United Nations General Assembly
Fifth Committee
ITEM 122: Review of Efficiency
Statement by Phillip Taula, Representative of the New Zealand Mission to the United Nations, on behalf of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
12 October 2005
I have the honour to speak on behalf of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I also take this opportunity to congratulate the Chairman and other members of the Bureau on their election.
Mr Chairman, at the Summit last month our leaders highlighted the vital importance of accountability, oversight, transparency and ethics. While report A/60/312 predates the Summit Outcome document, we welcome the range of measures that have already been undertaken by the Secretary General. We believe that these will help to strengthen public confidence in the United Nations.
We welcome, for example, the more clearly defined role of the new Management Performance Board and its focus on the performance of individual senior managers. We concur with the comments in paragraph four of report A/60/312 about the importance of having clearly defined responsibilities and performance expectations at all levels. But these need to be coupled with mechanisms to ensure that there are consequences associated with poor performance.
Mr Chairman, there is broad agreement that effective oversight machinery is an essential part of the accountability chain. We welcome the agreement to strengthen, as a matter of priority, the Office of Internal Oversight Services. This is a necessary, but only a first, step toward the strengthening of oversight. We reiterate our strong support for the effective and independent, external evaluation of UN oversight, as agreed during the Summit.
Mr Chairman, we appreciate the information presented in report A/60/342, but fear the report falls short of what had been asked. Concerning the contribution of the Department of Management to improving management practice, we note the measures taken by specific managers in the Department. Nothing is said, however, about what the Department does, or should do, to develop and promote good management practices within the Secretariat as a whole. It was for this purpose that the General Assembly approved the creation of a Management Policy Office within the Department of Management.
We would like to see further quantification of the impact of the measures taken by the Department of Management in the report. Improvements in efficiency need to be measured in real terms, both to remind staff and to reassure Member States that the Secretariat is doing everything it can to remove bureaucratic and inefficient management practices.
Finally, concerning the request for the time bound plan for eliminating duplication, complexity and unnecessary bureaucracy, the report merely summarises the status of some of the issues raised by the OIOS report on the subject to the 58th session (A/58/211). But the central issue raised by the OIOS was the need for an enterprise-wide approach to tackling this issue on an ongoing basis. We urge the Secretary General to develop this time bound plan in the coming year.
Thank you Mr Chairman.