A panel appointed by Congress will issue a report this week criticizing the United Nations for poor management, low staff morale and lack of accountability and professional ethics, but back changes proposed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the New York Times reported on its Web site on Sunday.
The recommendations include adopting corporate-style oversight bodies and staff standards, as well as creating a rapid reaction capability to prevent genocide, mass killings and sustained human rights violations before they occur, the newspaper said.
The co-chairman of the bipartisan task force, created in December, are Newt Gingrich, a Republican former speaker of the House of Representatives, and George Mitchell, a Democratic former majority Senate leader. Other members include former diplomats, military and intelligence experts, and representatives of right- and left-leaning institutions.
Panel urges ‘real’ changes
The Task Force on the United Nations gave a copy of its 174-page report, due to be made public in Washington on Wednesday, to The New York Times on Sunday.
In a foreword, Gingrich and Mitchell said they were “struck by the United Nations’ own receptivity to needed reforms” but added that the changes “must be real and must be undertaken promptly,” the paper reported.
“The secretary-general has often put forward good-sounding reform proposals then failed to push hard against predictable resistance from staff and member states,” the Times quoted the report as saying.
Annan has proposed wide-ranging changes which he plans to put to a meeting of more than 170 heads of government scheduled to be held at U.N. headquarters this fall.
They include expanding the membership of the Security Council, creating a peace-building commission, trying to redefine terrorism and replacing the Human Rights Commission with a smaller Human Rights Council that would prevent notorious rights violators from joining.
