" (...) One crucial reform would have given Secretary General Kofi Annan management flexibility on making job assignments. The less-developed majority flatly turned him down. Another reform would sharply pare down the roughly 9,000 directives of various kinds accumulated over the decades — many of them now outdated or redundant. The majority agreed only to a trivial reduction.
Less-developed countries complain that the demanding tone of donors has poisoned the atmosphere for compromise. That is partly true. America's U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, has particularly tried to bludgeon the resisters into submission with dire financial threats.
But these criticisms miss the point. The reforms are not a concession to Washington and other big donors. They are a necessity for all U.N. members. The U.N. cannot function effectively in the 21st century under budget and management rules that were originally devised for a much smaller organization. Successive embarrassments like the oil-for-food scandal should have made that painfully clear. "
Less-developed countries complain that the demanding tone of donors has poisoned the atmosphere for compromise. That is partly true. America's U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, has particularly tried to bludgeon the resisters into submission with dire financial threats.
But these criticisms miss the point. The reforms are not a concession to Washington and other big donors. They are a necessity for all U.N. members. The U.N. cannot function effectively in the 21st century under budget and management rules that were originally devised for a much smaller organization. Successive embarrassments like the oil-for-food scandal should have made that painfully clear. "
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