The Secretary General of the United Nations

Dr. Ruwantissa ABEYRATNE

UN: The Secretary General of the United Nations is the executive head of the United Nations - a highly diverse organization working worldwide to improve the lives, living standards and health of those needing help.

He/she is appointed by the General Assembly upon recommendation of the Security Council. This is provided for by Article 97 of the United Nations Charter which also stipulates that the UN Secretariat shall comprise a Secretary-General and such staff as the Organization may require and that the Secretary-General shall be the chief administrative officer of the Organization.

The Secretariat is comprised of some 8,700 regular civilian staff members in the UN Headquarters in New York as well as around the world in UN offices, all of whom report to the Secretary General.

The overall staff strength of the United Nations would rise to approximately 50,000 if the specialized agencies of the United Nations and the financial institutions based in Washington D.C. such as the World Bank are to be taken into consideration.

The Secretary General overseas a $ 5 billion peacekeeping budget which sustains over 80,000 peacekeepers worldwide.

The Secretary-General could serve for one or two terms of five years each. Traditionally the Secretary-General cannot be a national of any of the permanent Security Council nations.

The post loosely follows a cycle in which each successive Secretary-General comes from a different continent. The current Secretary-General is Kofi Annan of Ghana. His appointment began on January 1, 1997, and his second term expires on December 31, 2006.

One of the most vital roles played by the Secretary-General is the use of his "good offices" - steps taken publicly and in private, drawing upon his independence, impartiality and integrity, to prevent international disputes from arising, escalating or spreading.

Since becoming Secretary-General, Mr. Annan has made use of his good offices in a range of situations, involving among other nations Cyprus, East Timor, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria and Western Sahara.

In addition to managing staff and administering them, the Secretary-General plays a key role in mediation between States, negotiating between warring parties and deploying UN sponsored peace keeping forces.

The Secretary-General also appoints special envoys and personal representatives who undertake missions in difficult areas. By March 2006 there were no less than 60 such special envoys.

The Secretary-General's day to day tasks include attendance at sessions of United Nations bodies; consultations with world leaders, government officials, and others; and worldwide travel intended to keep him in touch with the peoples of the Organisation's Member States and informed about the vast array of issues of international concern that are on the Organization's agenda.

Each year, the Secretary-General issues a report on the work of the United Nations that appraises its activities and outlines future priorities.

The Secretary-General is also the Chairman of the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC), which brings together the Executive Heads of all UN funds, programmes and specialised agencies twice a year in order to further coordination and cooperation in the entire range of substantive and management issues facing the United Nations System.

One of the empowering provisions in the United Nations Charter which assigns a signal role to the Secretary-General is Article 99 which enables the Secretary-General to bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his/her opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.

Notable examples of instances when this Article was used relate to the Congo, when Dag Hammarskjold cautioned the Security Council, followed by Trygve Lie in Korea and Kurt Waldheim in Iran.

Although this provision has not been frequently used, the Secretary-General can, without invoking the provision, exert his influence behind the scenes with the States, in particular the powers in the Security Council.

The seven Secretaries General who have so far been at the helm during the United Nations' 60 years of existence have demonstrated that their personal judgment, initiative and risk taking ability are the defining qualities of a Secretary-General.

The Secretary General is subject to continued scrutiny and criticism of States. For example, Secretary General U Thant was held accountable and was stringently criticized for pulling out troops from the Sinai in 1967.

Similarly, both Secretaries General Lie and Hammarskjold were criticized by the Soviet bloc for the actions taken in Korea and the Congo respectively.

In more recent years Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar was criticized for his role in the Persian Gulf as well as Boutros-Ghali regarding Bosnia, and Kofi Annan with regard to the UN role in Somalia and Iraq.

Criticism is an integral corollary of the job, although through the years, the Secretary General has not come out with a harsh judgment that would reflect his partisanship which in turn would result in the loss of his credibility and confidence of powerful and important States.

The seminal characteristic of the office of the Secretary General lies in its neutrality and the lack of vested interests.

The Secretary General does not, under any circumstance "enforce" but rather overseas the facilitation of administration in States that need such support after collapsing or succumbing to natural or man made disasters and wars.

One of the key initiatives of recent times was the appointment by Secretary General Annan of a high level international panel to critically evaluate and examine the UN's handling of peace operations.

The Panel, which issued its report in 2000, found that UN peacekeeping could do with significant improvements. The Report exhorted States to take their responsibilities more seriously and set clear, achievable goals.

Neither the Secretary General nor the staff of the United Nations Secretariat and other offices are allowed to seek or follow instructions from any government or State. They are international civil servants driven by their own impartiality and independence. .

What faces the Secretary General in the 21st Century? To answer this question, one has to take note of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of "the three pillars" around which we need to reorganise today's United Nations to give it focus, to reconnect it and make it more relevant to its core constituents: the peoples of the world... development, security and human rights and democracy."

Human resource management, governance and oversight are key issues for the future and the next Secretary-General may have to initiate a much more stringent and pro active management reform system than exists today.

In April 2000, in preparation for the September 2000 Millennium Summit, the largest-ever gathering of heads of State or Government, the Secretary-General issued his Millennium Report, entitled 'We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century'.

The report is the most comprehensive presentation of the UN's mission in its 55-year history, and calls on Member States to commit themselves to an action plan for ending poverty and inequality, improving education, reducing HIV/AIDS, safeguarding the environment and protecting peoples from deadly conflict and violence.

Central to the Secretary-General's proposals is the view that globalisation is a powerful force offering both opportunities and challenges for nations and people, and must be made to work for all people.

The Secretary-General also strongly embraces new information technology and sees a major role for it in fighting poverty, promoting human development and improving United Nations operations. He also proposes an ambitious series of changes for the United Nations itself.

The challenges facing the Secretary General, as adumbrated by Secretary General Annan in his Report "Investing in the United Nations: For a Stronger Organization Worldwide" presented to the General Assembly on March 7, 2006, calls for a radical overhaul of the UN Secretariat based on the philosophy that the staff members of the Organisation are the most valued resource.

The Report calls for proactive and quicker recruitment; career development fostered through targeted training and staff mobility to be integrated among field and headquarters staff.

It also calls for the role of the Deputy Secretary General to be re-defined so that he/she be made accountable for overall management, direction and function of the Secretariat.

Another recommendation is to streamline information and communications technology within the UN and reduction in time of the budget cycle. Improvement of Secretariat reporting mechanisms, particularly through a single annual report and the adoption of new principles to guide the interaction between the Secretariat and the General Assembly are also some suggested revisions.

Prevention of armed conflict is major issue for the Secretary General. Armed conflict remains the primary source of instability today and is therefore incontrovertibly the main concern of the United nations. There is no room for doubt that responsibility for the prevention of armed conflict lies with the States themselves.

However, this does not absolve the United Nations of all responsibility, particularly as most conflicts today occur within States and the United Nations has the capacity to assist States in adopting preventive measures.

Also, arguably, the most serious current threat to humankind is the use of nuclear weapons.

The threat is further exacerbated by the fact that materials and technology used to produce nuclear weapons may be increasingly passing on to the hands of non-State parties, including terrorist organizations.

In this context, the United Nations and its member nations cannot entirely rule out the possibility of a large scale use of nuclear weapons. This perhaps is the most daunting prospect for the next Secretary General.

The writer is Coordinator, Air Transport Programmes, International Civil Aviation Organisation, Canada.