Two high-level committees formed to strengthen UN secretariat's direction

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has formed two committees to reinforce the ability of the world body's secretariat to face new challenges and to implement internal management reform recommendations, as well as a new board to assess the performance of senior managers.

The 12-member Policy Committee will meet once a week to consider issues requiring strategic guidance and decisions and identify emerging issues, and will have its own secretariat in the existing Strategic Planning Unit, Annan's Chief of Staff, Mark Malloch Brown, said in a letter to all UN staff last Friday.

The Management Committee, with seven members, will meet once a month on internal reform and management-related issues, he said.

The two committees, to be chaired by the Secretary-General, will replace several existing single-issue coordination mechanisms, which had been formed on an ad hoc basis, according to Mr. Malloch Brown.

A Management Performance Board, chaired by Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette, will monitor and analyze the performance of managers to ensure that they properly discharge their responsibilities.

Two Under-Secretaries-General have been asked to sit on the Board – in their individual capacities – for two years. They are UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland and Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management Jian Chen. Former World Food Programme (WFP) Deputy Executive Director Namanga Ngongi will serve as the external third participant, required to have extensive experience at the UN.

The Under-Secretaries-General of Management and Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) will also sit in on the Board's meetings.

The existing Senior Management Group will now meet every two weeks for exchanges of information and experiences among a wider group of managers and to provide guidance on important, cross-cutting issues, he said.