Managing Change at the United Nations: Lessons from Recent Initiatives

Abstract

This report examines past initiatives for change within the UN, as well as obstacles to reforms and their implementation. The report illustrates examples of successful processes of institutional transformation and highlights six waves of UN reform that have occurred since the end of the Cold War, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Change Plan of 2011. By exploring how reforms were managed in the past and the reasons for their success or failure, the report detects the challenges and opportunities for effectively managing change at the UN. This is particularly relevant at a time when the system has undergone a series of major policy reviews that have produced a host of recommendations for reform. The report argues for a model of continuous improvement, rather than one specific institutional change or new process, and offers a number of recommendations to manage reform effectively at the UN.