Latest News in UN Governance & Accountability

All UN Executive Boards have regular discussions with their respective Ethics offices and other governance and oversight related functions. This briefing is followed by an informal briefing of the Board by the Audit and Investigation function on 21 May 2024.

In addition to the normal review of peacekeeping budgets, the Committee is also considering a new delivery model for UNMAS which is supposed to increase accountability without reducing the flexible delivery and operational approach of the organization. (See A/77/747 from the SG, and A/77/816 from the ACABQ). The roots of the financial challenges facing the UN and the liquidity crisis, which the Committee is discussing, relate to overall patterns of voluntary and assessed funding, which have undermined the spirit of multilateralism in recent decades. We summarize the issues and the latest research here: https://bit.ly/UNFinancing.

The Boards commissioned JIU to undertake the review which was completed in January of this year. The review provides a series of recommendations, based largely on governance best practices of the private sector. We've highlighted the risks of this approach in our previous spotlight (https://www.reformworks.org/post/why-corporate-governance-reforms-don-t-translate-to-un-boards). The review also recommends clarifying the roles and functions of various governance mechanisms, such as the ACABQ and General Assembly, in relation to the Executive Boards.

WFP is the only UN organization with a separate Management Plan, which highlights the complexity of managing such a large humanitarian organization. Board members have struggled to understand the Management Plan and the seminar is intended to assist the Board members in understanding key issues and improve decision-making on financial and management issues at the annual session.

The monthly briefing on UNOPs reforms was instituted following the S3i scandal (see our summary of the issues at: https://bit.ly/41dLJE9). The UNFPA Strategic Investment Fund was initiated as part of the current Strategic Plan to help mobilize domestic and international funding for strategic investments to deliver transformative results envisaged in the Strategic Plan. The evaluation briefing will cover not only evaluation priorities for this year, but also the planned update to the UNDP Evaluation Policy. We highlighted the latest research on what makes a good evaluation policy last year, as UNFPA and UNICEF were updating their policies (see https://bit.ly/45lO699).

This session focuses primarily on the budgets of UN peacekeeping operations. It also considers the Secretary-General's report on the financial situation of the organization and includes briefings by the Controller on the liquidity challenges facing the UN Secretariat (starting on 10 May). This session also includes the consideration of the independent evaluation of the delivery model of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) which proposes a hybrid model going forward (see the afternoon of 6 May).

The annual report outlines how many volunteers UNV has deployed, to which countries and which Sustainable Development Goals they have contributed. It is the annual performance report delivered to the Board.

The Special Session is to elect the 2nd Vice Chair of the Bureau, review the status of outstanding contribution and member state voting rights and for the new Director-General to brief on her selection of Deputy Director-Generals of IOM.

This is the 7th management update on Ethiopia, which arose due to concerns over widespread aid diversion in the country. The problems also spurred the creation of a new Reassurance Plan in WFP, which includes the use of new technologies to better track and prevent aid diversion. Read our previous summary of the latest research which highlights the benefits and risks of new technologies in this area (https://www.reformworks.org/post/navigating-the-ethics-of-technology-and-ai-in-aid-diversion-prevention). The Governance Review Working Group was formed in late 2023 to determine how to implement the recommendations of the independent review of the Executive Board completed in Sept. 2023. Find out more about the key governance review issues here: https://www.reformworks.org/post/making-un-boards-more-strategic-the-wfp-governance-review