UN Reform Background

At the core of the policy and institutional reforms endorsed in the Millennium Declaration is a commitment to ensuring that the United Nations serves the needs and hopes of people everywhere – giving new life to the opening words of the UN Charter – “We the Peoples”. Through this Declaration, the United Nations has made “putting people at the center of everything we do” its guiding motto for the 21st Century.

• In the Declaration, Heads of State and Government called for:
  more inclusive political processes, allowing for genuine participation by all citizens in all our countries (para 25) and
• greater opportunities to the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society, in general, to contribute to the realization of the Organization’s goals and programs (para 30)

A Millennium Review Summit will be held in September 2005 in New York. The challenge this year is to ensure that the momentum for UN reform leads to real changes being agreed to by the Heads of State and Government when they meet in New York this September for the five-year review of the Millennium Development Goals and the Millennium Declaration. United Nations Associations around the world are well positioned to encourage their governments to support reforms needed to revitalize the United Nations system, and ensure it is better equipped to deal with the scale and complexity of globalization in the 21st century.

Preparatory to this summit, there will be informal interactive Hearings of the General Assembly with NGOs, civil society organizations and the private sector in New York from 23-24 June 2005. For more information on participation, click here >>. WFUNA will be represented at these hearings by its President, Lady Rhyl Jansen, and representatives of over 5 UNAs. On 22 June, WFUNA and UNA-Sweden will host an event celebrating the role of NGOs at the UN and welcoming NGOs to the hearings.

"General Assembly President's Draft Resolution for UN Reform", click here >>

"In larger freedom - towards security, development and human rights for all" (A/59/2005)
UN Secretary-General unveiled his plan for UN reform with the release of his report entitled "In larger freedom - towards security, development and human rights for all" (A/59/2005). The report is the basic document for the heads of government Summit in September and calls for the most far-reaching changes of the UN since it was set up 60 years ago. Presenting the report to civil society representatives, Mark Malloch Brown, the Secretary-General's Chief of Staff, characterized the policy commitments and institutional reforms as a "package deal" that needs to be held together. He emphasized the September deadline for decisions on the implementation of the global partnership to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the expansion of the Security Council, and converting the Human Rights Commission into a Human Rights Council to be elected by a two thirds majority of the General Assembly and to meet throughout the year.

High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
The United Nations High-Level Panel on global threats, challenges and change appointed last year by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued its landmark report laying out proposals aimed at strengthening the UN to provide collective security for all in the 21st century. The 95-page report entitled "A more secure world: Our shared responsibility" outlines 101 recommendations to combat poverty, HIV/AIDS, civil war and inter-state conflicts, the threat of nuclear proliferation, terrorism and organized crime. It is notable that the report explicitly encourages the United Nations to engage with civil society organizations in five recommendations. Recommendation 72 calls for the General Assembly to "establish a better mechanism to enable systematic engagement with civil society organizations".

In examining collective security, the panel report begins with a focus on prevention, arguing that development "is the indispensable foundation for a collective security system that takes prevention seriously". The report emphasizes the need for all states to recommit themselves to the Millennium Development Goals, and recommends that the WTO should strive to conclude the Doha development round by 2006. It calls the international response to HIV/AIDS "shockingly slow" and "shamefully ill-resourced" and advocates for increased international resources to stem the pandemic.

The report, which was spurred by the divisions over Iraq last year, addresses questions about the Security Council's role in authorizing the use of force once threats emerge. While it affirms the right of States to defend themselves, it insists that "preventive action" when a threat is not imminent requires Security Council consent. Calling for a "more proactive" Security Council, the report offers "criteria for the use of force" and widens the definition of threats that could be a cause for military intervention by endorsing the idea of a collective responsibility to protect civilians when their states fail to protect them. It recommends the creation of a Peace Building Commission under the Security Council to identify countries at risk of violent conflicts and organize prevention and peace building efforts. The Panel additionally called for a more representative Security Council and offered 2 options for expanding its membership.

Among the other proposed solutions are an updating of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, a long sought definition of terrorism, and the recommendation that the Commission on Human Rights have universal membership. UNAs around the world are encouraged to send their comments on the report of the high-level panel to the WFUNA Secretariat.

UN Foundation Contributes to the Debate on Global Threats to Security
By creating a high-level panel to look at global threats to security in the aftermath of the Iraq war, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has sparked a global debate on the nature of threats and the future of the U.N. and other international institutions. The United Nations Foundation is supporting an initiative to inform and enlarge that debate, and invites you to become engaged by visiting the web site it has launched as part of that initiative.
Click on www.un-globalsecurity.org to:

ECOSOC Reform

ECOSOC was envisaged in the U.N. Charter as the principal body for promoting economic and social development. In pursuing this mandate, ECOSOC has faced a variety of institutional and political challenges. Governments, civil society groups and analysts have formulated dozens of ECOSOC reform proposals over the years, but none has gained sufficient attention and support to progress very far toward adoption.
UNA-USA and WFUNA worked in partnership to plan and host a workshop that examined how ECOSOC reform can help to promote the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The report will be submitted to ECOSOC's next High-Level Segment to be held in June at U.N. headquarters. For more information click here>>

Panel of Eminent Persons on Civil Society and UN Relationships

In report of Secretary-General to the 57th General Assembly (A/57/387), the Secretary-General highlighted the engagement of civil society as an aspect of the UN Reform process and announced that he would "assemble a group of eminent persons representing a variety of perspectives and experiences to review past and current practices and recommend improvements for the future in order to make the interaction between civil society and the United Nations more meaningful."

WFUNA submission to the Cardoso panel on UN relations with civil society
WFUNA welcomed the establishment of the Panel of Eminent Persons on UN – Civil Society relations and the invitation from the chairman, President Cardoso to present a submission. The information and recommendations in this paper are based on: the outcomes of the WFUNA Plenary Assembly held in May 2003, interviews of WFUNA Executive Committee members, suggestions from UNAs, the discussion at the 2003 annual meeting for UNAs in which Aminata Traore and John Clark participated, WFUNA’s “We the peoples 2003 report’ on the Millennium Declaration and bi-monthly newsletter UN Connections. Take me here >>
For the Panel webpage click here>>

"Towards a concensus in shaping the future of the United Nations - NGO relations"
On 16 September 2004, the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan released his response to the Cardoso Panel Report: "We the Peoples: Civil Society, the United Nations and Global Governance." His response supported the strengthening of UN-Civil Society engagement claiming that further institutionalizing of UN-NGO interaction would help re-build trust in meaningful multilateralism while at the same time strengthening the nation-state. The report also clarifies concerns and misunderstandings regarding civil society participation through established means of government. To read the Secretary-General's response, click here >>

UNA and NGO Papers on UN Reform

Paper on UN Management Reform, October 2006
Jeffery Huffines, Evolution and Operation of Non-Governmental Organizations, Center for Global Affairs, New York University, School of Continuing and Professional Studies
By Ms Pera Wells, Acting Secretary-General, World Federation of United Nations Associations


Multilateralism in the 21st Century: Strengthening and Democratization of the United Nations (pdf)
This paper by UNA-Spain is based on two seminars held in Madrid and Barcelona in May and June 2005, discussing the reform of the United Nations.

Copenhagen NGO Conference 2005 (pdf)
UNA-Denmark took the initiative to hold an NGO Conference in Copenhagen, in preparation for the UN General Assembly Leaders Summit in September 2005. Among the participants from 37 countries there were UNAs from Iran, Chile, Congo, Finland, Norway, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Uganda. The conference adopted a paper that reflects the ability of civil society "to continue our work with a more holistic perspective towards and beyond the UN Summit in September 2005".

“Strengthening the United Nations through Deepened Cooperation with NGOs, the Private Sector and Parliaments” (pdf)
The German Development Institute (D.I.E.), in a briefing paper released January 2005, responds to the Cardoso Panel Report, recognizing the need of strengthened cooperation and involvement of NGOs and civil society to increase the UN’s effectiveness and legitimacy. At present, the Institute is critical of the direction towards effective integration believing that the Cardoso model is overly visionary and unattainable in its present form. D.I.E. proposes that the UN, in coordination with the IPU should “create a parliamentary assembly consisting of representatives from all world regions that would have consultative status” and the UN should additionally create “pluralist policy networks…responsible for issuing verifiable and sanctionable rules” which would ensure coherent integration of partnerships.