Red tape ravaging work of UN, warns Annan

BUREAUCRACY is threatening to overwhelm the UN as it struggles to process hundreds of thousands of pages worth of reports each year, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has warned.

In 2005, the UN delivered 1,200 reports on issues ranging from Guinea-Bissau to women’s rights in the developing world.

Its human rights office alone produced 44,000 pages of documents - which had to be translated into six official languages.

Such a huge volume of information, and the bureaucracy needed to produce it, threatens to overwhelm the UN, Mr Annan said in a study released this week.

The 191 member states must fund the tasks they ask for, and stop demanding so much if the UN is to live up to its ideals, he said.

The analysis, detailed in a dense 44-page report of its own, urges an overhaul of the giant UN bureaucracy.

“There is only so much that the Secretary-General and senior managers can effectively deliver and manage,” Mr Annan said.

The candid study shines a spotlight on the size and intricacy of UN bureaucracy.

One example cited is the General Assembly’s yearly request for notification of nuclear tests, even though the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty outlawed them.

“The large number of observances dilutes their significance, forces the UN to choose which to celebrate, and makes the organisation vulnerable to the criticism that it wastes resources on programmes that have no real impact on people’s lives,” the study said.