Mark Malloch Brown,
Deputy Secretary General of the United Nation.
By Jean Michel Jakobowicz.
A culture of change – A change of culture
Why a reform at this rather late stage of
the Secretary-General’s mandate?
It is true that it is rather late and difficult
for any political leader to have a reform
during his or her last year. However, the
change in the mission of the UN is a
continuous one and the changes in our
mission have been accelerating. Furthermore,
the current reform is driven by
intergovernmental demand at last year’s
Summit. In any case, we have to get used
to the fact that as our environment is
changing we will have to change accordingly
in a continuous manner and try to
improve the way we work. We have to get
away from this idea of the reform being a
single package or a single event. Changes
in our work patterns are part of our career
from now on.
This reform seems to be “another one…”.
Nothing really exciting or revolutionary!
It may not be revolutionary for those
sitting here in Geneva or in New York –
although there is plenty in it for them, too– but for people in the field it is seen as
revolutionary in that it is seeking to
address longstanding grievances that
have been building up over many years.
We don’t see this reform as tying the hands
of the forthcoming Secretary-General. The
present reform is tackling long-standing
problems that this Secretary-General
would like to fix before leaving. But
anybody who thinks this is the end of
change will be disappointed, because the
new Secretary-General will have new
goals which he or she might want to
achieve and there will be more change
coming up. The current reform aims
mainly at catching up with the problems
which already exist and not with the ones
which will be coming up with a new
leadership with new goals.
It seems that once again the staff has not
been consulted before the reform is being
launched?
The idea of Mrs Fréchette, my predecessor,
was first to show the Secretary-General’s
vision and then consult with the various
actors, namely staff and governments.
There will be extensive consultations in
May and June culminating with the SMCC
before the proposal goes to the ACABQ
and the Fifth Committee. We will be
consulting on the issue of continuous
contracts, on the mobility from G to P, the
buyout and its scope. There is a series of
very sensitive issues which are going to be
discussed, how they can be implemented
in the best interests of the staff and yet be
acceptable to management. People are too
quick to say that they have not been consulted.
If by the end of June they have not
been consulted, then they will have a
point.
Why force mobility?
In the first place mobility is behind us.
Namely, it was already decided a few
years ago and now we are going to
implement it. Ultimately it is only a set of
incentives and disincentives. In the case
of UNDP what we decided is that you only
get one promotion at Headquarters
without going back to the field. However,
you have to protect certain categories of
job where there is no opportunity in the
field. You may also need an element of
grandfathering for people who feel that
when they joined, their contract didn’t
include such mobility. We will have to take
into account, in the staff management
discussions, the fact that today the UN is a
global organization. There are many more Secretariat staff working in the field than
in Headquarters. We must now have staff
signing up to the UN knowing that they
will have a life of moving around. If this
doesn’t agree with their idea of life,
perhaps it’s not the right place where they
should work. Of course you have to
implement such a policy in a humane and
fair way – you have to consult with staff,
not suddenly break up families, take into
account children’s schooling and so forth.
But for sure, you cannot allow everybody
to stay at Headquarters.
The results of the UN Special survey
showed that recruitment and promotions
seems to be the prime concern of staff.
What do you intend to do?
One very important thing is to increase
transparency. And to ensure that people
working in Kinshasa and Bangkok or
elsewhere will have the same opportunities
of getting a job at Headquarters or a
promotion. We will have to retool completely
our system. We also have to invest
in training in order to allow people to
grow in their work. With the current budget
allocation it is impossible to implement
a fair training system and this is why
the reform proposes to increase dramatically
the allocation for training. We also
have to make recruitment more transparent.
Currently, we have a two track recruitment
system – the national competitive
exams which are very difficult, and other
people using the side door of short-term
appointments to enter the system in a
much easier way. This is not fair and
should be changed. We have got to have a
single system in order to be fair to all.
Another point which came out of the UN
Special survey is the possibility to
evaluate our supervisors. Do you intend
to do something about it?
That is one of the changes we need to
make in the UN. In UNDP, we experimented
with a 360° review and then we decided
that a staff survey was a much more efficient
manner to get the staff’s views and a
more effective way of getting genuine
feedback from everybody in the work unit
about management. These anonymous
feedbacks are incorporated in the assessment
of the managers’ performance. People
have come to learn that staff surveys
have real teeth. If you don’t get a good rating
then you need to explain why. It has
created more honesty in staff management
behaviour and accountability which is missing
in the UN. The current reform proposal
is a shortlist of what should be done but
there are many more things which will
have to be done in the coming years in
order for the UN to become a genuinely
open and transparent workplace.
or norm setting, but you could
potentially outsource some other more
routine, back-office functions...»
Outsourcing seems to be very fashionable.
Why should we outsource?
In order to do things in the most efficient
way for all the stakeholders you have to
run an organization in such a way that
things which are not your core work can
be done by others. You can’t outsource
human rights, or norm setting, but you
could potentially outsource some other
more routine, back-office functions. But
what we first have to do is take a rigorous
look at what can be done more cost effectively
and efficiently outside. It is not
because certain things have always been
done in the UN that they should continue
to be done here. All these things are going
to be studied and be looked at carefully.
Furthermore, the intention is not only to
outsource to private providers, but to
move functions from one UN location to
another. UNDP does a lot of its payroll
work and recruitment out of its office in
Copenhagen because it’s cheaper and
more efficient to do it there than out of
New York. The reason we want to look at it
more carefully with the help of consultants
is that for the moment there are lots
of rumours and fears around the issues. In
any case, before we do anything further,
staff need to be consulted and take part in
the discussions as well as Member States.
Because of this, I doubt there will be time
for any decisions on these matters this
year.
The role of Deputy-Secretary-General has
been strengthened, as well as those of
the various USGs. Don’t you think that the
reform is weakening the position of the
next Secretary-General?
When you have tens of thousands of
people and billions of dollars to manage,
you want a strong management team. The
idea that the Secretary-General can do it
all is unrealistic. What he or she needs is
a strong team around him/her. Furthermore
the fact that the Secretary-General
chooses his own Deputy with the concurrence
of the General Assembly and then
chooses what management and other
responsibilities to delegate to him or her
avoids the situation where he would be in “competition” with a deputy who would
be separately elected by the General
Assembly. The best way to weaken a
Secretary-General is to give him a weak
team. The problems that were highlighted
in the oil for food programme were primarily
failures of accountability of management.
The way to protect the Secretary-
General from such problems is to give him
a strong management team that nevertheless
remains directly accountable to him,
while he – or she – as Chief Administrative
Officer remains accountable to the Member
States.
What is your last question?
Do you honestly believe that the UN doesn’t
need more change? Do you really believe,
looking at the world around us, that we
don’t need to change more than we are
currently doing? Should it really be so
controversial and so difficult for
management, staff and Member States to
work together to develop changes?
© 2006 UN Special |