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New York: To improve the performance of the international organization, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for extensive structural changes. While acknowledging that some of these changes will be “painful” for the UN family, he laid out broad reform plans to modernize the way the UN system functions, including reducing expenses, moving services from expensive duty stations, centralizing information technology and support services, and increasing automation and digital platforms.

“As stated in my letter of 11 March, the UN80 Initiative is structured around three key workstreams: First, we are striving to rapidly identify efficiencies and improvements under current arrangements,” Guterres said during Monday’s UN80 Initiative briefing in New York. Second, we are examining how all of the directives from Member States are being carried out. Third, we are examining whether the UN system as a whole needs to refocus its programs and make fundamental adjustments. Under-Secretary-General Catherine Pollard is in charge of a Secretariat Working Group that is creating a management plan to create a new business model for the organization as part of the first workstream on efficiency and improvements.

“The Working Group is concentrating on creating suggestions for management and operations within the UN Secretariat that would reduce costs and increase efficiency. Identifying redundancies, streamlining procedures, and creating integrated solutions with cost-benefit assessments and well-defined implementation roadmaps are the goals of this examination of administrative operations. “Functional and structural consolidation, workforce simplification, moving services from expensive duty stations, centralizing IT and support services, and growing automation and digital platforms are priority areas,” he said.

He emphasized that although the rest of the Secretariat is expected to contribute to the efficiency agenda, the Working Group’s immediate focus would be on management and operational issues.

“All Secretariat entities in New York and Geneva, for instance, have been asked to review their functions to see if any can be performed from existing, lower-cost locations or may be reduced or abolished in other ways,” he said. This is particularly relevant to those roles that do not directly assist the Geneva and New York international entities.

“The High-Level Committee on Management suggested possible system-wide efficiency measures in April in areas including supply chain management, information and communications technology, and human resources management with regard to the larger UN system. Identifying services that system entities can provide more quickly, more cheaply, or via more competitive contracts is one of the specific recommendations that are now being explored, he said.

According to António Guterres, he anticipates significant cuts to the total budget level. He said that by ending the lease on one building and relocating employees to other existing spaces, they have already saved a significant amount of money in New York, and they anticipate saving much more money when the leases on two additional buildings expire in 2027.

“For example, let me describe what is under consideration in the peace and security cluster,” he continued, referring to the potential ways they may cut the budget. First, DPPA and DPO should be reset. Units should be merged, functional and structural duplications should be removed, and functions that are also used in other areas of the system should be removed. I think we can get rid of 20% of the positions in the two departments. Second, a similar effort to simplify the civilian portion of peacekeeping.

“Third, the integration of all counterterrorism initiatives dispersed across the system into OCT. Fourth, a study of the current arrangement of envoys, special representatives, and regional offices with the goal of systemic consolidation, enhanced functioning, and significant cost savings. Given the unique characteristics of each field of labor, the degree of post-reduction I have described for DPPA and DPO must be seen as a model for the larger UN80 exercise. Relocating employees and offering possible termination compensation may come with immediate, one-time expenses. However, we may lower our post and non-post expenses as well as our commercial presence in those areas by relocating posts from expensive locations,” he said.

He said that unless they concentrate on the programmatic areas of work, the necessary efficiency cannot be attained. He pointed out that focused outreach to the larger UN system is now in progress and would capitalize on the existing clusters’ efforts.

“More proposals from the other workstreams will be sent to Member States for consideration as appropriate,” he said. This year and next, the General Assembly will need to approve a number of adjustments. I will routinely and carefully interact with Member States about developments, asking for advice on how to proceed and, where necessary, putting forth specific ideas for debate and decision-making. We are aware that our UN family will suffer from some of these developments. Employees and their representatives are being listened to and consulted. Our goal is to handle every part of the necessary restructuring in a professional and compassionate manner.