"More power for UN reps urged"

Read the full article by Mark Turner in the Financial Times , November 9 2006.

A blue-ribbon reform committee has recommended that the United Nations should establish a network of much more powerful country representatives who have and exercise the authority to rein in and allocate funds for country programs. This would presumably affect UNESCO's programs as well as those of other decentralized U.N. agencies.

The reform committee of 15 including the UK chancellor of the exchequer, the prime ministers of Pakistan, Norway and Mozambique, and the former presidents of Chile and Tanzania.

The committee suggests designing unified UN development plans in each country, putting all funds into a single pot, and then allocating money to the different agencies as appropriate. The process would be overseen by a UN resident-coordinator in that country who would have far more authority than at present. The UN’s global network of coordinators would then report to a powerful new ‘Sustainable Development Board’, headed by the UNDP in New York.

Their proposals need the approval of the General Assembly to become policy.
According to the The Financial Times article, it is far from clear whether the recommendations will be accepted by the General Assembly.