t taken enough care to tailor mandates, leaving overlaps encapsulated by the classic quip “Who feeds the refugee child — the food agency, the refugee agency or the child agency?”
There are also economies of scale foregone when multiple agencies organised around mandates establish their own administrative and logistical set-ups. The answer to these problems may not be better tailoring, but re-thinking whether a mandate can be a sound basis for an organisation in a fast-moving age where agility is prime. Capacities might be a better organising principle.
Misguided cost-saving measures
The UN Secretariat and its agencies are high-cost organisations: salaries are ample, travel is frequent, facilities can be posh. Still, many attempts at cost-saving have been misguided. For example, there has been a wave of ‘regionalisation’, in which an agency that had concentrated headquarters staff in famously expensive cities — New York and Geneva among others — swept many away into new regional management offices or service hubs. Some made sense, like the World Health Organization’s movement of most admin staff to Manila some years ago. But others, like the UNHCR more recently, found themselves paying for a dozen HQ facilities — some with high overheads such as security — instead of one.
Such loss of economies of scale was predictable, but they did it anyway. UN reformers must beware such false economies, plus the occasional tendency of ambitious agency leaders to try to win recognition by performatively pushing dramatic measures that end up backfiring.
Ensuring the quality of political appointees
Political appointments for UN agency senior leadership — putting ex-politicians into UN management — are disproportionate. There is a cynical reason for this practice: a politician is more likely to support the UN while in office if there seems a prospect of a lucrative, prestigious appointment once out of office (the same thing is not unheard of in the European Commission). Some such appointees are good — values-driven and results-oriented, as one would hope, bringing political smarts to an insular bureaucracy. But it should be borne in mind that these are mostly politicians of limited success, or else they’d still be politicking back home.
UN agency administrative procedures — procurement, human resources, finance — are mainly inflicted on staff and partners, so it’s less of a public issue than more outward-facing functions. Still, an opportunity for reform shouldn’t be wasted. UN administration’s efficiency is a mixed bag — too often dismal, especially at headquarters, and more agile and supportive in field offices. The rules and procedures that member states have approved are supposed to counter corruption and political influence, but they’re a real impediment and are surely due for a re-design.
Smart ways to fill the funding hole
The funding hole left (mainly, but not only) by Trump policies will tempt UN stakeholders to expand public-private partnerships (PPP). But they should realise what they’re getting into with PPP. The UN, by definition, is a collective of nations, established to smooth relations and optimise cooperation among themselves. Embracing the private sector will bring a load of new agendas into play, few of which comport with the UN’s core value of aiding the disadvantaged.
Besides, if there’s a need to compensate for falling state funding, why not explore profit-making spin-offs of core UN activities? The World Food Programme, for example, has huge logistical capability and market influence. Carefully regulated, conscientious ventures for profit could bolster the UN’s resources without compromising its values.
Is simply valuing the UN enough?
There is certain to be jostling for new leadership among the UN member states after the US’s retreat from multilateralism. This will cause some bruising, but the good news is that it would be a healthy sign of interest in and value placed on the UN.
Is it enough, though, for member states to value the UN? The reality is that what political scientists call the ‘Westphalian’ nation-state system of delineated sovereignty, in sway since the 1800s and on which the UN was conceived, has weakened, maybe irreversibly.
Everything is trans-national now, like corporations, commerce, production, supply chains, capital, infectious diseases, migration, media, insurgencies, and of course climate change. Nations and their laws still exist, but do they prevail? UN member states, especially the smaller ones, tend to zealously guard its nature as a forum of states, where they have a somewhat more equal footing. But it may be time to envision formal UN roles for entities aside from national governments — so long as they are democratic, people-centred, and share the UN’s idealism.
Withstanding the coming impact of climate change
Lastly, at risk of ending on a doom-laden note: most governments, institutions and leaders seem to have no idea what’s about to hit us all with climate breakdown. The migration flows that have roughened politics in so many Western countries could easily increase tenfold, as desperate people flee killer heat. Trump’s expansionist threats towards Canada, Greenland and Panama presage a ruthless grab for resources as the familiar modes of agriculture and manufacturing break down.
It would be a waste of energy to design a new UN system unless it is fit for the major economic, political, social and humanitarian stresses that climate breakdown threatens. No matter how well re-designed it might be in other respects, it wouldn’t last long.
