U.N. Reform Is a Popular Cause, But Which Reforms and When?

It’s easy these days to think of the United Nations tower overlooking the East River of New York as a sort of secular cathedral, with everyone reading from the same prayer book, titled “Reform.”

Kofi Annan, the longtime U.N. official who became secretary-general on Jan. 1, preaches the need for reform constantly, as do other top officials and many of the diplomatic representatives here. And, of course, the chant also is heard in Washington, where it echoes through the houses of Congress and the cubicles of the State Department.

But is everyone reading from the same page?

While there’s near-unanimity among member states that the 51-year-old world body must change to meet the challenges of the next century, it is increasingly apparent that there is no consensus on what those changes should be.

As was evident during Annan’s recent visit to Washington, the Clinton administration and the Republican Party leadership in Congress see U.N. reform principally as being about spending less money.

But for some countries, it is about power and who wields it in the United Nations. For example, they ask if Americans should continue to hold so many top jobs in the U.N. secretariat and related agencies, such as UNICEF, if the United States reduces the amount it pays to the world body, as the Clinton administration would like to do.

It has fallen to Annan to assemble all of the various reform ideas and proposals into a coherent structure. Aided by advisors led by Maurice Strong, a retired Canadian businessman and longtime U.N. activist, Annan promises to have a reform package ready by July for consideration this fall by the U.N. General Assembly, which consists of all 185 member nations.

Here are some of the areas on which he is likely to focus:

* Slimming down and speeding up. In some ways, the easiest job will be reducing the size of the U.N. bureaucracy and increasing its efficiency. Much of that work already is underway, directed by Joseph Connor, the retired Price Waterhouse chairman who is undersecretary-general for administration. Connor notes that the number of employees in the secretariat has dropped from 12,000 to 9,000 over the last decade and that the projected budget for 1999 is the same as that of 1994. Connor admitted that the next round of cuts will bring more difficult choices.

“We’ve pretty much picked all the low-hanging fruit,” he said.

* Mergers and closures. Critics often point to U.N. agencies with overlapping jurisdictions and programs. They ask: Is there a need for both a U.N. Food Program and a Food and Agricultural Organization? But efforts to merge or eliminate any of them will run into political problems. For example, Italy--which, according to a new report by the United Nations Assn. of the United States, is the second-largest supplier of goods and services to the U.N. after the United States at $448 million a year--might balk at elimination of the 2,300-member bureaucracy at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

* Paying the bills. The United States now is responsible for paying 25% of U.N. general costs under an assessment formula based largely on share of global wealth. The Clinton administration would like to reduce that to 20%, shifting more of the costs to the fast-growing economies of Southeast Asia. This would be a matter for negotiation among the member states, and some would like to see the United States pay more, not less, to reflect more accurately its slice of the world economy.

* Expanding the Security Council. Membership in the United Nations’ most powerful body includes 10 rotating and five permanent members. Japan and Germany, citing their economic strength, long have lobbied to join the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France as permanent members. But developing nations are loath to agree unless they too are given some kind of guaranteed status on the Security Council.

Annan took note of these complexities--and some grumbling by the Clinton administration that he is not moving fast enough on reform--with typical humor in a talk with reporters this week. He joked that he had apologized to the Security Council for not enacting all reforms during his first five weeks on the job.

“The Russian ambassador was quick to point out that I had had more time than God did [according to the Book of Genesis],” he joked. “But I also pointed out that he had the great advantage of working alone, without committees and without 185 members.”