UN80 Working Group on Workstream II regarding the Mandates Resolution – Presser | United Nations

Jamaican Ambassador Brian Wallace said that resolution A/RES/80/251 is not “primarily about cost, but it will result in more efficient use of resources. This is really about becoming more targeted and therefore more impactful.” The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday (31 Apr) adopted a landmark resolution entitled ‘Mandate creation, implementation and review for an efficient and effective United Nations’ to strengthen how UN mandates - the decisions taken by Member States that guide the Organisation’s work - are created, implemented and reviewed across the system. The Co-chairs of the UN80 working group on workstream II - Carolyn Schwalger, Permanent Representative of New Zealand, and Brian Wallace, Permanent Representative of Jamaica, briefed reporters today on their work and on the resolution. Schwalger said, “So, the resolution does call for change, change on the part of member states, and change on the part of the Secretariat as well. When it comes to member states, the resolution is very clear that member states have the sovereign right to bring whatever issues they want to the United Nations, but with those rights come responsibilities, and so the resolution also speaks to discipline and to accountability. And on the Secretariat side of the house, there are firm messages there about effective use of resources, but also giving member states the support, the advice and the tool that we need to be successful.” She also said, “When we took on this job as cochairs, we knew the UN was facing really unprecedented challenges, and we knew that this mandates resolution process was an opportunity to show our political decision makers, our citizens, but also ourselves as a UN family, that we're up to the challenge of reform, and we're up to transforming in a way that we can better take on contemporary global challenges.” Wallace said, “The adoption of the resolution by such an overwhelming majority of member states has demonstrated the willingness of the membership of the organization to hold itself to account for its decision making. This reflects a clear recognition by member states of the need for us, to be better, to be more efficient, to be more effective, so that the UN can become more impactful for the people we serve.” Answering a question, the Permanent Representative of New Zealand said, “Some of the issues in the period ahead are the thorny ones, but some of them are just simply issues that required more technical input as we as member states can make decisions on them, but I think - if you have followed the working group's progress - you will know that mandate review was one of the most difficult and thorny issue. It really speaks to the heart of member states prerogatives and so establishing the modalities of how we'll do mandate review across the system and the GA in particular - General Assembly and its bodies - will be one of the big issues to resolve in the period ahead. And of course, we as member states require the input of the Secretary General on a number of other issues.” The Permanent Representative of Jamaica stressed, “The UN remains a political organization. This is, for me, the biggest value of the organizations, it's convening power of member states, where we all sit in a room together and make decisions about what to do with the great challenges of humanity. That will remain so. But what this resolution does is it creates somewhat of a different atmosphere around that decision making that will encourage more discipline around it, that creates the visibility that allows us to make better decisions.” He also said, “This is not primarily about cost, but it will result in more efficient use of resources. This is really about becoming more targeted and therefore more impactful. After all, that's what the UN was made for, not for us to simply sit in a room and discuss problems, but to find solutions that can be implemented on the ground.”


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