To hell all the papers and power sockets! We need an efficient UN?now!

Helen Clark’s call for member states of the United Nations to back off and let the Secretary-General lead was powerful.

Three years ago, I went for a 4-months traineeship at the Mission of Brazil to the United Nations in New York and was feeling delighted! Brazil was playing a key role in the negotiations of the Post-2015 Development Agenda and SDGs. I thought I would contribute to important resolutions to make the world a better place. But I was allocated in the Fifth Committee.

The Fifth Committee is the Committee of the General Assembly with responsibilities for administration and budgetary matters. In other words, it’s the “housekeeping” group at the UN. The Main Sessions started just after the 69th General Assembly in October 2014, and so did my work in supporting my supervisor, a very qualified female diplomat.

In my first week attending the formal and informal consultations, I noticed that while the Agenda Items were relevant, the discussions were taking way too long and delegates getting easily unfocused.

I remember being in an afternoon consultation where, for almost 2 hours, member states discussed the type of power sockets available in the UN building: “Why do we have the American socket and not the European one? I can’t charge my laptop without an adapter!” I wanted to yell!! How can this be relevant in a world where people are starving to death? In another occasion, a delegate initiated a discussion around the printed materials available in the room: “Why isn’t the Conference Management team bringing hard copies of the documents in all the 6 official languages?” Amazon rainforest cried with me that day. Towards the end of December, the hot topic was the budget outline. A relevant one, indeed. But it was JUST the OUTLINE. Still, we spent Christmas Eve at the UN building discussing almost every single word of the draft resolution. Lucky me, my sister and brother-in-law were up to some celebration when I got home around 3:00 in the morning.

I understand that an organisation as big and important as the UN has to be accountable and transparent. But it MUST be efficient too! Yet, what I saw in that Fifth Committee was: inefficiency, loads and loads of paperwork and, most of the time, irrelevant discussions.

I’ve never thought I would agree with something said by Donald Trump. But yesterday, he pointed out important and urgent issues at the High-Level Event on United Nations Reform.

I witnessed and shared above only a few cases of inefficient bureaucracy and maladministration in the heart of the organisation. Sad but true, a considerable part of the UN staff just shows up to work and do the very minimum every day. Whistleblowers are ignored or, even worst, punished. Take the case of the Swedish diplomat, Anders Kompass, who had to quit after exposing sexual abuse by peacekeepers in CAR.

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., a former United States Ambassador to the UN, once said: “This organisation is created to prevent you from going to hell. It isn’t created to take you to heaven.” Fair enough. BUT, for most people on earth, HELL is happening right HERE, right NOW. What is the UN and member states doing to prevent it?

 Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organisation.