NEW YORK, 15 November: The departing top UN management official said Wednesday he leaves behind an organization that is more transparent, accountable and ethical than when he joined thanks to new initiatives that have been championed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and called for efforts to carry them forward.
– Over the last few months, we have accomplished a tremendous amount. This Secretary-General Kofi Annan had laid the foundation on the road to a 21st century, said Under-Secretary-General for Management Christopher Burnham on his last day of work at the world body, where he served since June 2005.
Mr. Burnham hailed the creation of the new UN Ethics Office, which provides ethical advice and training for UN staff “so that we can always rise to the highest numerator and not immediately think we all have to go down to the lowest common denominator.”
He noted that the Ethics Office also serves to review new financial disclosure forms which are more comprehensive than those of the United States Congress and had been expanded to apply to more staff members, from some 200 to approximately 2.000.
He called the UNs new whistleblower (sladrehanke) protection policy the “strongest” in the world, and praised the use of international public sector accounting standards. Those standards, combined with new software systems, would serve to improve accountability.
A new audit committee will help in a number of ways, including by allowing the Office for Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) to have greater independence, he said, hailing also the work of the Procurement Task Force for promoting accountability.
Looking ahead, Mr. Burnham stressed the importance of the Capital Master Plan, a scheme to overhaul the dilapidated (nedslidte og forældede) UN complex in New York and render it compliant with health and safety codes (FN-bygningen er bl.a. fuld af asbest).
Other issues which will require follow-up include efforts to improve the administration of internal justice at the UN. A high-level panel had done critical work on this issue. Follow through “will have to be on the to-do list for 2007,” Mr. Burnham said.
Burnham also had a warning:
-The United Nations will lose its place in the world as the pre-eminent body for collective security and international development unless its operations and practices are brought into the 21st century, the outgoing UN management chief warned.
Burnham, an American financial expert who has been a driving force in efforts to reform the UN, is the first senior UN official to leave before Ban Ki-moons takeover as secretary-general from Kofi Annan on January 1.
His advice to Ban was “stay the course on reform and modernization. Kofi Annan has turned over an excellent game plan for bringing this institution into the 21st century. We need to stay the course”.
– And it will take 10 or 14 years before this institution becomes all that is has the potential to be, in instituting ethics, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness, noted he.
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