2006/235
TEHRAN, 9 November 2006 (UNIC)--To fulfill its potential and help countries reach the Millennium Development Goals, the sprawling UN system must be radically revamped to “deliver as one,” a panel co-chaired by the prime ministers of Mozambique, Norway and Pakistan say in a report presented to the world body in New York today.
“We have proposed a bold but realistic agenda for action,” said Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat
Aziz. “It should ensure that the UN is well governed, well funded, and can respond more effectively to the needs of countries and communities everywhere.”
Currently the UN’s work in development is fragmented and weak and not properly structured to meet country needs, the report concludes. More than one-third of UN Country Teams have ten or more agencies on the ground. Several have 20 or more. This has led to “incoherent” programme interventions and “excessive” administrative costs.
To address the situation, the panel proposes that the country-level operations of a large number of specialized agencies, funds and programmes need to be placed under full country ownership, and brought together by the leadership of an empowered resident coordinator appointed independently of any one agency, the panel says. The country team ideally would operate with a unified budget geared to achieving the MDGs and other internationally agreed development goals, supported by a new multi-year MDG Funding Mechanism to ensure adequate and predictable funding.
“We want the UN to be a strategic player at the country level, supporting us in the preparation and implementation of our nationally-owned development strategies,” said Mrs. Luísa Dias Diogo, Prime Minister of Mozambique.
Supervision of “One UN” Country Programmes would be handled by a strategic Sustainable Development Board, which should eventually bring together the boards of the UN Development Programme, the UN Population Fund and the UN Children’s Fund. UNDP would relinquish many of its less central programme activities to UN entities already specialized in those areas, but assume an overall leadership role in policy coherence and in supporting the UN country teams. The UNDP Administrator should serve, the Panel proposes, as a UN Development Coordinator reporting to the Sustainable Development Board.
Composed of current and former heads of state and leaders of development agencies, the panel
was appointed early this year by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to respond to the 2005 World
Summit call for greater coherence in the UN’s development-related portfolio.
They are proposing bold reforms to substantially improve the UN’s effectiveness and respond
to new and growing global challenges.
In response to concern that the entirety of the recommendations may demand too radical a restructuring, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said that “the most radical and dramatic
thing we can do, is to do nothing. Maintaining the status quo would represent a victory for inertia.” He added that “no one facing today’s challenges would design the UN system as it currently stands, and to leave it the way it is would mean giving in to short-term national and institutional interests.”
The panelists found that three UN bodies – normative and operational – are promoting the critical
issue of gender equality and advancement for women in an uncoordinated and ineffective way. In its report on Delivering as One, they urge the formation of a single UN organization, ambitiously staffed and funded, to fulfill these mandates.
The UN Environment Programme must be upgraded and be enabled to coordinate the environmentally related work of at least twenty UN entities, the High-level Panel on UN Systemwide Coherence says. They note that there should be later assessment of possible further consolidation.
They also posit that the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs should take a stronger leadership role in responding to disasters and post-conflict situations, and more closely integrate relief operations with non-governmental organizations such as Red Cross and Red Crescent. The Panel – which had visited the site relief operations for victims of last year’s Pakistan earthquake -- proposed a more effective framework for natural-disaster early warning and risk reduction.
To provide a high-level policy forum on global issues facing the international community, the High-level Panel recommends the appointment of a Global Leaders Forum, at Summit level. Prime Ministers Aziz and Stoltenberg presented their report to the Secretary-General today.
They later discussed their recommendations with the General Assembly in an informal session,
joined by Prime Minister Diogo via a recorded videomessage.
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