June 2006: Discussions on UN reform have continued in several forums in recent weeks, and are set to carry on throughout June.

The UN System-wide Coherence Panel and the UN General Assembly consultations on environmental governance have continued their work, along with discussions on the UN mandate review. Polarized positions over the UN budget and management reform have been widely reported by the media. This report sets out recent and upcoming events in the key processes.

High-level Panel on UN System-wide Coherence
The UN Secretary General’s High-level Panel in the Areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance and the Environment has met several times in April and May 2006. The Panel held a seminar in Nairobi at the beginning of April, and stakeholder consultations in Mozambique later that month. On 15 May, the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) hosted the Panel’s Consultation on the Resident Coordinator System; and on 24 May the Panel held further consultations in Islamabad, Pakistan. In the coming month, the Panel is expected to focus on the following issues: environment, transition from relief to development, business practices, financing of the UN system and relationship with international financial institutions. Other priority areas for its work include: humanitarian assistance, addressing the transition gap from relief to development, taking into account the existing framework and new developments such as the Peacebuilding Commission and the Central Emergency Response Fund; mainstreaming the environment into development and translating environmental issues at the field level; and mainstreaming gender, human rights and sustainable development.
Overall, while the Panel will take into account possibilities of comprehensive restructuring, it is expected to focus mostly on delivery mechanisms rather than the creation of new organs or agencies.
More information
MEA Bulletin (May 2006)
Newsletters from “Reform the UN” (May and June 2006):
17 May 2006
5 June 2006
Stakeholder Forum updates (June 2006)

UNGA Consultations on Environmental Governance
In two recent letters to delegates, the two Co-Chairs of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) consultations on environmental governance – Enrique Berruga of Mexico and Peter Maurer of Switzerland – scheduled further consultations on 13, 20 and 27 June 2006, at UN headquarters in New York. Co-Chairs Berruga and Maurer proposed that the June consultations should focus on enhanced coordination, improved policy advice and guidance, better integration of environmental activities in the broader sustainable development framework at the operation level (including through capacity building), better treaty compliance, and strengthened scientific knowledge, assessment and cooperation.
Co-Chairs Berruga and Maurer also announced that a web link with relevant background information on environmental governance issues will be established, to promote inclusiveness and transparency in the consultations, and confirmed their close contact with the Secretary General’s High-level Panel on System Wide Coherence.
More information
Letters available on the UN General Assembly website (May 2006):
24 May 2006
31 May 2006

UN mandate review
Informal consultations on the review of mandates held on 8 May 2006 at UN headquarters in New York focused on the promotion of sustainable growth and sustainable development. The G-77/China stressed that the UN General Assembly should provide guidance on strengthening ECOSOC and other bodies, as well as reviewing cross-cutting mandates. They further underscored that ECOSOC mandate to promote the integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up to the outcomes of major UN conferences and summits on economic, social and environmental fields should be preserved and strengthened. They also underscored the importance of ECOSOC’s role in providing overall oversight, coordination and guidance for UN operational activities and in acting as the central mechanism for system-wide coherence. The US proposed to discontinue the mandate of Regional Commissions to prepare for and follow-up on UN Conferences and Summits. Canada, Australia and New Zealand (CANZ) and Japan also underscored the need to review the division of labor between the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Regional Commissions and other bodies working on sustainable development, proposing that UNDESA continue to support the Commission on Sustainable Development and the Commission on Population and Development, but leave operational activities to UN funds and programmes. The US highlighted the serious need of reform of UNDESA, UNCTAD and the Regional Commissions.
On linkages with ongoing processes on environmental governance, CANZ focused on the complementarity between other UN reform processes and the mandate review, proposing to set aside from the review issues that fall expressly within the UN Coherence High-level Panel’s terms of reference. The European Union called for interlinked and mutually reinforcing processes on UN reform and environmental governance.
More information
Stakeholder Forum updates (June 2006)

UN management reform
Media reports have increasingly called attention to the upcoming discussions on the UN budget and its links with the UN management reform. Following the developing countries’ (G-77/China) request for additional reports from the Secretariat, which has slowed movement on UN management reform, the US, Japan and the EU have said they would impose additional spending caps on the UN budget unless significant reforms take place. The UN biennium budget has already been subject to a six-month spending cap ending on 30 June. According to some sources, the “deadlock” that has resulted from the U.N.’s two-year budget being “truncated to a six-month spending limit” is expected to continue, with new spending caps conditional upon significant progress being achieved in UN management reforms. Developing countries consider such spending cap an “unacceptable” and “unprecedented” measure, and hope the existing cap will be lifted in June 2006.
In response to the concerns related to the UN budget and UN reforms, a group of 42 nongovernmental organizations wrote on 8 June to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging the U.S. government to articulate its priorities for UN reform and embrace diplomacy to solve any conflicts. The UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown has recently expressed his hope that the North-South deadlock over UN budget and management reforms will not continue, calling on greater US engagement in the UN. Supporting Malloch Brown’s statement, the Secretary-General Kofi Annan also expressed optimism that a budget crisis will be averted.
More information
UN News (June 2006):
6 June 2006
7 June 2006
Inter Press Service News Agency:
31 May 2006
8 June 2006
SUNS (June 2006)
Inter Press Service News Agency
The Independent (9 June 2006)
The Financial Times (9 June 2006; registration required)
BBC news (June 7, 2006)
NGO letter