The UN Staff: a Long-neglected Asset

Abstract

Even though the UN General Assembly ritually recognizes that the staff is an ‘invaluable asset’ of the Organization, this asset has long been neglected by successive Secretaries-General, who believed that comfortable employment conditions, relatively high salaries and benefits were a more than adequate substitute for good management. UN staff have long been a favourite and easy target for media criticism, because of the high expectations initially placed on the UN organizations and their staff, and for some of their visible and publicized failings, due mainly to poor recruitment, poor leadership and poor supervision, in other words, poor management.