PERSONNEL

The UN – Quo vadis?

Michael Bartolo, Former Ambassador of Malta to the U.N.

The summit meeting in New York in September to discuss the Millennium Declaration targets needs to decide whether the United Nations should be the forum of international governance for the future. If some other form of governance is more practical or is preferred, it should be elucidated.
The summit will be an opportunity to discuss the report of the Secretary-General issued on March 21, In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all, which generally endorses the views in the report A more secure world: Our shared responsibility by a panel of 16 eminent persons.
The report of the panel presents a new and fresh analysis of the inter-relationship of the forces that unleash threats, challenges and change, and shows how to mitigate the effect of these forces on the peoples of the world, particularly the poorest of the poor who usually suffer the brunt of major calamities. It also proposes ways how to make the UN
more relevant in the new circumstances of the present millennium.
It will not be enough in September for governments to recommit themselves to the targets of the Millennium Declaration and to select only the parts of the reports of the panel and of the secretary-general that coincide with their national policies. They must seize the opportunity of the summit to review collective security in the context of the recommendations of the two reports and in the context of global governance and the role the UN should play in this.
In the meantime the UN must also do all it can to dispel some myths. The secretary-general’s report goes a long way to do this. It shows that the UN is always open for improvement, whether it is in making its administration more effective or in improving the quality of its personnel.
It encourages member states to legislate coherent guidelines and mandates and to keep updating these to facilitate effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
Member states must be reminded that reform of the internal structures of the UN is as old as the organisation itself and they must only propose change in this area when change is really necessary. Member states must also be aware that in addition to the recommendations made by the secretary-general to upgrade staff, it will be easier to attract better staff if the UN personnel conditions are brought at par with conditions prevailing in other international and regional organisations.
The UN is not only the secretary-general but also the member states and one cannot function without the other. The organisation should be asked to do only what is realistically possible and that it should be given the necessary resources to do so.
The UN can do a number of things when there is political will and the member states speak with one voice. We saw examples of this in Namibia and South Africa. We saw how it helped bring the era of decolonisation to a close and how it assists countries in introducing democratic processes, including the organisation of elections when the necessary infrastructure is lacking.
It also made great strides in the humanitarian area and in its work with the poor, the sick and the destitute. The fact that it did not do more was not the fault of the institution, but was more a question of the lack of resources and sometimes the lack of
political will.
It must be shown that it is now time to take the spotlight of reform away from the Secretariat and to convince member states to turn the spotlight on other main organs, which, including the Security Council, have hardly changed except for an increase in membership, since the UN’s founding 60 years ago.
This will not be easy since even the panel of eminent persons referred to above could not reach consensus on one option for reform of the Security Council, and therefore proposed two. It must be shown that the Security Council is too important to leave without a solution.
One thing that the UN cannot do is to heal itself as implied sometimes in the international media. The secretary-general’s report goes as far as it can to heal the UN, but the critical medicine needs to be administered at the September summit. A good dose of political will needs to be injected in the arm of the Security Council.
The rest of the body, weak as it is, will only start recovering after the most important organ is resuscitated by being made more representative of the membership of the UN at large and of the present geopolitical situation.
Only member states can do this. But will they? The experience of the past does not augur well. But failure to take the necessary decisions and to act on them will have dire consequences, not only for the UN but ultimately for the world. With so much at stake, failure to deliver now is unimaginable.

This article may also be viewed at http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=184194