Published: November 24, 2005
U.N. Reform Judged Vital to Hearing Concerns of Poorest Nations
By Rebecca Mitchell, Washington File 
Independent task force disappointed with progress at U.N. summit, urges continued push
Washington -- Disappointment and resolve were the emotions expressed by members of a bipartisan U.S. task force on U.N. reform in reaction to the lack of progress on their recommendations at the September summit of the United Nations General Assembly.
At a press conference November 22, five months after the release of its initial, congressionally mandated study, the task force made public a follow-up report assessing how their reform initiatives had fared in the outcome document issued following General Assembly debate on various reform proposals in September.
The U.S. reform proposals were submitted to a closed session of the U.N. General Assembly June 22 by Ambassador Anne Patterson. (See related article.)
"I think it's fair to say that there was a good deal of disappointment that the ... summit did not come to grips with many of the needed reforms that were identified and, indeed, reforms that had been proposed by [U.N. Secretary-General] Kofi Annan himself some months earlier," said Richard Solomon, former ambassador and current president of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), which directed the task force's efforts. "It will take considerable concerted leadership by the United States, acting together with other countries who see the need for an effective United Nations, to ensure that the opportunities for reform that may have been missed or not given enough weight at the September summit are not lost."
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, who shared chairmanship of the task force with former Senate majority leader George Mitchell, said that a reformed and respected United Nations is in the interest of the world's poorest nations. However, "to the degree that their defense of corruption, their defense of inefficiency, their defense of a bureaucracy that's not accountable, their defense of hiding behind a lack of transparency weakens the respect of the United Nations, it weakens the one venue in which they have a genuinely effective opportunity to be represented," he said. In the long run, he said, corruption, inefficiency and ineffectiveness prevent the United Nations from implementing programs to help the world's poor with health care, development and humanitarian aid.
Gingrich said that other study groups, including those international commissions appointed by Annan to investigate scandals and the need for change to meet future challenges, found "deep-seated, systemic problems in United Nations administration." The USIP task force, therefore, called for the appointment of a chief operating officer and an oversight board within the next year as benchmarks of U.N. action toward correcting these documented problems.
The issue, Gingrich said, is not about wasting U.S. taxpayers' money but instead about "wasting the money which should be available to directly help the poorest people in the world."
Mitchell said there had been "disappointment and even frustration" in the United States with the world body's apparent lack of will to make the management changes necessary to more effectively confront such current threats as failed states, terrorism, crimes against humanity and non-democratic governments.
"Management reform is not a favor to the United States," Mitchell said. "It is essential to the vitality and integrity of the United Nations. Without it, other reforms are much more difficult to implement and to sustain."
Improved efforts to increase protection of global human rights is another priority for the task force. "The great, vast majority of the American people," Gingrich said, "would like to see an effective United Nations actually representing human rights and the interest of the poorest and weakest people of the world, and would like to see the U.S. playing a leading role within that framework, not against that framework."
The United States, Mitchell said, must realize that its position in the world means that it will be repeatedly called upon to assist in conflicts, so it must persevere in pushing for reforms that will minimize the conditions that breed conflict.
"Not just the United States, but, perhaps even more so, others in the world need a United Nations that works," Mitchell said.
Their concerns mirrored those recently expressed by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. Speaking at U.N. headquarters November 22, Bolton said that with two months gone, the assembly is "not two-thirds of the way toward successful launching of those reform efforts" by the time delegates leave for holiday break December 20. (See related article.)
For more information on U.S. activities at the United Nations, see The United Nations at 60.
Source: U.S. Department of State
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