PROPOSALS
DOGE-UN is preparing assessments of areas for attention and consideration by all UN stakeholders.
In sum they will enable stakeholders to assess better the value proposition of the UN Organization as a going concern for advancing the mutual values, interests, and policies of UN Member States.
In other words, DOGE-UN asks
Does the UN work, and does it work for us, “We the Peoples?”
DOGE-UN abides by the belief that the UN’s value proposition is compelling. Therefore, DOGE-UN’s program of work will diagnose measures for the UN to improve its effectiveness and efficiency as a resource for multilateral engagements.
Cooperation, coordination, and collective action require international machinery. The sunk investment into the UN enterprise is worth evaluating for possible right-sizing, for rehabilitating its corporate culture, and for retooling its processes meant to support Its Member States.
INTRODUCTION
The following points are works in progress. They are by no means an exhaustive listing of DOGE-UN’s subjects for review, nor do they suggest a fixed roadmap for DOGE-UN’s planned destinations - themselves subject to intervening events and demands.
IMPROVED STEWARDSHIP OF THE UN ORGANIZATION BY ITS MEMBER STATES
When international problems seem implacable, it is easy to blame the UN Organization as a convenient scapegoat. Yes, It was designed to some degree to provide some face-saving between rival countries so as to avoid further international tensions.
But blaming the UN Organization has been made much easier by its own administrative shortcomings in the employ of its Member States.
But how good is the Membership’s stewardship of the Organization?
Getting back to the UN Organization’s shortcomings would have to start with one perhaps difficult to hear, that being the lackluster stewardship of this contraption by its 193 member states.
Although the United States is the first and sometimes the only voice arguing for more effectiveness and efficiency, this has not been consequential enough due to a UN bureaucracy able to outlive spates of complaints from its Membership.
There is a science to running and valuing business sectors – something which employs many Wall Street analysts. But there are no Wall Street firms looking at international organizations to value them and to identify best practices and performance. Our politicians and bureaucrats are expected to do this – and without reference to stock prices, market trends, and related quantitative indicators. But this dry, wonky field has never been a career builder for diplomats craving drama and headlines. And those in it find that their advice is often eclipsed by political expediencies managed at higher pay grades.
Nonetheless, Membership must carry the burden of supervising its Organization. It is called the United Nations, not the United Secretariat.
The suggestion here is to improve the ability of Member State delegates to master the stewardship of the Organization as much as it focuses its skills and abilities on the topics of war and peace on the agenda. This would involve reform within the world’s many foreign ministries to enhance career promotion prospects for those developing expertise in multilateral affairs.
QUELL THE DEEP STATE UN
Without better stewardship on a daily basis, the Organization’s bureaucratic shortcomings, over its eighty years come this autumn, have developed a “deep state” throughout the Secretariat, with the servant becoming the master.
Having been left to its own devices the UN Organization’s secretariat staff has jerry-rigged at best its management, administrative, and budgetary matters. The place has become a distressed property, lowering values, and attracting problems – chief of which is China exploiting the situation for its geopolitical advantage.
This deep state correlates with a very poorly administered enterprise. Certainly, there are examples of mission-driven individuals in the UN Secretariat, but the corporate culture is a petri dish of quiet contempt for key Member States (principally US), a membership “Stockholm syndromed” to the UN deep state’s bureaucratic entrapments, and the Secretariat’s pittance of administrative reporting and accountability - all the while forgiving its own excesses and shortcomings.
LINK UN REFORM TO SECRETARY-GENERAL SELECTION IN 2026
The timing of DOGE-UN is, in part, to provide resources to stakeholders for modernizing and democratizing the recruitment, vetting, and selection of the next UN Secretary-General (to be finalized during 2026).
Yes, the overall call for UN reform must be linked to the selection of the next UN Secretary-General to take office on 1 January 2027. The selection process is more an art than a science and merits its own deep dive memo. What would be useful from stakeholders right now would be focused scrutiny of the incumbent Secretary-General’s job performance. This would serve as a means of conveying the Member States’ expectations of candidates standing for the next Secretary-General term of office.
While no one expects the incumbent Secretary-General to solve humanity’s woes with suddenness, at least he must perform his UN Charter duty well - make better administratively what has turned into a faltering and forgettable Organization. Without solid administrative deliverables from him to begin immediately, it would be fair to characterize his legacy as one of fall-off of the Organization’s effectiveness, efficiency, and relevance.
There are many symptoms indicating the need for reforms or various types, e.g, managerial, administrative, structural, and financial.
Over the next 18 months DOGE-UN will endeavor to provide to UN stakeholders materials pertinent to a robust selection process of the next UN Secretary-General to occur in later 2026. Further, DOGE-UN will produce debates among the candidates for Secretary-General to occur as soon as possible and often thereafter in implementation of the UNGA resolution in 2015 calling for an open selection process which occurred in 2016 to great fanfare. The subsequent 2021 selection process reverted to a secretive decision-making process. This must not recur in 2026.
CHARTER REVIEW
DOGE-UN is considering a review of the UN Charter, something never undertaken in the Organization’s 79 year history. A Review Conference would assess and prescribe the UN Organization’s purposes, principles, and methods for international cooperation into the ensuing era. A review is provided in the Charter’s Article 101 and has been petitioned by several UN stakeholders and advocates, including the Global Governance Forum and Democracy Without Borders.
But more immediately, DOGE-UN will commence below with actions needed on the ground sooner rather than later.
….Proposals in development….
Here we look at topics DOGE-UN is considering and formulating for immediate Member States’ policy considerations.
The DOGE exercise in the United States has set up a checklist of its proposals[5]. DOGE-UN is developing its proposals with an eye to what seems to get traction elsewhere.
As the DOGE initiative has already discovered, early salvos over the bow of the ship can get attention and upend the status quo into a status no.
As for DOGE-UN, there are many symptoms for reform: managerial, administrative, structural, financial. In the course of triaging in the emergency room, over the next two years DOGE-UN will also propose a thematic review of the UN Organization’s purposes, principles, and methods for international cooperation for the ensuing era.
But to start, DOGE-UN develops proposed actions needed on the ground sooner rather than later.
Short of an encyclopedic offering of many such measures, a checklist of some preliminary, defined targets here might be considered by UN stakeholders to develop early traction and tangible wins:
· Improve procurement practices
· Establish independent inspection
· Improve administrative performance reporting to stakeholders
· Provide more scrutinous auditing
Independent Commission of Inquiry
· Undertake cost-saving measures
· Recalibrate dues equitably lowering the US bill
· Expose the UN deep state and make the UN great again
Develop staff through merit with the UN Charter’s diversity, inclusion, and equity
· Revitalize the General Assembly
· Enliven the Economic and Social Council
· Repurpose the Trusteeship Council to resolve Russia/Ukraine, Syria, et al
IMPROVE PROCUREMENT PRACTICES
The means by which the UN Organization procures billions of dollars in goods and services for its many programmatic activities needs immediate attention.
For example and in a nutshell, UN requests for bids to vendors do not allow for the marketplace give and take, instead the Organization decides what it wants without consultations with vendors toward what might prove more workable and efficient solutions.
But such solution-finding could prove to cut costs and save taxpayers money. This would aid in stemming the internal corruption that occurs periodically and often with scant accountability or consequences. Procurement guidelines may be revised within the existing prerogative of the UN Secretary-General.
Lamentably procurement often invites corruption. The Organization has not been spared, and its corporate culture must apply the same standards that the UN Membership have developed for quelling corruption around the world in its UN Convention Against Corruption.
INDEPENDENT INSPECTOR GENERAL NEEDED
Matters of inspection and oversight were institutionalized relatively recently into an Office of Internal Oversight Services. However, it is not independent of the Secretary-General who determines its work and reporting. Oversight in the UN Organization needs to be made truly independent (as are inspectors general of US federal agencies). This could be accomplished within existing authorities of the Secretary-General, or if necessary through a General Assembly resolution.
ADMINISTRATIVE PERFORMANCE REPORTING TO STAKEHOLDERS
Given that Washington has allowed the US Pentagon to fail its audits seven years in a row, one can imagine the slurry that passes for accountability in the UN Organization’s books.
The Secretary-General is identified as the Chief Administrative Officer of the UN Organization by the UN Charter, however the Secretariat’s annual “report to shareholders” without fail speaks principally of the ills of the world and pleads for yet more resources to the Organization.
The 92 percent of membership that foots only 10 percent of the UN’s regular budget does not find it worthwhile to antagonize the Secretary-General on this matter – they are net gainers overall.
However, the Secretariat must meet the major donors’ requests for results-based budgeting to include metrics for assessing effectiveness and efficiency of its activities. This requires the major donors to detail and insist on results-based budgeting. Immediately such reporting from the administrator to membership can be undertaken within existing authorities.
THOROUGH AUDITS – START WITH UNWRA
A strict audit of UNWRA funding and accountability for its documented missteps, dalliances, and abuses is an obvious and early target. It would likely identify inefficiencies and derelictions that would receive wide media coverage once reported, thus giving notice to other funds and programs to hew very closely to their mission with relentless discipline and accountability for resources, operations, and outcomes.
INDEPENDENT COMMISSION OF INQUIRY
An Independent Commission of Inquiry is proposed. It would be designed to bring light and suggest consequences for UN administrative and programmatic activities of dubious to fraudulent purpose and lacking accountability.
COST-SAVING: DECENTRALIZATION
A bold proposal would address the UN Development Program of the UN Organization. It has a separate budget of about $7 billion and is based in New York.
Why not have UNDP Headquarters situated in an actual developing country?
There it would be closer to its subject matter. It is likely to result in some employees selecting out with the effect of slimming the workforce; it would also cut human resources and other administrative costs saving taxpayers money given that a more affordable local economy would factor into significant cost savings.
Furthermore, a major developing country such as India or Brazil could officially host UNDP which is a matter of prestige. This creates an added benefit for the relevance and footprint of the UN Organization.
Decentralizing certain UN Organization entities from New York, particularly to countries that would otherwise consider themselves candidates for permanent membership in the UN Security Council if it were ever to expand (unlikely), would enhance the global nature of the UN enterprise and flatter that ally country. India, Brazil, Japan, and Germany as “the Group of Four” have been the most persistently vocal about Security Council membership expansion. China, France, Russia, the US, and UK have continued to humor them for over twenty years (a topic for a separate memo). Hosting a UN entity of some significance might satisfy this appetite.
Decentralizing certain functions to lower-cost places - viz. India or Brazil - could include relocating the multi-lingual interpretation staff for remote work. The pandemic proved that such chores can be effectively performed remotely versus locally which involves expensive overtime costs under special unionized provisions.
Other UN administrative efficiencies that were developed during the pandemic might likewise be identified for consideration, such as virtual sessions that would save travel expenses and enable more diverse participants and exchange of views. Such cost-saving and staff slimming measures could be done through existing authorities of the Secretariat.
COST-SAVING: CONFERENCE SERVICES
Further to cost cutting, there has been a growth industry of major UN global conferences in various capitals on a variety of topics (climate, women, development, etc.), to include follow-ups every five and ten years. The topic of any such confab could be easily addressed within the existing conference facilities and agenda of the UN General Assembly. The Assembly, to remind, is in fact THE global conference. It meets permanently through annual cycles and sits at the globe’s apex of inter-state, multilateral affairs considerations.
As for identifying more efficiencies in the area of conference services, the General Assembly’s agenda of upwards of 300 items needs rationalization for user-friendliness and given the constraints of constraints (there are only 24 and 7). There is redundancy among many items; and obsolete items persist on the docket, such as the Falklands-Malvinas dispute that took place over forty years ago.
When a UN resolution creates a new program to implement, it very rarely includes a sunset provision (routinely resisted by parties and Secretariat staff that have interests served by open-ended mandates on those topics, each one employing staff and producing separate reports). Sunsetting the bureaucracy once the chore is effectively over would require detailing the end-date of the mandate or perhaps offering to extend the mandate upon certain stated conditions negotiated by the Member States in each resolution. Member States must overcome the Secretariat’s all-night partying and insist on sunset provisions .
Further, at times the same topic is discussed simultaneously in the Economic and Social Council, the Security Council, or the General Assembly. Any topic under consideration should be scrutinized as to its formal consideration in another UN principal organ. This, too, would require UN member states to agree on arrangements.
FURTHER DEMOCRATIZE THE BILL THROUGH RECALIBRATED DUES
Turning to the assessed funding of the UN Organization, the United States is the top funder at approximately 22% of the UN Regular Budget, then China 12%, Japan 9%, Germany 6%, United Kingdom 5%, France 5%, and down the line.
In the past, the United States resorted to withholding dues to force changes in UN operations, a very antagonistic and costly expense to that country’s political capital worldwide.
Instead, there is an unplumbed opportunity to reallocate equitably the burden as countries continue to develop and prosper as never before.
Dues are calculated on an elaborate formula based on each country’s GDP in absolute terms using the US dollar. But a US dollar at work in another country often buys more of the same good or service than it does in the United States: comparable affordibility. Adjusting US dollar purchasing power into a “purchasing power parity” or PPP value recalculates more equitably the relative wealth between countries on a comparable affordability basis.
If the UN Organization were to establish PPP as the methodology in billing its members relative to their share of global wealth, the US share of the UN regular budget could fall by an estimated 5% to 10% for every year thereafter. This would support the trend that as countries develop economically, the burden of funding the UN should find some relief for its largest benefactors. Currently China and India, each classified as a developing country and therefore have their dues assessment discounted, have launched lunar missions and modernized their economies in ways competitive to several sectors in major developed economies.
Although most Member States would prefer the status quo, the compelling argument for PPP is that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank use this approach in their official reporting. Both entities are officially associated with the UN Organization as the subject matter experts on global wealth and PPP is their “go to” metric in their extensive work throughout the world economy. Changing UN billing to its Member States along this line would require agreement by the UN General Assembly (note: a majority of its members would see their bills increase proportionately).
RE-ELEVATE UN MEMBERSHIP VIS-A-VIS THE UN DEEP STATE
This proposal could effect a sea change toward reviving UN relevance and spirit from the administrative state plundering it.
Democracy is indeed under attack – but not in the world’s democracies as much as it in in the United Nations Organization. The UN deep state has evolved by subverting the democratic exercise of the UN General Assembly.
An area for immediate attention and impact relates to the internal dynamic between the Secretary-General at the helm of the Secretariat and the UN Member States’ General Assembly. The Secretary-General must take visible and consequential actions to acknowledge the respect due to the President of the Assembly. Accordingly, the Secretariat must allocate sufficient and necessary resources to the Office of the President.
The 193 member states of the Assembly each year elect their President to oversee the entire Organization and its heavy agenda (including review of the Security Council’s work). Thusly, the President has the highest protocol ranking in the Organization (whereas the Secretary-General is the top employee). But only $250,000, or a miniscule 0.007% of the UN’s $3.6 billion program budget, is allocated for the President’s work program by the UN deep state. This status quo chokes off the voice of the General Assembly - “We the peoples.”
Again, and unbelievably, less than $250,000 is allocated to pay for the President’s $5 million budget to fund basic staffing, travel, and the occasional diplomatic breakthrough. (Meanwhile the Secretary-General takes trips to the Arctic and Antarctic to eyewitness glacier melt as selfie-backdrops for his climate change manifesto.)
So, to keep his doors open and lights on, the President has to fundraise off the books. Not only does this impede the President from the peoples’ work, the likes of a diplomatic “go fund me” is altogether undignified. What if we were to expect the Speaker of the US House of Representatives or the Speaker of the US Senate to raise their own administrative funds to operate? Further, such off-the-books dealings by an UNGA President several years ago resulted in ethical improprieties, scandal, and may have led to his sudden death occurring under suspicious circumstances.
A reordering of the relative status of the President of the General Assembly and the Secretary-General is direly needed. The President is elected annually by all the countries of the world – in fact, the strongest indicator in the world of the power and utility of democratic elections. This democratic representativeness is quelled by the grandstanding and patronage maneuvers of the UN deep state Secretary-General. (This trend has included the exiling by the Secretariat of non-governmental organizations accredited to the UN from basic access to the premises. This, too, must be addressed in favor of “We the peoples” as represented by NGOs which have standing under the UN Charter.)
The UN Secretariat’s old-boy network featherbeds the UN administrative state. Patronizing that they “know better” the will of humankind than do the Member States themselves, this unelected brahmin of an approximate 28,000 worldwide gin up their own press releases and mug for the camera at every opportunity, whether the Membership has specifically mandated it or not.
But it is not as if they have earned the right to pre-empt the voice of “We the peoples.” Whenever its ingenuity has been most needed for use by the member states, the UN deep state instead pronounces pompously, prescribes pitifully, and performs to stay employed. When it does act, it misses its targets repeatedly: to wit Syria, Russia/Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and emerging threats such as hybrid warfare. It appears that the UN deep state corporate culture does not let a good crisis go to waste or expire. Crisis equates to employment; it is a commodity for the deep state’s supply chain.
Having offered its very expensive five cents for the membership’s considerations of the crisis at hand, the Secretariat predictably washes its hands of the matter incanting “resolution depends on the political will of member states.”
If so, then the Secretary-General should fund the General Assembly President with sufficient resources, drop his “moral authority of the Secretary-General” virtue signaling, and provide effective and efficient administrative support. This would include Secretariat staff (1) to return to the office from about two days per week to full time, (2) to stop working remotely stealthily from cheaper economies while taking the forty percent cost of living allowance for New York based work, and (3) to stop overspending UN Organization resources months before the end of the fiscal year.
To repeat: the place is called the United Nations, not the United Secretariat. This must be reversed. So, what to do?
Measures here would include returning the Office of the President of the General Assembly to the C-Suite (38th floor) of the Secretariat after having been demoted to ground level years ago by a jealous Secretary-General. This could be done under existing authority. Further, budget allocations must be made to support the Office without the President having to fundraise to meet office expenses. It is likely that the Secretary-General’s accounting methods could accommodate this amount within existing resources, or the General Assembly might act accordingly. This is likely to cut costs as the Secretary-General’s attentions would revert to tasks as chief administrative officer instead of being the “face of the Organization” which by all protocol and representative right belongs to the President of the General Assembly.
Develop staff through merit with the UN Charter’s diversity, inclusion, and equity
The UN Organization needs to develop the best human resources talent available bearing in mind relevant provisions of the Charter. Undue interference in this function must be overcome. Suspend all DEI training and indoctrination programming as measures second-guessing the authority of the Charter regarding principles of human rights and the dignity of each individual. The UN Organization, as a moral platform, must serve to model such behavior for all. It can do so by living its Charter fully as a matter of normative behavior well-established around the world, such as abiding in truthfulness and respect with each other in all one does.
By definition, the United Nations already embodies the principles of diversity, inclusion, and equity. They are hard-wired in the UN Charter.
Diversity: all cultures are at the table
Inclusiveness: The Organization is the world’s only universal membership forum for political discourse, among other things
Equity: Ultimate actions are taken on the “one country, one equal vote” basis in the General Assembly from where all other UN entities derive their legitimacy.
In each and every action the bureaucracy must abide by the letter and spirit of the Charter. Selecting certain areas for “special treatment” relativizes all other UN actions as less important to realizing such fairness principles and purposes intrinsic to the UN Charter. Further, it prejudices the efforts of all as they strive, through trial and error, to live the example to the world.
REVITALIZE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
The President of the General Assembly is currently the only Membership locus considering UN reform proposals. Under that office there is a General Assembly Revitalization exercise which has prioritized two matters: (1) Strengthening the role of the Office of the President (vis-à-vis the deep state Secretariat), and (2) Improving the selection process of the Secretary-General for increased vetting of candidates and improved outcomes. As a full Membership endeavor, this reform exercise provides Member States a springboard from which to elaborate other reform priorities while supporting the President’s reform leadership initiative. Delegations should increase their profile and activities in this reform exercise.
REPURPOSE THE TRUSTEESHIP COUNCIL
The UN Organization’s Trusteeship Council sits dormant, having accomplished its program of work to administer post-WWII trust territories which since achieved independence or degrees of autonomy of their choosing.
Given the disputed nature of territories in the midst of interstate conflict, such as those in the Russia/Ukraine theatre currently, perhaps the Trusteeship Council could be fashioned as a place of “escrowing” such disputed territories. This would be a standby, temporary device exercised in the course of settling on a modus vivendi between disputants toward the peaceful settlement of the conflict and a post-conflict peace building program of work.
This concept of taking such political commodities off the table could slow the continuing harm of war to civilians and property and provide certain conditionalities upon relevant parties toward resolution as monitored by relevant and legitimate coalitions of UN Charter-abiding parties.
Other subject for such “escrow” treatment could include regions undergoing statelessness due to a failed state situation and leadership vacuums, such as recent regime breakdown in Syria. This reform would require Membership negotiation and agreement and perhaps amending of the UN Charter.
ENLIVEN THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL
The UN’s Economic and Social Council is principally a coordinating body designed to hold “family reunions” of the many entities of the United Nations System (The UN Organization, UN Funds and Programs, the 16 Specialized Agencies (e.g., the World Bank, the WHO, the IMF, etc.), and other associated inter-governmental bodies). Although meeting for nearly 80 years, it has yet to steer those many actors into efficient collaboration in their mutual operations around the world. ECOSOC leadership must figure out how to sell the “sharing economy” model of cooperation and incentivize them to change their patterns of interacting with each other to mutual advantage instead of hording information, resources, and boasting rights in silo fashion.
EPILOGUE
As the largest funder of international organizations, the US has realized that without exercising oversight, expertise and the willingness to champion ongoing reform and relevance of multilateral mechanisms, allies would not step up to take such action. With China approaching quickly in the rearview mirror, US mastery of stewarding international organizations is a national security priority and Member States in general others an international security priority, as well.
DOGE-UN proposals for UN reform, again, depend upon the unavoidable prescription that the United States, first among equals, must improve markedly its stewardship of the UN Organization by acting as the UN Organization’s best friend and best critic. This would require improving US governmental capacity in recruiting, training, and developing a cadre of dedicated multilateral specialist practitioners as a diplomatic resource.
Improved participation in an effective and efficient UN Organization can promote each Member State’s national values, interests, and policies toward normative standards in interstate relations true to the UN Charter’s purposes and principles for peace, security, development, and human rights.
The eighty year experiment of the UN Organization has been for an inter-state order that does better under through freedom rather than through co-option by adversaries. The UN Organization is meant to give voice to its Member States for the sake of an open, rules-based liberal international order. The price for that order is not easily quantified and it must account for valuations that the market cannot always estimate with certainty.
However, the DOGE-UN exercise proceeds on the basis that accountability among sovereign states, a basis for their cooperation for peace and security, could be usefully modeled by a well-managed, accountable, effective and efficient United Nations Organization.
[1] https://www.newsmax.com/hughdugan/united-nations-doge-reform/2024/11/26/id/1189435/
[2] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/un-doge-waste-efficiency?msockid=0da4d832785c62712fbfcd7a799863b3
[3] https://thespectator.com/topic/buying-power-china-co-opts-un/
[4] Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) purposes
· Reduce Wasteful Spending: DOGE seeks to cut billions from the federal budget by identifying and eliminating wasteful expenditures.
· Eliminate Unnecessary Regulations: The department aims to remove outdated and burdensome regulations that hinder business operations and economic growth.
· Increase Government Efficiency: By streamlining government processes and reducing the size of the federal workforce, DOGE hopes to make the government more efficient and cost-effective.
· Decentralize Government Accountability: DOGE aims to empower citizens by making government spending and decision-making more transparent and accessible
[5] Ibid.