Finally, the Moment to Reshape the UN Development System Is Here : Stephen Browne and Thomas G. Weiss / PassBlue
Reshaping the UN Development System
A thoughtful and provocative piece by two renowned scholars. Their ideas are worth pursuing as part of UN@80 reform proposals by S-G Antonio Guterres, but not solely in response to the current financial crisis triggered by Trump. Musk & Rubio.
Kul
Click here for the article
Summary
The authors argue that after decades of fragmented reform attempts, the UN development system is finally at a breaking point that demands bold structural change. With over 35 entities carrying overlapping mandates, the system is criticized as inefficient, incoherent, and driven by donor interests rather than strategic coordination. Past efforts under Secretary-General Guterres focused on superficial process improvements but left structural inefficiencies intact. The article urges a consolidation of agencies, elimination of redundancies, and a focus on the UN’s true comparative advantages—its normative, standard-setting, and knowledge-building roles. Without genuine rationalization, the system faces growing irrelevance and loss of credibility.
Quotes
• “The current system is incoherent, inefficient and largely dysfunctional.”
• “Each entity is answerable to its own executive board, which in turn is guided by donor preferences.”
• “The system’s core comparative advantage lies in its global normative functions: standard-setting, knowledge-building and advocacy.”
• “The only way forward is a serious rationalization of structures and mandates.”
Click here for the article
Summary
The authors argue that after decades of fragmented reform attempts, the UN development system is finally at a breaking point that demands bold structural change. With over 35 entities carrying overlapping mandates, the system is criticized as inefficient, incoherent, and driven by donor interests rather than strategic coordination. Past efforts under Secretary-General Guterres focused on superficial process improvements but left structural inefficiencies intact. The article urges a consolidation of agencies, elimination of redundancies, and a focus on the UN’s true comparative advantages—its normative, standard-setting, and knowledge-building roles. Without genuine rationalization, the system faces growing irrelevance and loss of credibility.
Quotes
• “The current system is incoherent, inefficient and largely dysfunctional.”
• “Each entity is answerable to its own executive board, which in turn is guided by donor preferences.”
• “The system’s core comparative advantage lies in its global normative functions: standard-setting, knowledge-building and advocacy.”
• “The only way forward is a serious rationalization of structures and mandates.”
Dear friends, I trust the article by Stephen Browne and Tom Weiss Passblue is well-meant.
ReplyDeleteAnd, it is based on expertise. Tom Weiss is an expert on the UN: together with our dear friend Richard Jolly, he directed the huge multi-volume UN intellectual history project. Many of us probably also know Stephen Brown personally from his tenure at UNDP and other UN agencies.
The article has ideas definitely worth reflecting, such as consolidating the numerous regional offices of the UN specialised agencies into one regional office or even into the respective UN regional commission (so ROSA and EAPRO would be merged into the social development division of UN ESCAP, as one example).
But the piece has (at least) 2 major flaws:
1) Human rights as a value do not appear.
The omission in Stephen and Tom's text is all the more surprising as 2 of the Intellectual History project's volumes are devoted to "ideas that changed the world" and "UN - ahead of the curve". Their point being to list all the areas where the UN has made a change.
Regardless of which part of the UN we are referring to, its CORE role is to push forward human rights - this has been so since 1945 and is more urgent today perhaps than ever before with so many autocracies among the member states. While the Passblue article does say "The true value of the UN development system resides in ideas and select operations. Ideationally, it retails information not available elsewhere. It establishes norms based on its conventions and treaties. It sets up technical standards. It advocates for justice and desirable policy changes. Operationally, its value lies in helping member states to codify and implement such norms and standards as the Sustainable Development Goals." Note: the key word human rights is missing in this passage (and no where else in the text).
But:
For example:
I have been exploring the work of Hans Singer, a development economist based in the early UN secretariat, who, from 1951 onwards, argued for integrating child rights (well, in those days they said "needs" but the intention was the same) into economic development. Remember Richard Jolly et al's Adjustment with a Human Face that laid out child rights and was able to challenge and at least softened World Bank/IMF structural adjustment austerity? Or for another example, see the wonderful statements by Human Rights High Commissioners - e.g. speeches and remarks by Volker Türk (current HC) and Mary Robinson (now with the Elders). Or see the call for a global coalition for social justice by the ILO director general.
Not referring to the fundamental concept of human rights in a Passblue article that could be read a a strong criticism of the UN as dysfunctional is very disappointing.
2) The generation of valuable data
Tom and Stephen state that the UN system generates little original data: "Apart from the original compilation of demographic data of the Population Division, the annual drugs report from the Office on Drugs and Crime and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data, nearly all the information produced by the UN system can be found elsewhere from other, usually superior, sources." I disagree. What about the MICS of UNICEF and the Demographic and Health Surveys of the World Bank? They are fundamental, original sources of evidence of child and maternal health.
How could they not be mentioned?
I am looking for friends who could co-author a response to Passblue with me. I think we need to react, in a friendly but assertive fashion.
Gabriele
gabrielekoehler.net