UN must tackle bureaucracy, says Annan

In 2005, the United Nations delivered 1,200 reports on issues ranging from Guinea-Bissau to the rights of women in the developing world. Its human rights office alone produced 44,000 pages of documents – which in turn 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 United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a study released on Wednesday. The 191 member states must fund the tasks they ask for, and stop demanding so much if the world body is to live up to the ideals and promises of its founders, he said.