UN80 updates - Presser by Under-Secretary-General for Policy | United Nations

Press Conference by Guy Ryder, the Under-Secretary-General for Policy on the updates on UN80. The Chair of the UN80 Task Force, Guy Ryder, today (1 Jul) said, the “really substantive” and “policy-focused” part of the UN 80 initiative, will be the mandate implementation review, which will look into nearly 4,000 mandate documents underpinning the UN Secretariat’s work. Briefing correspondents in New York on updates on the UN80 Initiative, Ryder said, “we have a very heavy corpus, stock of mandates in the form of resolutions and decisions from previous years and decades, which it makes sense for us to subject to detailed scrutiny, not least because they result in a very heavy load of meetings, of reports being produced, make demands both of the Secretariat and of Member States, which merits looking at with a view to improving the way that we organize our work.” The Under-Secretary-General for Policy said, “if you have a look at the, the organigram of the UN system, you do find quite a baroque architecture. There's a lot of entities. They've grown over the years in an accretional, in an incremental way. Structures are never easy to change once they're in place, but it does seem sensible to subject this architecture to detailed scrutiny.” He said the UN 80 initiative “is the United Nations and the Secretary-General responding to the totality of our circumstances, political circumstances, financial circumstances certainly, but also, I think, circumstances in which the effectiveness of multilateralism is up for scrutiny.” Ryder said, “the idea is to bring the United Nations out of this process, in these rather turbulent times, in better shape, stronger in a position to confront the challenges of today and tomorrow more effectively,” adding that in the end, “this will be the measure of the success of the initiative, able to have greater impact for the people, eventually. He said, “there are some Member States, particularly those who I think invest and contribute substantially to the system, who are encouraging the Secretary-General to boldness and ambition. They want to see this process bring significant change and improvement in the system. But I think it's fair to say as well that there is another body of opinion amongst Members who urge a certain degree of caution.” Ryder said, “we recognize that we have a difficult task of untangling the undergrowth of decisions and resolutions and mechanisms that we put in place to implement them,” and noted that “a similar review undertaken 20 years ago ran rather quickly into the sand. It did not produce the results that were hopeful and expected at that time.” He said he hoped this time around, “we can avoid some of the pitfalls.” The UN80 Chair said, “it's quite clear that we can reach the targets that have been set, but I think what is important in the process of review that the Secretary- General is now engaging in, is that it will not result in a 20 percent - can I use a phrase? - haircut across every department. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Rather, the Secretary- General is reviewing the inputs. He will make his determinations on where he believes certain services, certain activities, need to be - the word I could use is protected or not subject to the full rigor of a 20 percent cuts. Those where a greater effort might be called for.” He said, “what we're not trying to do is pick off one mandate, because it's expensive or in view of its resource implications. We are trying to have a more methodical, systemic review of mandates as a whole. The corpus of mandates, identify where duplications and redundancies may exist, where we can, approach implementation in a more rational, streamlined way and produce the types of proposals that we hope Member States will give favourable consideration to.” The UN80 Task Force will present its proposals to the Secretary-General, who has already indicated the first areas where outcomes are expected. A working group on efficiencies in the UN Secretariat, led by Under-Secretary-General Catherine Pollard, delivered initial proposals at the end of June, and a report on the mandate implementation review will follow at the end of July. This work under the first two workstreams will help inform broader thinking around structural changes and programme realignment across the UN system. Proposals under the third workstream will be put forward to Member States in the coming months and into next year, and eventually, Member States will decide how to act on the findings.


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