The UN Secretariat is the international body that manages and coordinates the work of the United Nations. It is headed by the Secretary General.
World bureaucracy
The six basic organs of the United Nations are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice and the UN Secretariat.
The latter influences the work of the UN to a much greater extent than indicated in the Charter of the organization. This is largely due to the fact that the staff of the Secretariat are permanent experts, and not political appointees of Member States. Recruitment based on merit, taking into account the principle of geographical distribution. Employees must take an oath of allegiance to the UN. They are not allowed to receive instructions from their governments. The staff is essentially an international civil service.
The functions of the UN Secretariat are diverse. These are translators, clerks, technicians, administrators, project managers, negotiators, etc.
Supervisor
The Secretary-General is elected for 5 years by the General Assembly in consultation with the Security Council. To do this, he must obtain the approval of all permanent members of the Security Council. For this reason, secretaries general tend to come from small neutral countries. GS is the main administrative officer at the meetings of the GA, Security Council, Trusteeship Council and ECOSOC, which can perform any functions assigned by these bodies to him and his staff. Every year he reports to the General Assembly on the work of the UN and can acquaint the Security Council with any issues that, in his opinion, pose a threat to peace and international security. GS is the main representative of the UN and the most visible and authoritative figure of this body on the world stage.
Earth Government
According to the charter, the Secretary General and the UN Secretariat work at New York headquarters and around the world. They serve the main units of the organization and manage programs and policies defined by these bodies.
Thus, the functions of the UN Secretariat are comparable to the tasks performed by national governments of the world. Among other things, this body manages peacekeeping operations, solves refugee problems, acts as a mediator in international disputes, monitors economic and social trends, prepares studies on human rights, economic development, sustainable development and other issues at the request of any organ of the organization. The UN Secretariat informs the public about its work and holds international conferences. In addition, he monitors the implementation of UN directives, translates speeches and documents into the official languages of the organization, etc.
UN Secretariat: composition and functions
Although its main headquarters is in New York, the organization is present in Vienna, Nairobi and Geneva, and some of its related institutions are located in Paris, The Hague and Rome. The structure of the UN Secretariat is composed of the following departments and departments headed by deputies and assistants to the Secretary-General or senior officials subordinate to the ToS:
- Office of the HS. Includes Office of the Spokesperson, Partnership Bureau, Protocol and Communications Service, Global Compact Bureau.
- Office of Internal Oversight Services. It consists of the audit, inspection and investigation departments. He has wide powers to investigate possible fraud and abuse within the organization. It monitors and audits using the Integrated Management Information System. For the establishment of management advocated industrialized countries, worried that their contributions to the UN may be lost as a result of fraud and abuse.
- Political Department. He oversees the organization’s efforts in the field of preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping, collects and analyzes information to warn the GA and Security Council about the impending crisis and implements the mandates issued by them. Provides electoral assistance in countries requesting support to strengthen the democratic process.
- Legal management. Advises the organization and the GS on legal issues. For example, the Office assisted in numerous activities related to international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It provides a wide range of legal services on issues related to contract law and technical aspects of contracts.
- Department of Disarmament. It was originally created in 1982 and continued to work until 1992. In January 1998 it was restored. Promotes the goals of disarmament and non-proliferation of chemical, atomic and biological weapons. Contributes to efforts to reduce conventional weapons, including mines and small arms. It has five branches.
- Department of Peacekeeping Operations. This agency monitors the activities of UN peacekeeping missions around the world. Since the end of the Cold War, the scale and complexity of operations has grown exponentially. In 1995, when UN staff were deployed in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, the department totaled 70 thousand military and civil servants, and its annual budget approached $ 3 billion.
- Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It is involved in the delivery of humanitarian assistance to victims of natural disasters and other emergencies. The Office was created to provide a quick needs assessment, analysis of the situation on the ground, as well as for negotiating access to emergency sites. Its main feature is interagency coordination, which allows all UN agencies to jointly call for humanitarian assistance and better monitor the contributions of donor governments, UN agencies and non-governmental organizations.
- Office of Drugs and Crime. Located in Vienna. Its goals are: the fight against international crime, smuggling, banditry, drug trafficking, corruption and terrorism, crime prevention, the rule of law, trend analysis, research and the support of strategic measures.
- Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Promotes sustainable development based on a multifaceted approach to the social, environmental, economic, demographic and gender aspects of development.
- Department of Civil Aviation and Conference Services. It consists of three departments and one service. Provides centralized meeting planning and documentation services, coordinates conference services around the world. Provides interpretation services in all six official languages of the UN and between them. Prepares verbatim records of meetings of the General Assembly, Security Council and other bodies, as well as prepares and prints documents and other publications. Responsible for translating all official UN documents, meeting reports, and correspondence. Provides reference services for authors, editors, translators and stenographers.
- Department of Public Information. Creates press releases, publications, radio and video programs advertising the work of the organization. Facilitated the installation of an electronic mail system connecting peacekeeping missions, information centers and UNDP.
- Department of Management. Engaged in budget planning, programs, invoices, procurement, archives, staffing, communications, etc.
- Ethics Office. It ensures conscientious and transparent performance by employees of their duties in an atmosphere of confidentiality, impartiality, professionalism and independence. The office helps employees avoid conflicts of interest and prevent their privacy from interfering with their duties.
- Office of the Ombudsman. It helps to turn conflicts into creative solutions through trainings, shuttle diplomacy, mediation, etc.
- Office of the High Representative for the Underdeveloped Countries. The key areas of her work are helping the ToS in ensuring the full mobilization and coordination of all parts of the UN system to implement the Program of Action for underdeveloped countries, enclaves and small islands, mobilizing international support and resources, conducting group consultations and providing legal protection.
Purchasing department
The economic activities of the UN Secretariat are carried out through the Procurement Division, which is engaged in the acquisition of services and goods for the American headquarters, regional commissions, peacekeeping missions, tribunals, special missions, etc. Among the main purchases are air transportation, cars, computers, products, printing services, stationery materials and supplies. UNICEF, WHO and the United Nations Development Program procure independently.
Registration of the contract in the UN Secretariat
The functions of the HS regarding the contracts deposited, including the preparation of recommendations and studies, assistance on legal issues and the practice of interstate agreements and the depositary, are performed by the Treaty Section of the Office of Legal Affairs. Registration, analysis, fixing, publication and registration of international treaties in the UN Secretariat is carried out there. In addition, the United Nations Treaty Collection is maintained and updated on the Internet. Registration in the UN Secretariat is carried out in accordance with Article 102 of the Charter and the Rules of the General Assembly. Specialists will help draw up final provisions and make comments on them, prepare originals and make certified copies of them, organize seminars and training programs on the law and practice of international treaties, etc.
Staff
The UN Secretariat has about 44 thousand employees. An even greater number of them work in related institutions (such as WHO, the World Bank, etc.). These are international civil servants who are not accountable to individual states. The staff of the UN General Secretariat swear not to receive or request the orders of any government or other organization. According to the Constitution, Member States must respect the exceptional international character and responsibilities of employees and not try to influence their activities inappropriately.
True, there were times when the activities of the UN Secretariat became the object of suspicion and criticism from the governments of member states. In the early days of the inauguration of US President Dwight Eisenhower at the height of the Cold War, Secretary General Truggwe Lee, under pressure from Washington, allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to fingerprint all American employees. This practice continued until November 1953, when the new GS Dag Hammarskjöld ordered the FBI to terminate it. But the American government, in an effort to identify sympathizers with the Communists, created the Loyalty Council of employees of international organizations whose task was to obtain information about all American UN employees. Among them was the highly respected Ralph Bunch. During Hammarskjöld’s term, the Soviet Union suspected the UN Secretariat of acting on the side of the West under the leadership of the ToS. Thus, Moscow put pressure on the UN, demanding the adoption of the so-called. “Troika” project, according to which it was supposed to have three heads of the Secretariat, one each from the West, East and third world countries.
Funding problems
During the years 1980 and 1990, there were serious allegations by the Secretariat of inflating staff and squandering. Boutros Boutros-Gali tried unsuccessfully to reassure critics, especially the United States, by freezing the budget and announcing reforms. His successor, Kofi Annan, in 1997 introduced his extensive reform and reorganization plans for the United Nations Renewal through the merger and reorganization of 24 agencies into 5 divisions to form the Deputy Secretary General. When at the end of 1997 the GA approved the first package of proposed reforms, the savings amounted to about 123 million dollars. One consequence of this was that the US Congress approved the allocation of $ 819 million as part of its $ 1 billion debt to the United Nations and reduced pressure on the United Nations.
Employee quality
Shortly after taking office in 2007, the eighth GS Ban Ki-moon began restructuring the Secretariat and established new requirements for senior and middle managers of the organization. Traditional job guarantees were abolished and incentives were created for the competitive selection process. It established annual performance reviews and terms of office, opened positions at UN headquarters in New York for employees outside the United States, forced senior officials to publish their financial statements, and put an end to automatic job reservations for senior staff at the end of their service lives. Ban Ki-moon's changes have been criticized by many delegations of member countries, accustomed to traditional unwritten practice. In private meetings, Pan met with the ambassadors of these states to assure them that extensive consultations would be held before the reforms were introduced. His promises calmed much of his fears, but criticism showed the difficulty of making major administrative changes to the Secretariat.
Reform Attempts
When the Secretary-General made his first senior management appointments, he took the opportunity to recommend a change in several departments, proposing that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations be divided into two units — one for operations and one for field support, and change the rank of director of the Office for Disarmament Affairs from deputy to the assistant to the assistant, in fact, reducing him in the UN hierarchy. Faced with opposition from two fronts, Ban Ki-moon requested the committees to consider the proposals before submitting them to the General Assembly.