A rudderless UN needs to reform

Ban Ki-Moon is seeking a second term as United Nations secretary-general, but his record does not justify support. If UN member states have any appetite for change – and they should have, because the organisation has problems – then a new leader with new ideas should be found.

The surprising thing about the United Nations is not that it functions so badly, but that it functions at all. Under incessant, conflicting political pressures from 192 member states plus any number of non-governmental and corporate interests; operating in all time zones, many languages and more cultures; and always short of money, the UN has problems beyond counting.

And yet the UN is mankind's principal implement for "harmonising the actions of nations", in the words of its optimistic 1945 charter.

So ineffective leadership is the last thing the world body needs. But that, we are sorry to say, is what the UN has had for almost five years under Ban Ki-moon, the former South Korean foreign minister who, at age 66, now appears to be a sure thing for a second term as UN secretary-general. It is time for somebody else to tackle the task.

The secretary general has, ex officio, some precious moral authority. But Mr Ban, a terminally dull public speaker, makes minimal use of his, as has been noted repeatedly by insiders. In 2009, for example, a Norwegian diplomatic memo leaked to the media called him "spineless and charmless" and accused him of being slack on human rights.

Of course that suits some UN members just fine. It's no coincidence that China (which, with about 9 per cent of world GDP, contributes just 3 per cent of the UN's budget) supports his re-election enthusiastically.

At the administrative level, Mr Ban's biggest accomplishment seems to have been the establishment of a slightly streamlined bureaucracy to deal with women's issues. A well-intentioned effort to make the whole administrative machine more effective foundered quickly; when UN agencies reacted fiercely to protect their turf Mr Ban settled for "further study" - that age-old code word for stasis - by a new set of committees.

In fairness it must be said that the challenges in the job are enormous. Too many stakeholders - internal and external, political and bureaucratic and financial - are quick to defend their status and their share of the $5.2 billion (Dh19.1 bn) in the UN's current two-year budget.

But five more years of desultory status quo leadership will not help. As intractable as the UN's problems are, a new leader with new energy and new vision might bring hope of improvement. But that won't happen unless UN member states and agencies acknowledge the need for change.