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Dintinguished Women in International Affairs

"Inside the UN: What Works, What Doesn't, and How to Fix It"

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
A Lecture by Louise Frechette
Distinguished Fellow, The Centre for International Governance Innovation; former UN Deputy Secretary-General

Watch the video.

When I tell people about my time at the UN secretariat, I get one of two reactions. The first is "Lucky you, it must have been a fascinating experience". The other is "Poor you, it must have been a very frustrating experience".

Well, "yes". Yes, it was an extraordinary experience which tremendously enriched my understanding not only of the UN itself but also of the world in all its diversity, all its complexity. Yes, it was a frustrating experience at times but not necessarily for the reasons people imagine.

Any attempt to sort out what works and what does not work well in the UN must start with a simple reminder that the UN is not a single entity.

It includes what I call the political UN — the Secretary General, the General Assembly, the Security Council — but also the Funds and Programmes (like UNDP, UNICEF, the World Food Programme) which operate at arms length from the Secretary General and the specialised agencies like WHO and FAO which are, for all intents and purposes, totally independent from the Secretary General. The Bretton Woods institutions, also part of the UN family, are more distant still.

Save for the Bretton Woods, all of these entities speak for the UN in one fashion or another and their actions carry consequences for the reputation of the UN as a whole.

To complicate matters even more, these entities speak not only through their administrative heads but also through their member states' decision-making bodies.

In addition, certain individuals granted special mandates for instance special rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council, occasionally make public pronouncements.

So lesson number one: the judgement on whether the UN works or not depends on which part of it you are looking at.

Lesson number two: the UN is a global institution. It has192 members as we speak. This gives it capacities that non-universal organisations do not have but it also means bigger problems and challenges. Comparing the UN's performance to that of NATO or the OECD is unfair and not all that helpful, frankly.

The UN performs a number of different functions and services for its Member States.

First, the UN is a meeting place and a forum where countries exchange views and voice their concerns. This is in fact a very important function.�� Raising an issue at the UN is part of all countries' tool kit to manage difficult issues. For smaller countries, being able to speak out at the UN is sometimes the only power they have.

Second, the UN is a norm- making instrument. Its charter and the numerous treaties and conventions negotiated over the years set out rules of behaviour in inter-states relations. Even though international rules are at times ignored, few would argue that the world would be safer without them.

The UN also produces what I would call "soft norms" — strategies, programmes of action and other non-binding decisions. These agreements establish a baseline of accepted standards and principles which guide governments and can be and are regularly invoked by civil society.

In my opinion, the UN is as efficient as any global forum can be in its norm- making function.�� It is often mocked for its interminable negotiations which may, in the end, produce minimal results. But the supporting machinery is not the culprit. If you bring together the same 192 sovereign states to negotiate over the same issue OUTSIDE the UN, I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that the results will be the same.

Third, the UN is an important source of information and analysis.

Year in, year out, thousands of reports are produced. I will readily concede that many of them are of little utility. But many others are of top quality. The UN's reports on AIDS or drugs or children's welfare for instance are rightly considered authoritative in their field.�� I would also mention the work of the UN's Statistics office which provides a vital service to the international community that is not sufficiently understood outside experts' circles.

UN reports are essentially free of political interference, although any sensible UN bureaucrat will tread carefully when dealing with controversial questions.

Fourth, the UN is an advocate for peace and development. It has a unique capacity to draw attention and mobilize governments and public attention around a cause. Advocacy is an important function of the Secretary-General, one that requires vision, leadership and at times, more than a little courage.

Fifth, the UN is a provider of assistance in poorer countries. It is present in practically every developing nation in the world, working closely with national authorities to develop policies, legislation and programmes to reduce poverty and build local capacity.

UN agencies are also on the front line of humanitarian action. The World Food Programme, UNICEF, the High Commissioner for Refugees provide the back bone of all international responses to major natural or man-made disasters. Their expertise and experience in the domain are second to none.

The UN's effectiveness as a provider of assistance is often questioned: too many agencies competing for too few resources, providing advice or services of marginal utility in an uncoordinated and wasteful manner, goes the criticism.

The reality as I have observed it is more complex.�� Some UN entities are extremely effective, focused and well managed. Others are not. And which entity falls in which category will change over time. In some situations, the UN family does a very competent job in a reasonably well-coordinated fashion. In some others, it does not. The quality of individual members of a UN country team makes an enormous difference.

Strong Resident Coordinators have managed to inject real coherence at the country level, overcoming the challenges of an inherently fragmented system in which each agency, fund and programme has its own independent budget and receives independent guidance from its own governing body.

Many steps were taken in the last decade or so to strengthen coordination among the various humanitarian and developmental entities of the UN system. The creation of the post of Deputy Secretary-General was one of those steps, incidentally. The result of these reforms has been mixed. The bottom line is that when there is strong leadership from the top, performance improves. When it lets up, bad habits quickly return.

In an ideal world, one would want to rebuild the UN system from the ground up to rationalize its structure and clarify responsibilities. This seems an almost impossible task at this point in time and there is no guarantee that a new structure would necessarily give much better results. More than 30 years of experience with administrative reorganizations have cured me forever of the illusion that moving boxes on an org chart solves all problems.

Some areas nevertheless cry out for some structural adjustment. I have in mind for instance the environment, the responsibility for which is spread across a large number of organizations and conventions' secretariats.

The funding system, which allows individual donors to earmark their contribution for projects of their choice, is the source of a great deal of competition and duplication. There is much room for improvement on this front.

So far, you have not heard me utter the words "bloated bureaucracy", "nepotism" and "corruption" which are quick to surface in this country and elsewhere to describe what's wrong with the UN. So let me deal with these briefly.

Yes, of course, the UN bureaucracy is too big. Which bureaucracy isn't? But the notion of the "right size" is closely linked to one's perceptions of priorities and these vary enormously among the various groups of member states.

Western countries accord great importance to political and human rights issues and�� believe that much of the UN's activities in the economic and social development field are duplicative and better left to other institutions, notably the Bretton Woods.

Developing countries' stated priorities are the exact opposite. They value above all activities designed to help their development and will insist that these receive generous budgetary allocations and staff to support them.

The consequence is that most budgetary discussions anywhere in the UN reflect a North- South line up that is usually resolved by satisfying both sides, albeit imperfectly. That is of course a great recipe for inflation.

The fact that the assessed contribution of most member states is too small to matter in their own national budget contributes to this state of affairs. If developing countries carried a bigger share of the UN budget, they might begin to attach more importance to the cost of UN activities and be more willing to let go of those that have outlived their usefulness.

Nepotism is a favorite bug-bear of UN critics. According to them, most UN staff members are cousins and political friends of world rulers. Correction: incompetent and lazy cousins! This, my friends, is simply not true.

The UN's recruitment and promotion system is based on merit. It attracts more than its fair share of brilliant, well educated and extremely hard-working people.

Sure enough, it also has its nine-to-fivers and its laggards, just like anywhere else.

Contrary to another common perception, the obligation to maintain a reasonable geographic representation within the professional ranks is not detrimental to quality. Indeed, a major strength of the UN lies precisely in having people from all over the world and, believe me, it is not difficult to find highly qualified people everywhere in the world.

What can be detrimental is political interference in the staffing process. Pressure is definitely exercised, particularly for staffing of senior positions. It is incumbent upon the Secretary General and his senior managers to hold their ground against nagging ambassadors and foreign ministers. That may require at times a particularly strong backbone but it can be done.

It helps to have in place open, competitive processes even for the most senior posts, a practice Kofi Annan introduced.

When it comes to human resources, the UN's problem is not nepotism but weak management and its apparent inability to weed out the underperformers. Numerous reforms have been introduced to address these problems and some progress has been made. More is needed and member states must be prepared to allocate appropriate resources to support the necessary modernization of the UN's management systems.

We should remember, however, that we are unlikely to succeed if our ambition is to transform them into mirror images of our own. The UN's systems are a blend of various models which reflect the need to accommodate the variety of cultures and administrative traditions found among the member states.

There is no accommodation possible when it comes to ethics, however. Most UN employees are scrupulously honest but some are not. Is the proportion of bad eggs higher than in other big bureaucracies? I don't know. What I do know is that every instance of unethical behaviour reported in the press does immeasurable damage to the UN's image.

In recent years, many steps were been taken to reinforce the UN's capacity to detect, investigate and punish fraud and other types of misbehaviour. Some former employees are serving jail time as a result.

Stronger systems and better managers should go a long way to help keep this problem under control but the UN will continue to be handicapped by factors that are not encountered in national settings. To give you just one example, the UN does not have authority to impose disciplinary measures on the peacekeepers serving under its command. This is the prerogative of the sending state and not all of them discharge this responsibility adequately.

As important as issues of management, coordination and ethics may be, they are not, in my opinion, central to the question of whether the UN works well or not. The UN's effectiveness in maintaining international peace and security is the central issue.

"Saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war", the opening words of the UN charter, is the primary purpose of the Organization. Public opinion's view of the UN is heavily influenced by what it sees on its TV screens. When it sees war and human suffering, it expects the UN to act.

For much of its history, the organization was paralyzed by Cold War rivalries. Many conflicts of that era never even found their way to the Security Council's agenda. All this changed with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Council then moved into high gear.

It responded vigourously to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait by authorizing the use force to expel the Iraqis.

It actively supported the implementation of peace agreements in countries emerging from various "proxy wars" by deploying large military and civilian missions to provide security and help with institutional, social and economic reconstruction.

More ambitious still, the Council also deployed peacekeeping missions in situations of active conflict to ensure delivery of humanitarian assistance and provide a modicum of protection to civilian populations.

The new types of peace missions faired fairly well when they were deployed in support of a peace agreement. Mozambique, Burundi, El Salvador, Cambodia, Sierra Leone and today Liberia come to mind. Though far from flawless, these missions met their basic goal of facilitating the transition of war-torn countries to a more peaceful if still fragile and poverty-stricken state.

Interventions have been much less effective in situations where the UN was directly challenged by local forces, like in Somalia, the former Yugoslavia and today in the Congo and in Darfur, not to mention the shameful situation that was allowed to unfold in Rwanda.

As for the more recent Security Council's handling of the Iraq issue, it left all sides deeply unhappy. The United States and its allies were upset by the Council's refusal to approve the military intervention.
But those who opposed the war were also upset because the UN had failed to prevent it.

The UN's successes are often discreet. Its failures make the front page.�� Few people are aware of the good job the UN is doing in Liberia but all make note of the UN's impotence to stop the fighting in Gaza or in Darfur.

Why can't the UN be more effective, they ask?

In my opinion, it boils down to three things:

• Practical means
• Legitimacy
• Political will and unity of purpose

Let me start with the practical side of things.

The UN now oversees over 100,000 military, police and civilian staff deployed in peacekeeping missions of all kinds. It has come a long way since the days of Cambodia, Somalia and the war in the former Yugoslavia when the peacekeeping department consisted of a handful of people and a single military advisor.

Lessons have been learned. The UN now has a much more elaborate headquarter capacity, new policies and procedures adapted to the new types of missions, improved administrative support systems�� and a large cadre of experienced staff.

This is all well and good but it is still woefully inadequate to respond to the more challenging situations, such as encountered nowadays in the Congo or in Darfur.

The number of soldiers deployed is often too small.

Too few countries offer troops.

Deployments take far too much time.

The troops and police contingents are of uneven quality.

Specialized units, means of transport and equipment like attack helicopters are in short supply.

No one is adequately trained prior to deployment.

Most Headquarters staff meet one another for the first time only after they have arrived in theater.

Funding for institution building and reconstruction is generally inadequate and/or poorly allocated, with some requirements over-funded and others totally neglected.

The UN's effectiveness on the ground would be seriously enhanced if Western countries agreed to deploy their own troops along side those of developing countries which now provide the overwhelming majority of UN peacekeepers.

Performance would also improve if member states were prepared to inject serious money (but still a tiny fraction of what the war in Iraq cost this country) into preparing and supporting adequate numbers of soldiers, police officers and civilians and putting in place a real stand-by capacity. If we want UN troops to match NATO's standards of performance, then we have to be prepared to invest as much in preparing them for their mission.

Sustained investment is also needed for reconstruction, far beyond what is available at the moment.

Member States have always resisted the notion of direct funding for the UN through some sort of levy on exchange transactions, plane tickets or what have you — there is no shortage of ideas on that front. I understand the reasons for their reticence but I also do not believe that adequate resources will ever be found within national budgets so it seems to me the time has come to bite the bullet, especially since we can anticipate enormous new demands for funding stemming from climate change pressures.

More resources will not guarantee perfect results every time but without a strengthened capacity on the ground; we cannot expect the UN to fare better than it does now in places like Darfur.

Peacekeeping and post conflict reconstruction are immensely complex processes and no one has found yet the magic formula to transform failed states into stable, thriving societies. Indeed it may be that, in some extreme cases, the only viable strategy would be some sort of trusteeship for a prolonged period of time. This of course is a very politically sensitive proposition.

Which brings me to my second requirement for more effective UN action and that is legitimacy.

The ability of the UN to perform effectively the various roles I have described in this presentation depends to a large extent on the perceived legitimacy of its interventions.

So long as the community of nations recognizes itself in the United Nations, so long as it sees its decisions as the expression of the common will, the Organization has a potential for effectiveness that no other organization can match.

This precious asset is being eroded, for several reasons.

The first is the now widely accepted view that the current composition of the Security Council is no longer representative of the world's reality at the beginning of the 21st century. The failure to reform the Council is increasingly being used as a reason to ignore its decisions and challenge its interventions.

The resentment towards the Council is compounded by the General Assembly's pathetic failure to make itself more relevant. The consequence is a migration of more and more issues away from the GA and unto the Security Council's agenda.

This can only further aggravate the sense of alienation felt by the vast majority of Member States whose turn to sit at the Council's table may come once every 20 or 30 years, if ever.

The UN's legitimacy is also challenged by the perception in a number of developing countries, particularly in the Muslim world, that it is just a tool of the United States and of the West. What they see is an organization that is, in their eyes, insufficiently supportive of the Palestinians and is ganging up on Muslim countries from Sudan to Afghanistan and from Iraq to Iran, at the behest of the American imperial power.

Conversely, we have heard in the United States and elsewhere similar challenges to the organization's legitimacy on the grounds that its debates are dominated by non-democratic countries.

Finally UN's perceived legitimacy is placed at risk by what I would charitably describe as benign neglect by almost all its Member States. The memory of the misery visited upon hundreds of millions of people by World War II is fading fast and with it, a visceral understanding of the raison d'����tre of the organization.

Nowadays the UN is almost always described as something outside and distant from individual countries. It is always talked about as "they" where it should be "we".

Furthermore, the impression is left with our public opinions that the UN is a hopeless mess, thus further eroding its legitimacy and credibility. The Secretary General is expected to explain and defend the UN almost by himself. Public opinion will never be convinced of the UN's usefulness if political leaders around the world show indifference at best.

To address this growing legitimacy gap, it will be important to pursue energetically the reform of the Security Council, and that will not be easy, and to try to reenergize the General Assembly which may prove almost as difficult. It is also essential to build support among the membership at large for the decisions taken on their behalf by the 15 members of the Council. The permanent members, who are rightly seen as the masters of the game, have enormous responsibility in this regard. But I believe it is entirely in their interest to ensure that the decisions they take in the Council enjoy the broadest possible support.

Legitimacy can also be bolstered by the active involvement of non-state actora — NGOs, philanthropic institutions, academics, the private sector. The experience of the last 20 years is on the whole extremely positive in this regard on issues like the environment or gender issues. More should be done to engage with them on issues before the Security Council. Not only do these groups have a lot to offer. They are also more likely to support decisions they have contributed to shape.

Lastly, the Secretary General must be allowed to play his role as an honest broker and an impartial implementer of the Member States' decisions. He (or she, for surely there will be a she one day) must have the courage to exploit to the maximum the limited powers he is granted in the charter. All Secretaries General have used their good offices to prevent conflict and help in their resolution. They also have a duty to offer their best advice to the Security Council, even when its members are not anxious to hear it.

The last ingredient to improve the UN's performance in matters of peace and security is political will and unity among the Member States.

Perhaps the biggest risk for the UN's credibility is for the Member States to promise more than they can or intend to deliver.�� Inadequately staffed peace missions, un-enforced arms embargoes, weak diplomatic efforts almost guarantee failure that will serve to erode perceptions of the UN as an effective instrument. If the international community is serious about stopping the abuses in places like Darfur, it has to do better than the half-hearted steps it has taken so far. There are many things short of a military intervention that could be done to impede violence on the ground and raise the cost for all parties that continue to abuse civilian populations.

For this to work, all must play their part, not just by voting the right way at the UN but also by adjusting their political, trade and aid relations accordingly.

Needless to say, the UN cannot be effective when its key members are at loggerhead. The US's relations with China and Russia usually set the tone in the Council.�� If bilateral relations are on a positive course, mutually acceptable solutions are more easily found even though the three countries clearly do not share the same values or priorities.

In conclusion, I would like to borrow from your new Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, who described the UN as "an indispensable, if imperfect, institution for advancing our security and well-being in the 21st century".�� This is a view shared by the vast majority of UN members.

As my comments have indicated tonight, I believe much can be done to improve the UN's performance but the foundations are solid and the UN deserves more credit than it usually gets for the services it renders its members.

I, for one, am very happy that President Obama intends to take American leadership back to the UN.�� I am confident that he will find a receptive audience because everybody stands to benefit for a more active American engagement.