UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres prioritizes reform at ‘UN80 Initiative’ launch. 1 May 2025. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías
By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 20 2025 – How would the UN80 Initiative, designed to mark the 80th Anniversary of the United Nations, turned out to be, if Kamala Harris had won the American presidential election in November last year?
As more details are emerging on plans being drawn by Secretary General António Guterres to drastically restructure and re-organize the whole United Nation system, I could not stop thinking about this question.
The UN has become a real “galaxy” of agencies, programs and offices, often with overlapping mandates and functions. Yet without a second Trump Administration, it is very likely that the UN80 Initiative would have taken a much different shape.
After all, the UN 2.0 blueprint, a timid proposal to reform and modernize the United Nations, developed in 2022 as a key pillar of the ambitious Our Common Agenda, never really took off.
A frank assessment would consider the UN 2.0 as a blueprint full of hype and catchy words but profoundly lacking substance.
Yet at least the UN 2.0 talked, even if in generic terms, about an important need that the United Nations should have taken care of: change its internal culture.
But instead of focusing only on the UN turning itself into a “forward thinking” organization as proposed in the blueprint, the cultural shift at the UN should be much more ambitious and radical.
Does the UN have to start to think and act as a startup organization? Perhaps it can help get rid of a red tape culture but at the same time, some caution might be welcome, considering also all the negative consequences stemming from embracing a venture capitalist approach to organizational culture.
That’s why the profound rethinking that now is under place at the UN should be grounded on simple values of humbleness and humility.
As shocking as they might seem, these two elements are the cornerstone of principled leadership and the UN, if it really wants to be a “lighthouse” in situations in which humanity and the planet face troubling dark times, these should be embedded in any new restructuring.
Over the years the UN has become aloof and remote even in places like in the so-called Global South where it has a strong presence and its mandate is generally well received by locals.
This situation can be emblematically thought of as a working culture that lacks responsiveness and does not do enough to reach out to the locals.
This is partly due to the UN’s mandate to work and assist with national governments but it has become an excuse to not engage civil society and the citizenry.
The problem, instead, is deeper and it starts with the fact that UN staff ended up, even unconsciously and involuntarily, as a “caste” of special “ones”.
I do not doubt the seriousness and commitment of the vast majority of UN personnel but the system is so flawed that it is inevitable that, no matter your good intentions, you end up being isolated from the ground reality.
As naïve as it might look, why do not we start from the basics? Are the highly paid jobs at the UN morally justified?
One thing is to have a good salary but another thing is to have perks and facilities that only the privileged “ones” are supposed to be entitled to. Then, why not tax the salaries of UN personnel?
These issues do snowball and become bigger and influence an entire working mindset and, at the end, they become deeply entrenched in the organizational culture of the UN.
Why is it so difficult to secure appointments with the UN officials or getting an answer for some ideas that have been proposed to them?
It is certainly impossible for the UN agencies and programs to entertain any requests, but, I do believe it would make sense for the UN to have a much more responsive approach.
Another example: why running events in four or five star hotels?
Again, this question could be shot down with disdain and as a trivial matter but, it is just a symptom of a much broader malaise that has a real outcome: a lot of wasted resources that could be better spent.
There is a broader acceptance, even if it will be hardly admitted, that the UN are neither responsive nor accountable. The discussions being prioritized at the moment by the UN SG are not tackling these underlying issues.
The ongoing debate is more about eliminating the vast amount of inefficiencies through merging and elimination of overlapping entities. It is not that these potential shake ups do not make sense.
It is actually welcome but, unless there is a deep reflection on how the UN can be really more accountable and transparent and accessible, the change won’t be as powerful as many hope.
Right at the top, most of the executive heads of agencies and programs are very well-meaning and committed professionals but many of them are former high level officials in their country of origin.
They have been accustomed to high offices that often are far removed from the ground reality. Therefore, they are not well suited to try to create efficiencies and re-tool the entire working approach. But the problem is also with the mandate of the United Nations.
Rather than focusing exclusively on assisting its member nations, the UN should also reposition its functions to do a much better job at partnering with civil society organizations. This also makes sense because freedoms are shrinking both in the North and in the South and overall democracy is in decline.
A more agile and humble UN could have a core mandate of supporting grassroots organizations and the whole civil society. A practical way to start doing it is for the UN to engage and consult more and better with the society at large, even when the hosting nations would not appreciate it.
I do often think that the UN as a system is oftentimes too submissive to the host governments even if the latter are recipients of huge amounts of assistance. It acts and obliges as if it did not have any negotiating powers.
To bring in efficiencies, moreover, the UN agencies and programs should stop being implementers on behalf of other donors.
It often happens that, at country levels, the offices of major UN agencies sign partnership agreements with bilateral agencies.
There are better practices to implement development assistance rather than relying on the “technical’ expertise of UN Agencies.
Why can’t bilateral agencies directly support civil society or why can’t the UN agencies only play a much more limited role? Instead of setting up whole teams made up by contracted officials, in effect long term consultants, why not truly support local NGOs in terms of organizational development and technical knowledge through a much more nimble approach?
All these proposals might be easily dismissed by those who have been thriving throughout the years in a system whose potential of real impact has been trimmed by a working culture that does not any more meet the thresholds set by the high purposes for which the UN were created.
But the status quo cannot continue.
Unfortunately, only Donald Trump could trigger a bold restricting of the UN. Merging and cutting agencies and programs should be one side of the revolution that Mr. Guterres has been forced to tackle.
Let’s not forget the less visible, perhaps softer side of the coin. Without eradicating a mindset that ended up self-justifying and self-promoting, the UN will cease to exist.
And this will be a real problem for our humanity.
That’s why the status quo at the UN must be defeated.
https://press.un.org/en/2025/sgsm22644.doc.htm
Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centered policy-making and a stronger and better United Nations.
IPS UN Bureau
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