Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. Credibility would evaporate. Trust would be lost. And aid would be cut.
We all knew it couldn't go on forever. Except our leaders. Because, if they had known, they would have done something about it, or not?
For years, I have written about the absurdities, lack of results and declining professional standards that have crept into development policy and practice across the UN system [endnote 1]. The standard response was that I should not try to fix what is not broken. "The glass is still half full." Now, in 2026, the system is on the verge of collapse. Even the most traditional traditionalists agree that the UN Development System is a mess and needs a major overhaul. How come that none of our executives saw it coming?
The culture of leadership veneration
One might expect organizations engaged in something as complex as development to thrive on internal debate and a culture of open discussion. That was not what I experienced. Perhaps it is the climate in the UN, where everyone sits quietly behind their office door so that they can't be held responsible for anything later.
Perhaps it is an occupational hazard of organizations devoted to doing good. The development strategist cultivates a culture in which moral purpose is often confused with professional competence. Questioning a programme, a strategy, or a policy is proof that one does not care sufficiently about the vulnerable and underprivileged.
Several senior UNICEF colleagues have described the organization as outright anti-intellectual. The development strategist is delighted when the boss says exactly what everyone expects the boss to say. Yet it was not uncommon for a serious strategic discussion to be cut short by the most senior person in the room, delivering a sometimes pointless intervention at 95 decibels, roughly the noise level of a food blender. Nor have I seen a UN leader engage seriously with aid critics, let alone lose sleep over whether the established approach to aid is actually the best way to bring about development.
And the development strategist rarely challenges his superiors. “Managing up" is the ultimate survival skill. Dashboards are designed to always flash green [endnote 2]. Sycophantic reporting validates the preferences of the leadership and buries systemic failures.
Curiously, after hours, the standard appears to drop. Among development strategists, the lowest common denominator of leadership often seems to be that the leader has not yet caused a scandal.
Leaders
There is no polite way to put this. Despite having worked with some outstanding colleagues, I struggle to identify UN leaders whom I admire for setting a clear direction. Even though the world has changed dramatically and in spite of ongoing management reviews, I have not seen any significant change in policy for decades that has had a positive impact on the effectiveness of the UN Development Group. The ship has simply continued to drift along on its course.
I have always been wary of self-appointed and formally appointed leaders, particularly those who avoid making decisions. Choosing not to decide is itself a decision: a decision in favour of the status quo. But leaders are paid more exactly because they are expected to assume greater responsibility, withstand scrutiny, and make difficult choices. Leadership is not a shield from criticism. If anything, it should attract more of it. Accepting that bad decisions have consequences, as does failing to make decisions, is a fundamental aspect of any leadership position.
Purpose
UNICEF's leaders have strived to maintain the brand, cultivate donor relationships, and increase revenue. Most spent significantly more time raising money than considering how it should be spent. They may have fundamentally misunderstood the purpose of a development agency.
Contributed income is not earned income. The purpose of a development organization is not to maximize revenue, accumulate assets, or perpetuate itself. Success should be measured by whether partner countries move onto a sustainable path to prosperity and whether the agency can plausibly demonstrate its contribution. When UN leaders lose sight of the original purpose, their organizations become self-referential, seek confirmation in echo chambers, and optimize for donor visibility and institutional survival.
Management
Most of us would agree that the UN system has become insanely bureaucratic and convulated. Too many people are busy talking to themselves and disbursing funds in homeopathic quantities to projects of doubtful significance, while maintaining a parallel universe of aid-dependent services.
What should one conclude from an organization where country offices invest enormous effort in preparing programme documents, yet rarely report expenditure and results in a coherent manner? Where every new so-called strategic plan is a cut-and-paste job of those written fifteen years ago and hardly qualifies as strategy? Where lessons-learned exercises become a clown show? Or where headquarters continues to expand, only to discover overnight that New York is an expensive place to work and live?
Coda
The UN is no longer a dynamic organization where the brightest minds and best managers come together with open minds - to reflect, evaluate, and develop strategies that create the right international conditions for development to happen. Without a vibrant culture of discussion, a focus on the original intention, and a willingness to adapt, our leadership is unlikely to get this right.
Thanks for this Detlef. I afraid after wiping out 3000 positions last year as part of our budget cuts, and fiddling with HQ vs hubs vs regional offices - we have not taken a great step forward in this debate but rather sidestepped difficult conversations that are overdue. And do we honestly think that after sacking 3000 staff - that ANYONE would stand up and challenge the senior staff that are still standing at the top - after they absorbed the shock off moving from NY to Valancia or from NY to some hub in Bangkok. How will they ever recover the shock of changing their dentist from Manhattan to Bangkok? Staff who are left standing will be silent as the cuts in the past year were done in.a way that did not make any meaningful effort to listen and the fangs did come out when any staff tried to speak up.
ReplyDeleteDetlef Palm’s critique is less an attack on individuals than an indictment of a culture that has drifted far from its stated purpose. His description of “leadership veneration,” where questioning strategy is equated with a lack of moral commitment, highlights a dangerous conflation of intent with competence. In such an environment, dashboards glow green, dissent is muted, and managing up becomes a survival skill. If debate is stifled and critics are dismissed rather than engaged, it is hardly surprising that warning signs go unheeded until credibility erodes and funding is threatened.
ReplyDeleteEqually striking is the argument that the system has confused revenue generation with mission fulfilment. Palm suggests that leaders have devoted disproportionate energy to protecting the brand, cultivating donors, and expanding headquarters functions, while paying insufficient attention to whether programmes demonstrably move countries toward sustainable prosperity. When income becomes the proxy for impact, organisations risk becoming self-referential—optimising visibility and institutional survival rather than measurable developmental change. His critique of bureaucratic proliferation, repetitive “strategic” plans, and incoherent reporting reinforces the sense of a system busy with activity but uncertain of results.
Yet the article also implies a path forward. A vibrant culture of open discussion, intellectual rigor, and genuine accountability would challenge complacency and restore clarity of purpose. Leadership, as Palm argues, is not insulation from criticism but an obligation to invite it—accepting that both bad decisions and indecision carry consequences. If the UN Development System is indeed at a crossroads in 2026, reform will require more than structural reshuffling or staff cuts; it will demand a reassertion of first principles, measurable impact, and the courage to confront uncomfortable truths.