Reform *2 | Power, Possibility, and Staying Human
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UN80: Efficiency Over Impact? Rethinking the Path to Meaningful Reform
In my earlier analysis, Merging for What? UN Reform Needs More Than Just Consolidation, I argued that only reshuffling organizational charts won’t fix the UN development system. Many of you wrote back — thank you (always appreciated)! The recent address by Secretary-General António Guterres on the UN80 Initiative provides an opportunity to revisit this discussion, as it outlines a reform agenda that, while ambitious in scope, raises questions about its focus and potential effectiveness.
The UN80 Initiative: A Closer Look
The UN80 Initiative is structured around three primary workstreams:
Efficiency and Improvement: This workstream aims to identify cost-reduction and efficiency-enhancement proposals within the UN Secretariat. This includes reviewing administrative functions to eliminate redundancies and streamline processes.
Mandate Implementation Review: This involves examining how the UN system implements mandates entrusted by Member States, with the goal of simplifying and optimizing execution without altering the mandates themselves.
Structural Changes and Programme Realignment: This workstream considers the need for structural changes and realignment across the UN system to better align with current challenges.
A Long History of Knowing What’s Broken
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard this before, unfortunately. Why has the UN been trying to “reform” its development apparatus for over half a century… with so little structural change to show for it? Short answer: because the system is designed not to change. Real reform is not a design problem — it’s a power problem. And the new proposal seems to walk into the same trap… Unless we confront the political and cultural realities beneath the surface, this new initiative may become yet another chapter in the long history of half-reform.
Since the 1969 Jackson Report declared that the UN’s development efforts lacked an “organized brain,” we’ve cycled through Delivering as One, multiple QCPRs, the 2018 repositioning, the Funding Compact, and now, UN80 and the Summit of the Future. Each round promised transformation. Most delivered partial gains, at best.
Delivering as One (2006) aimed for one leader, one plan, one budget, one office. The idea was simple: a unified UN presence would reduce duplication, improve alignment with national priorities, and streamline operations. In pilot countries, it worked — kind of. Coherence improved. An independent evaluation of DaO (2012) found it had “enhanced coherence, relevance, effectiveness and efficiency” and strengthened national ownership. But most funding still flowed through earmarked, agency-specific streams. Agencies kept their own HR, procurement rules and reporting lines. Governance remained fragmented. The reform hit a wall: power.
The 2019 repositioning, under GA Res 72/279, was even bolder, placing the 2030 Agenda at the heart of the system, empower RCs, and improve regional coherence, and create a Funding Compact with Member States. Structures changed — but behaviors lagged. Only about 25% of UN country team budgets support joint projects. Many staff still don’t understand how the new Management & Accountability Framework works. The reform hit a wall: power (again).
Yes, there’s progress. The Resident Coordinator system is stronger. We have better planning tools and clearer accountability mechanisms. But structurally, not much has shifted. The 2025 QCPR advance report makes it plain: “UN entities’ incentive and accountability structures, as well as business models, are geared towards delivering entity-specific rather than collective results”. Translation: we still fund and measure agencies separately, so no surprise that they act separately. Agencies defend their turf. Governance rewards fragmentation over collaboration. As long as agencies are funded separately and judged on their own outputs (rather than shared outcomes), “integration” will remain more aspiration than reality.
What’s Missing? Is History Repeating?
Everything is a compromise and none of the reforms (current and future) will make every one happy. But compromise comes after discussing. Not before we have started the discussion. The UN Secretary General proposed two clusters focusing on development “because the work in the Secretariat is very different from the work in the Agencies”? Delivering as Two instead of Delivering as One? And why is there a separate cluster on specialised agencies? Are they not working on development? Forms follows function seems to be a secondary concern… This smells a lot like making compromises before we even have started the discussion.
And again, the focus is looking at the UN in its totality. In other words: If we can keep the discussion at the bigger picture, we don’t have to reflect on our own individual entity business model (see my previous analysis - e.g. not everyone needs to have a footprint at the country level). And how we will bring a consolidation of operational support together while we’re splitting the work across 7 clusters? The emphasis on cost-cutting measures is good, but I am less convinced about the proposed solutions. Relocating services from high-cost duty stations and expanding automation, suggests a focus on immediate financial relief. Maybe, but will it achieve integration and long term savings or is it a one-off? Why are we not putting a complete mergers of all procurement, human resources, financial rules, etcetera on the table?
The Political Reality: It Takes Two to Tango
We keep redesigning structures — but without changing the incentives, behaviors, or decision-making power that determine how the system actually functions. Translation: we have a better machine, but the fuel still comes in mismatched containers.
And the fuel comes from Member States. Due to its complex governance structure (or better, multiple structures), the UN Secretary General has little power over many UN entities. If Member States are not on board or at least are not putting roadblocks before we even started, there’s little to no hope. The UN is the member states. Member States can make it, but they can also break it. The misaligned incentives, lack of the right funding, and more is where many of the previous reforms failed. And as far as we know, the current reforms were not done following an explicit request of member states, nor is there evidence that reforms would help to change the minds of those withholding funding. Some member states have pointed this out in last week’s meeting.
The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) - funding 80% of the UN development system - has no common position on the future of the UN development system. Other groups are looking at specific interests that are not always aligned with the overall goal. Political feasibility, not just technical elegance will be crucial. And while it hurts to say this: this time we might need to aim gradual, coalition-based evolution, instead of a revolution that might fail in the negotiation room… We need to be in it for the long haul and not just some quick wins.
A 2019 JIU report notes that reforms often skip formal change -planning “due to expediency (urgency of reform)” – meaning leaders feel they must move quickly but without the time or capacity to manage the human side or longer term perspective. The unintended consequence is that, lacking a concerted change process, momentum is hard to sustain.
Balance without support is still imbalance. (Broken Chair Monument across the Palais des Nations in Geneva)
The Bottom Line
It’s not all bad. The current urgency and the UN80 Initiative presents an opportunity for meaningful reform, but its success will depend on a comprehensive approach that goes beyond internal efficiencies. Reforms must be judged by whether they help countries achieve the SDGs faster and better. Full stop. If that’s not the metric, we’re doing it wrong.
The UN development system is full of passionate, capable people. But the system around them is built to reward fragmentation. Unless UN80 breaks from that logic — by realigning incentives, shifting power, and building genuine political coalitions — it risks becoming the latest in a long line of half-reforms.
Reform isn’t stuck because we lack ideas. It’s stuck because we haven’t fixed the politics beneath the process. If we want a “One UN,” we need to stop playing solo — and start changing the score.
Will the UN Ever Learn to Reform?
For those wanting to read more on UN reform, here is another perspective by Katja Hemmerich that’s well worth your time. The piece examines the United Nations' persistent challenges in implementing effective reforms. Despite past initiatives like efforts to enhance coordination and accountability — such as revitalizing the Resident Coordinator system — internal contradictions and political pressures hinder progress. For instance, while evaluations praise the Resident Coordinator system's impact, leaked proposals from the UN80 initiative suggest its elimination, reflecting conflicting priorities within the organization. These inconsistencies, coupled with a culture of secrecy and limited transparency, erode trust among staff and donors. The article argues that without embracing genuine organizational learning and addressing systemic issues, the UN's reform efforts risk being superficial, failing to achieve meaningful and sustainable change. My piece above, I think, lands in the same place: reform that ignores politics, incentives, and culture is reform in name only.
Three Books on Power, Possibility, and Staying Human
Over the last few weeks, I’ve read 3 books about what fuels change — not just in institutions, but in ourselves. The books fit in well with the discussion about reform. Reform is never just about structure or process. It's also about imagination, ambition, and the courage to stay grounded in our values, even when the system resists. Each of these books, in their own way, illuminate different dimensions of that journey. What would it take to move differently — to act not just out of expertise, strategy or the next step in our career, but out of conviction? What does it mean to live with moral clarity, and to let that shape how we work, relate, and take responsibility?
1. Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman
Bregman makes a simple but radical case: it’s not enough to be good — we should aim to do maximum good. Drawing inspiration from effective altruism but steering clear of its more rigid edges, he invites us to reimagine ambition itself — not as personal advancement, but as a force for global justice. In the context of UN reform, it’s a needed provocation: what if institutional actors were measured not by loyalty to their mandates, but by the scale of the problems they help solve? In a world that often rewards self-interest, or at least cautious pragmatism, Bregman suggests something countercultural — that ambition can be ethical. That it's okay — even necessary — to want to leave a mark, to shift systems, to build careers and lives that are explicitly about doing better.
2. Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin
Benjamin reminds us that every system is imagined before it’s built — and so is every alternative. Her book is a powerful call to unlearn the assumptions that limit what we believe is possible. She urges us to treat imagination as a tool of resistance and repair. For a system like the UN — steeped in precedent and protocol — this is a crucial reminder. Reform is, above all, an act of imagination. Imagination is as a political force. Benjamin shows how people in power often claim there’s “no alternative” to the way things are — and how dangerous that belief is. Because once you believe things can’t be changed, they won’t be.
3. How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak
In a world of fragmentation — institutional, political, social — Shafak offers something rare: calm, literary wisdom about how to hold complexity without losing ourselves. She writes about empathy, nuance, and the discipline of listening — all things bureaucracies tend to forget. Her message is simple but urgent: without compassion, even the best-designed reforms will fall flat. Shafak reminds us that pluralism — the ability to hold space for difference — isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. And yet, in a world of algorithmic echo chambers and identity-driven politics, we’re encouraged to shut down curiosity, reduce people to categories, and meet disagreement with hostility.
Together, these books remind me that systems change and inner change are intertwined. Ambition without imagination becomes technocracy. Imagination without ethics drifts into abstraction. And without sanity — the capacity to stay grounded in truth, emotion, and human connection — even the most well-meaning reforms can unravel.
Quote on reform: While the UN80 Initiative recognizes the need for reform, I am afraid that the bold, actionable changes risk of drowning in bureaucratic process rather than transformation.
Many of you have agreed that this must be the moment to be bold and ambitious. That is what our Organization needs – and that is what our times demand. Make no mistake – uncomfortable and difficult decisions lie ahead. It may be easier – and even tempting – to ignore them or kick the can down the road. But that road is a dead end. We cannot afford to act in any other way than with the highest level of ambition and common purpose.
Secretary-General's remarks on the UN80 Initiative, 12 May 2025
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