NEW YORK, August 15 (C-Fam) The latest round of UN bureaucratic reforms championed by the European Union and the UN Secretary General hide a global government agenda.
As the Trump administration pulls funding from UN programs, precipitating an ongoing liquidity crisis, the European Union looks upon this as an opportunity to flex its power and influence. The Europeans are backing a sweeping UN bureaucratic reform proposed by the UN Secretary General called UN80. Citing lack of funding, the reform will re-structure UN programs, funds and agencies, and consolidate and refocus over 40,000 mandates in the office of the UN Secretary General.
“We encourage the UNSG to present bold and courageous proposals for a stronger, more agile, efficient and accountable UN, adjusted to the financial realities,” The European Union said in that last round of discussions about the UN80 reform proposals in June.
The EU statement also urged the UN Secretary General to make “gender equality” a focus of the UN reforms. It emphasized that the EU expected the UN to preserve EU policy priorities, including a focus on human rights. “UN80 is not just a cost-cutting exercise. The cutbacks cannot be only about the numbers – there is a need for a substantive impact-analysis in each case to ensure that the key mandates and functions are preserved.”
Like the recent EU-backed reforms of the UN development system, UN80’s focus on repurposing or cutting redundant and duplicative mandates will give the UN Secretary General more power and policy discretion. It will also increase the influence of the European Union as the largest collective funding partner of the United Nations system.
What programs and functions get cut or stay priorities is still to be determined but, given the direction of previous UN reforms and the geopolitics of the United Nations, the European Union is likely to get its way. Under the benign buzzwords of “making the UN fit for purpose”, “greater efficiency”, and “policy coherence” the reforms will make the preferred polices of the European Union, including abortion, gender and climate, the permanent priorities of the UN bureaucracy for years to come.
Some feminists have voiced concerns that the UN reform might be used to cut back on gender advisors within the UN system as a way to placate the Trump administration. But this is unlikely to happen given that the gender advisors were brought in by the current UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres with the support and backing of the European Union. More likely, the UN Secretary General is downplaying the place of gender in the UN80 reforms in order to get the Trump administration on board. Indeed, the U.S. government welcomed the reform plans as a good initiative in May, when member states were invited to make proposals for the UN80 reform process.
“The United States looks forward to hearing about a singular strategic vision of the organization for this moment, and receiving concrete, and specific proposals, on how the UN will achieve greater efficiency and cost savings, eliminate duplication, and consolidate functions,” a U.S. representative said.
Russia tried to put a spoke in the wheels of the reforms with a short procedural resolution in July, which tried to wrest control from the UN Secretary General. The European Union complained that the resolution was “unnecessary” and “rushed.” It is still early to know what the final outcome of the reforms will be. But it is unlikely that the resolution alone can effectively curb the reforms in a meaningful way.
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