Mandates – requests or directives for motion issued by the Basic Meeting, the Safety Council and the Financial and Social Council – have multiplied considerably since 1945. As we speak, there are greater than 40,000 energetic mandates, serviced by round 400 intergovernmental our bodies. Collectively, they require greater than 27,000 conferences a 12 months and generate roughly 2,300 pages of documentation day-after-day, at an estimated annual price of $360 million.
A rising problem
Mandates information the UN’s work in over 190 nations and territories, from peacekeeping to humanitarian response and growth. However many are outdated or overlapping, and their complexity is rising. Since 2020, the typical phrase rely of Basic Meeting resolutions has risen by 55 per cent, whereas Safety Council resolutions are actually 3 times longer than they have been 30 years in the past.
“Let’s face information,” mentioned Secretary-Basic António Guterres throughout a briefing to the Basic Meeting on Friday, “we can not anticipate far larger influence with out the means to ship. By spreading our capacities so skinny, we danger turning into extra centered on course of than on outcomes.”
An absence of coordination provides to the pressure. A number of UN entities cite the identical mandates to justify separate programmes and budgets, resulting in duplication and minimal impact. Greater than 85 per cent of mandates include no provisions for evaluate or termination. “Efficient evaluations are the exception, not the rule,” Mr. Guterres mentioned. “The identical mandates are mentioned 12 months after 12 months – usually with solely marginal adjustments to current texts.”
UN Photograph/Milton Grant
The UN has carried out mandates internationally together with certifying the election in Namibia in 1989.
The UN80 Initiative: a systemic method
The Report of the Mandate Implementation Overview, launched on 31 July, is a part of the Secretary-Basic’s broader UN80 Initiative – a multi-year effort to modernize how the UN works. Relatively than assess mandates individually, the report takes a “lifecycle” method, how mandates are created, applied and reviewed, and proposing methods to enhance every stage.
“Let me be completely clear: mandates are the enterprise of Member States,” Mr. Guterres advised the Basic Meeting. “They’re the expression of your will. And they’re the only property and accountability of Member States. The very important job of making, reviewing or retiring them lies with you – and also you alone. Our position is to implement them – absolutely, faithfully, and effectively.”
“This report respects that division,” he added. “It seems at how we stock out the mandates you entrust to us.”
From creation to supply
To handle duplication and complexity, the report requires digital mandate registries that make it simpler to trace what has been adopted throughout totally different our bodies. It additionally encourages shorter, clearer resolutions with life like useful resource necessities. “We can not anticipate far larger influence with out the means to ship,” Mr. Guterres mentioned.
The report additionally highlights the rising operational burden of conferences and studies. Final 12 months, the UN system supported 27,000 conferences and produced 1,100 studies – three out of 5 on recurring matters. “Conferences and studies are important,” Mr. Guterres mentioned. “However we should ask: Are we utilizing our restricted sources in the simplest manner?”
© UNMISS
The UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, UNMISS, was mandated by the Safety Council.
Funding and influence
Proposals embody decreasing the variety of studies and conferences, streamlining codecs and monitoring report utilization to make sure relevance. The Secretary-Basic can also be calling for stronger coordination amongst UN entities to keep away from overlap and guarantee every mandate is linked to clear deliverables.
The report warns that fragmented funding is undermining coherent supply. In 2023, 80 per cent of the UN’s funding got here from voluntary contributions, 85 per cent of which have been earmarked. “Fragmented funding, mixed with fragmented implementation, results in fragmented influence,” mentioned Mr. Guterres. “Every of us has a task to play to handle this. And every of us should act on the levers inside our management.”
Placing individuals first
For the Secretary-Basic, reforms will not be solely about course of however about influence. “Mandates will not be ends in themselves,” he mentioned. “They’re instruments – to ship actual outcomes, in actual lives, in the actual world.”
He praised UN employees as central to this effort. “Not one of the work in implementing mandates is feasible with out our employees – the ladies and men of the United Nations,” Mr. Guterres mentioned. “Their experience, dedication and braveness are indispensable to this endeavor. If we’re to enhance how we implement mandates, we should additionally assist and empower the individuals who carry them out.”
UN Photograph/Rick Bajornas
Most of the UN’s mandates are agreed on the Safety Council at UN Headquarters in New York.
A name to Member States
In his concluding remarks, the Secretary-Basic underscored that the subsequent steps should come from Member States. “The trail ahead is yours to resolve,” he mentioned. “My accountability is to make sure that the Secretariat supplies the capacities and inputs required by the plan of action that you just select.”
The report invitations Member States to think about a time-bound intergovernmental course of to hold proposals ahead and be certain that this effort succeeds the place earlier ones have fallen brief. The upshot, the report says, could be a extra agile, coherent and impactful UN that’s higher at delivering programmes and companies.
