Annan Offers Plan to Retool U.N.

By Colum Lynch
March 8, 2006
The Washington Post
Original Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030701547.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 7 -- Secretary General Kofi Annan announced on Tuesday a $500 million proposal to streamline the U.N. bureaucracy by offering staff buyouts, increasing salaries and benefits for thousands of overseas employees, and upgrading a poorly integrated communications system.
Annan said the U.N. Secretariat, created 60 years ago to run meetings and conferences for member governments, has never been adequately retooled to oversee an organization that now includes a far-flung network of peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations and tens of thousands of troops and civilians stationed around the world. He characterized his initiative -- titled Investing in the United Nations: For a Stronger Organization Worldwide -- as a radical overhaul that would enhance its efficiency and ultimately save money.
Just as this building, after 56 years of ad hoc repair and maintenance, now needs to be fully refurbished from top to bottom, so our organization, after decades of piecemeal reform, now needs a thorough strategic refit, he told the 191-member General Assembly.
Bush administration officials responded coolly to the price tag but backed Annan's call for change. We too welcome the report of the secretary general, and we know that he has called, in his words, for a radical overhaul of the entire Secretariat and for a thorough strategic refit of the Secretariat, John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the General Assembly. We endorse those objectives, those are our objectives, and there will be considerable hard work ahead to achieve them.
The Bush administration has made the retooling of the bureaucracy one of its chief priorities at the United Nations, saying that a series of financial scandals, including corruption in and mismanagement of the oil-for-food program in prewar Iraq, have undercut public confidence in the organization. But the United States has faced fierce opposition from developing countries, which accuse Washington of seeking to deny funds to programs that they care about, including those that support the Palestinian cause.
Annan said his proposal might ultimately result in savings in the United Nations' $10 billion administrative and peacekeeping budgets, citing initiatives to outsource jobs -- such as those of translators and printers -- to private companies and to relocate staff members to the developing world.
A senior U.N. official, who briefed reporters after the speech on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to upstage Annan, said the United Nations might save as much as $35 million by moving some of the organization's 312 translators out of New York City, and could potentially cut $100 million to $400 million in expenses a year by improving its procurement practices. But the official provided few details on how those savings could be achieved.
The report's release set off a dispute between poor countries -- represented by the 132-nation Group of 77, who have viewed Annan's initiative as a U.S.-driven effort to check their influence -- and the United States, Japan and European nations, which pay for nearly 80 percent of the U.N. budget and which have embraced the streamlining effort.
Dumisani Kumalo, speaking for the Group of 77, proposed that the fate of Annan's proposals be determined by experts in the General Assembly's budget committees, where the group exercises great influence. But the United States, Japan and the European Union insisted that any decision be made by the General Assembly.
Annan, meanwhile, expressed frustration with the G-77 for seeking to water down his initiative and micromanage his office. He voiced concern that the quarrel between the G-77 and the United States and other wealthy countries could undermine his effort to change the United Nations. This reform is not a cost-cutting exercise, any more than it is a grab for power by the Secretariat, or a desperate attempt to placate one or two major contributors to the budget, Annan told the General Assembly.
Annan's report estimates that $280 million will be needed to enhance the salaries and benefits of staff members serving abroad, $120 million to update information technology systems, $10 million for training and as much as $100 million for buyouts.