Saying au revoir

After 35 years at the UN

Interview with H. E. Ambassador Bartolo of Malta

Before talking about your career at the United Nations, is there something that struck you so deeply in these 35 years that you want to say it right away ? Yes, there is! When I joined the United Nations in early 1968, I joined during a major restructuring. When I left the Secretariat in 1994, twenty-six years later, the United Nations was still undergoing a major restructuring. At present, reform is still very much a la mode. Unfortunately all this reform may have made the United Nations more efficient but certainly not much more relevant. Apart from its task to fight poverty, the latest examples of Kosovo and Iraq are the most quoted to show the lack of relevance of the Organisation. I hasten to add that the criticism of lack of relevance is often misdirected. The United Nations and the UN System have very limited authority to make the changes that are really necessary. This is ultimately the responsibility of the Member States.

Please take us back briefly to your career at the united nations Yes, briefly. When I walked into the Secretariat of the UN in New York in March 1968, the young idealist that I was, I expected to become part of an Organisation that was solving all the ills of the world. It was not like that at all! I started work in the area of Technical Co-operation (as an economist I was told that I was to be part of a new team to make UN Technical Co-operation more effective) when the Secretariat was at the same time divesting itself of the two main entities of Technical Co-operation (Office of Special Fund and the Extended Programme of Technical Co-operation), which was the beginning of UNDP. The UN was left with Executing Agency responsibility like all the other Specialised Agencies, until UNDP decided through its newly set up Office of Projects Support encroached gradually into this work of the UN and the Specialised Agencies. Some critics of UNDP pointed out that this encroachment into the fields of the Specialised Agencies was to give a new lease of life to UNDP, since UNDP did not succeed in mobil- ising the financial resources envisaged, and therefore was looking for other things to do, to guarantee its survival. Another major objective of UNDP was to execute projects (originally through the UN and the Specialised Agencies). This major objective was also in trouble, when the General Assembly in 1990 mandated that Governments should execute their own projects to spur their own executing and management capabilities. This never really happened for some time.

What led to the demise of technical co-operation of the United Nations ? My view on this is threefold:
1. Lack of impact of the UN Technical Cooperation;
2. Some bad management decisions; and
3. Lack of financial resources. UNDP, which was supposed to mobilise financial resources for technical co-operation was not too successful in this area.

More on your UN career, please

I spent most of my UN career working on Technical Co-operation, namely all aspects from policy development and coordination to country programming and evaluation and programme management. I participated in a number of field missions to advise governments on their UNDP Country Programme and specific project formulation. In this connection, I was one of the first people from the United Nations to visit Albania a number of times to assist in the preparation of the Country’s first UNDP country programme. I covered most the areas for the United Nations that were not covered by the Specialised Agencies. This included, economic planning, development administration, statistics, population, social development, transport and natural resources.

I also spent a year as UNPD “tokten” consultant in Malta as Adviser to the Foreign Minister and with the objective of preparing a manual on how to set up a Foreign Ministry, which was presented to a Ministerial meeting, held in Malta, attended by all the Foreign Ministers of the new countries in transition of Eastern and Central Europe.

What is tokten ?

Transfer of knowledge through expatriate nationals!

Please go ahead

In addition to my technical co-operation work, I had some other challenging tasks at the United Nations. From 1990 to 1991 I was appointed Principal Adviser to the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations and ran the Office when the President was away when the Assembly was not in session. The President of the General Assembly was HE Professor Guido de Marco, then Foreign Minister of Malta and now President of Malta. This was a landmark Presidency because the role of President was changed from just chairing the Assembly to bringing the decisions of the General Assembly to the peoples of the world. The President visited, among other places, the refugee camps in Somalia and Palestine, Kuwait after the Gulf War, Chernobyl and Albania, days before the first democratic general elections. During this Presidency the reform of the United Nations was also brought again on the Agenda of the General Assembly and efforts were made to jump-start the process again. In addition to serving for a number of years on the Appointment and Promotion Board and the Joint Appeals Board on behalf of the staff, I served extensively on both the G to P Boards and the National Exams Boards. I was an examiner in both types of exams in Administration and Economics. I was also Chairman of the Central Examinations Board and of the Board of External Examinations. I thoroughly enjoyed both my technical co-operation work and the other assignments referred to above.

Any regrets ?

Unfortunately, yes ! I had a case with the JAB and ultimately with the Administrative Tribunal. Although I won, and the case is considered as a landmark decision, I regretted having to take this route and hope that current reform efforts will reduce the need for recourse to such bodies. I also regret that when I left the UN after 26 years of service, I never received a thank you letter, usually a standard practice.

The future ?

Only God will know! But because of your colleague Susan Bartolo, I will divide my time flexibly between Geneva and Malta to continue to be available for any work related to the United Nations System.

Interview by Jean Michel Jakobowicz.