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Trends in United Nations Administration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Walter R. Sharp
Walter R. Sharp
Affiliation:
Professor of Political Science and Director of Graduate Studies in International Relations at Yale University.
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Extract

The Soviet attack on the United Nations during the Fifteenth General Assembly, along with the Congo operation, has served to dramatize the emergence of the World Organization as a far-flung administrative instrumentality. Initially organized primarily to manage meetings and to provide clearing-house functions, the UN Secretariat has progressively taken on a wide variety of “action research” projects both in New York and in the regional economic commissions. More important still, it has become engaged in a complex congeries of field programs which now absorb roughly half the time of its professional personnel. Not only does it help to plan economic, social, and technical programs of increasing magnitude, but it undertakes to implement such programs around the globe—often in cooperation with one or more of the specialized agencies. Certain of these programs, e.g., the Special Fund and OPEX (Operational, Executive, and Administrative Personnel), owe their design in large part to ideas originating within the UN bureaucracy: spurred by the Secretary-General's leadership the staff has dared to improvise and to innovate as the political climate has permitted.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , Summer 1961 , pp. 393 - 407
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1961

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References

1 See, for example, the Introduction to the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization for 1959–60, and his statement of December 14, 1960, to the Security Council in reply to criticisms of his Congo policy.

2 This compilation does not include the military personnel of the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) but does embrace the staffs of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and the UN High Commissioner for Refuges (UNHCR). The total number of persons on the payroll of the UN family of agencies has approximated 15,000 during recent years.

3 See, for details, Schaaf, C. Hart, “The Role of the Resident Representative of the United Nations Technical Assistance Board,” in International Organization, Autumn 1960 (Vol. 14, No. 4), p. 548–562.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 ECOSOC Resolution 795 (XXX), August 3, 1960. In 1961, in at least five cities, the functions of the Resident Representative and of the Director of the UN Information Center are to be assigned to the same man. UN Document A/4599, November 28, 1960.

5 ECOSOC Resolution 793 (XXX), August 3, 1960. Resolution 1518 (XV) of the General Assembly endorses the “strengthening” of the regional economic commissions and further “decentralization” of economic and social activities to the regional level.

6 UN Document A/C.5/SR. 769, October 20, 1960.

7 A special committee of experts now working on this problem is scheduled to report to the Sixteenth General Assembly in the fall of 1961.

8 See, for an unofficial account of the Soviet demand, The New York Times, January 19, 1961.

9 Almost 20 percent of staff in the professional categories is still on fixed-term contracts.

10 UN Document A/C.5/SR. 777. October 29. 1960.

11 UN Document A/C.5/SR. 799, November 28, 1960.

12 UN Document A/C.5/SR. 796, November 24, 1960. The Secretary-General's position, it should be noted, was not helped by the fact that his own immediate entourage has consisted almost exclusively of Western. ers (largely of American and British nationality).

13 Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions: First Report to the General Assembly at its Fifteenth Session (A/4408).

14 For UNESCO, revenue from all sources is expected to reach the impressive total of $61 million for the biennium 1961–62.

15 See UN Document E/3347, May 5, 1960. for a fuller discussion of this matter.

16 The cool attitude of the Soviet Union toward the Special Fund, in contrast to its somewhat increasing support of EPTA, is reportedly attributed in part to the fact that the Fund has not used the Soviet contribution because, as the latter claims, it cannot get equipment orders filled in the Soviet Union.

17 See UN Document A/4172 for an over-all report of the committee's studies made at the headquarters of various agencies.

18 General Assembly Resolution 1437 (XIV), December 5, 1959.

19 Sharp, Walter R.. Field Administration in the United Nations System, New York, Frederick A. Praeger. 1961. p. 193.Google Scholar

20 UN Document A/C.5/752. October 16, 1958.

21 UN Press Release SG/.822, June 9, 1959.

22 Sharp, op. cit., p. 197.

23 Ibid., p. 203.

24 Ibid., p. 208.

25 Twenty-fifth Report of the ACC, UN Document E/3108, May 13, 1958.

26 Report of the Economic and Social Council, UN Document A/4143.

27 For a fuller description of headquarters arrangements, see UN Document E/3473, April 19, 1961.

28 Ibid.

29 The Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, at ECOSOC's request [ECOSOC Resolution 794 (XXX), August 3, 1960] is currently making a study of the possible effects of an increase in the operations of EPTA and the Special Fund during the coming years on the activities of the UN and the specialized agencies.

30 Sharp, op. cit., p. 536.

31 See UN Document E/3370, June 7, 1960.

32 UN Document A/4599, November 28, 1960.

33 A consolidated report on these appraisals appears in UN Document E/3347, May 5, 1960.