Pakistan

Why are we doing the UN Reform?

In past few years, Member States' demands of the UN and its Secretariat, agencies, funds and programmes have grown enormously. The UN is expected to deliver more services to more people in more places than ever before.

A greater volume of highly operational activity places a greater premium on the ability of the organization to discharge the increased and more complex mandates it is given, and to manage the funds entrusted to it, in an accountable and ethical manner. In the meantime, these demands and expectations have strained the Organization's existing structures and systems.

The way we deliver on the aims and objectives defined according to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations has to move with the times. Since the previous Secretary-General took office, reform was a priority - from more effective peace operations to closer partnerships with civil society and the private sector, from improved management structures and systems to security for staff in the field.

In 2006, the Secretary-General set out his vision in his report In Larger Freedom which mapped out organizational priorities including poverty alleviation, development, the prevention of conflict and human rights. Further reports confirmed the need of Secretariat management reform within next three to five years. It also was recommended that the UN needs a significant investment in how it recruits, develops and retains its people, how it procures goods and sources services, and how it manages and accounts for the taxpayer funds of all Member States in its overall pursuit of efficiency and results.

Therefore, the UN Reform was initiated in 2007 with an attempt to initially pilot it in eight countries – Pakistan, Rwanda, Cape Verde, Vietnam, Albania, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uraguay. Although, there are some generic guidelines prepared by the Director General’s Office, each country took up the basic drawings of the Reform and built on it according to their country situation. The essence of the reform is for UN to deliver as one in development, humanitarian assistance and the environment. 'One' is a central concept.

Impact of UN Reform in Pakistan

As Pakistan is one of the countries where the UN reform is piloted, it is hoped to benefit from the reform in many ways.

UN’s normative and analytic expertise combined with our operational expertise and advocacy role will certainly benefit all stakeholders.

In time, delivering as One also means that in the near future all stakeholders will be working more closely and in harmony for the benefit of Pakistan.

The reform will streamline and improve the working relationship between GoP, donors, and each agency, based on our respective mandates, strengths and rich diversity.

UN agencies will no longer compete against each other for visibility or resources. By having a unified budgetary framework under one leader, and one management practice, the recipients will benefit most thus reassuring donors and GoP alike.

What is the Strategy?

Although, the United Nations has always been a single organization with a single vision and mission executed in its four roles of advocate, advisor, convener and most importantly as a service provider with various arms specializing in addressing different development ad political needs, in the jungle of entities, this single Organization got diluted and what remained was a fragmented jig saw of the UN. Therefore, in order to re-establish the single UN identity, to eliminate duplicity and redundancy, and to increase the efficiency and efficacy of the UN, the strategy is to combine the strengths of the UN entities to “Deliver as One” and to re-assert the four roles of the UN.

In order to achieve the status of “delivering as one” the approach is to unify the UN entities in four areas or through establishing the four Ones – One Leader, One Programme, One Budget and One Office. To support the process of “delivering as one” two other groups have also been formulated - Operations Management Team and the United Nations Communications Group – that address operational and communication needs of the UN reform respectively.

The One Leader means joint planning, decisions and steering of the UN initiatives by the heads of the UN entities in a consensus manner and led by the Resident Coordinator. The UNCT meets weekly to discuss and decide on UN Reform related issues presented to them.

The One Programme, the central pillar of the Reform process, through a comprehensive joint review process in consultation with the Government and other development partners and in line with the national priorities and international norms and conventions charts out the joint interventions of the UN and its entities towards human development in Pakistan. The five themes of Environment; Education; Health and Population; Disaster Risk Management; and Agriculture, Rural Development and Poverty Reduction that the UN will be working on in Pakistan have been assigned working groups which review, plan and develop together the joint programmes for the five themes.

The One Budget is the common budgetary framework that will support the execution of the One Programme. It is the agreed and costed results of each joint programme presented in one financial framework. The One budget will also allow for pooled finding for Joint programmes and provide information on progress against planned results and actual expenditure. A task force is put together to formulate the budgetary framework.

The One Office is not only a common premise for the UN entities, but also a set of common of business practices. It will harmonize the key business practices for the implementation of Joint Programme building on global progress so far and harmonize cost recovery for the Joint Programmes and multi-donor trust funds. Seven working groups have been formulated to achieve this task – procurement, ICT, Finance, Human Resources, Administrations and Common Services.

There are a set of activities that need to be executed in each of the four ones which once operational will result in UN entities “delivering as one” in Pakistan.

The greatest project humanity has ever embarked on, the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), requires not only discipline on the part of nations but also the effectiveness of the United Nations system in helping them achieve these goals. It is envisioned that after reforming the way UN operates and delivers its services, the organization will become more efficient, one that is well governed, well funded, and which will remain a global repository of hope. In other words it will become more equipped to supporting countries reach the Millennium Development Goals and other development initiatives in line with the national and international priorities and international norms and conventions by streamlining the currently large and diverse UN family.

Currently, the UN is perceived as fragmented that risks being weakened, marginalized and less relevant. It is hoped that by uniting its strengths and realigning itself under the single banner of UN, particularly at the country level, the UN will have a bigger and greater impact and mark on the map of assistance and support to human life across the globe.

Thematic Areas:

The UN will work under 5 thematic areas with cross cutting themes, These themes are aligned with the Millennium Development Goals as illustrated below:

a) Health and Population
b) Agriculture, Rural Development and Poverty Reduction
c) Education
d) Disaster Risk Management
e) Environment

Related Link:

Related Document:

One UN Brochure
Advancement of UN reform in Pakistan Briefing
UN Reform and Civil Society Engagement
Stocktaking Report 2008