The restructuring of the united nations economic and social system: Background and analysis

Abstract

Restructuring, or the reform and rationalisation of United Nations (UN) structures in the economic and social sectors, has been a major issue before the UN for the past several years. Interest in restructuring, however, was evident even in the 1 960s when the Jackson Report and similar exercises were undertaken in an effort to bring about a more efficient alignment of UN structures involved in the promotion of economic and social development. ' Approximately 80 per cent of the budgets of the organisations in the UN system are today devoted to the promotion of economic and social development. The UN system has indeed become an important purveyor of resources on a global scale, yet the basic institutional design of the system is one that was forged in 1945 with somewhat different purposes in mind. The UN system has responded to the challenige of development by adding a plethora of new units and organisations to carry out responsibilities not adequately dealt with by existing ones. The growth and fragmentation of the system have created different types of problems. At a time when it is increasingly recognised that an integrated approach to development is essential, it is becoming more and more difficult to coordinate, in a mutually supporting and reinforcing fashion, the activities of various parts of the system. The proliferation of new bodies also led to fragmentation and the loss of coherence in the system as a whole. Indeed, there has been for some time a widespread belief that the system has become so unwieldy as to be incapable of responding to the wishes of the international community. Developed nations, including the socialist states, are for the most part interested in structural and institutional reform for they provide the largest portions of the budgets of the The 'Jackson Report', a study prepared by Sir Robert Jackson for the UN Development Programme, was completed in 1970. See A Study of the Capacity of the United Nations Development System, UN Publication, Sales No E.70.I. 1, 1970. For further background on the general problem see Martin Hill, The United Nations System: coordinating its economic and social work London: Cambridge University Press, 1978. This study was prepared under the auspices of UNITAR. This paper evolved out of research undertaken in connection with a UNITAR Seminar on The Restructuring of the United Nations System: implications for the creation of a New International Economic Order, held at Schloss Hernstein, Austria in 1978. We are grateful to theseminar participants for allowing us to draw upon the ideas put forward in the discussions. We also appreciate the useful comments offered by other international officials and diplomats. However, we assume responsibilityfor the views and opinions expressed in the paper which are personal