Time running out for UN reform draft, Annan warns

United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan said today he was concerned that agreement on a draft document for UN reform may not be reached in time for next week’s gathering of world leaders.

Negotiators working on the declaration, which is to be adopted by the 180 leaders expected at the September 14-16 World Summit at the United Nations, have been focusing on issues ranging from terrorism to overhauling UN management.

“I am very concerned that despite some signs of progress, the work may not finish on time and the deadline will be missed,” he said.

Annan called for greater compromise among ambassadors from a core group of 32 nations that began negotiating a draft document two weeks ago.

“If member states are going to get a meaningful outcome, there will need to be more give and take,” he said.

The overall goal is to produce a blueprint to reform the United Nations and achieve UN goals to reduce poverty for world leaders to approve at the summit.

Key issues expected in the document are steps to fight poverty; a Human Rights Council with more authority to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission; a new Peacebuilding Commission to help nations emerging from conflict; new responsibility for governments to protect civilians facing genocide and war crimes; and disarmament and non-proliferation.

A devastating indictment of UN leadership in a year-long investigation of the oil-for-food programme in Iraq have complicated the effort to come up with a document. The report blamed UN officials for putting £5.7bn (€8.4bn) in the pocket of Saddam Hussein’s government.

With time running out, ambassadors this week were not optimistic.

Britain’s UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry and China’s deputy ambassador Zhang Yishan agreed on Thursday that there was no movement.

There is widespread agreement among the 191 UN member states that there is a need for management reforms in the UN Secretariat, headed by Annan.

But there is a deep division, mainly between developed and developing nations, on whether the secretary-general should get more power at the expense of the General Assembly which controls the UN budget and oversees most management decisions.

Further, developing countries have said their top priority at the summit is action to improve the lives of their citizens and meet UN Millennium Development Goals. Those goals include cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring universal primary education, and stemming the Aids pandemic, all by 2015.