UN modernizing human resources management, Deputy Secretary-General says

The United Nations is working to modernize its human resources management, build a results-oriented culture, and promote managerial excellence, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette said today.

Arguing that the UN needs a pay-and-benefits system that supports these objectives, Ms. Fréchette told the General Assembly’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee that a competitive package of conditions of service is a prerequisite to success.

Hailing proposals to reform the system as “innovative and forward-looking,” she said they would facilitate mobility, strengthen leadership, encourage high performance, and address problems involving recruitment and retention. Senior UN officials, she added, would work to implement those recommendations.

“The Secretary-General’s new ‘agenda for further change’ stresses that the goals set out in the Millennium Declaration can be achieved only if the United Nations has a world-class staff equal to the challenges of our times,” she told the Committee, referring to a set of anti-poverty targets adopted by world leaders at the UN in 2000.

She appealed to the delegates – who set the UN’s budget and staffing structures – for their support “in making the organizations of the [UN] system more effective instruments for peace and development.”

Ms. Fréchette delivered her statement on behalf of the UN System Chief Executives Board.