Secretary-General Ban calls for his newly appointed officials to be judged by merit

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on journalists to judge his recently appointed top officials by their performance and said they were chosen following a thorough selection process.

At his first his first formal news conference since assuming office on 1 January, Mr. Ban was asked about a perception that some of his highest-ranking appointees were never really interviewed for the jobs they were going to fill and thus never had the chance to explain they meet his expectations with regard for tight management at the UN.

“I hope that you will judge the people and appointments by how they perform their duties, and I sincerely hope that instead of judging by what you heard from different sources, I hope that you will judge my appointments on the basis of merit and on the basis of their performance,” he countered.

“There seem to be some misunderstandings on the review or selection process of senior management officials of the United Nations, including the selection of the Deputy Secretary-General [Tanzanian Foreign Minister Asha-Rose Migiro] and other senior officials,” he said.

He noted that since early last year, throughout his campaign for selection as the world’s top diplomat, he had met many foreign ministers and very senior people around the world to be interviewed as a candidate. “Maybe at the time they might not have known that I was also interviewing them about what I should do if I were elected as Secretary-General,” he added to laughter.

He said he had had extensive talks over more than 10 hours with Ms. Migiro, had interviewed Britain’s Ambassador to France, John Holmes, whom he chose as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, and had known Alicia Bárcena, the new Under-Secretary-General for Management, for a long time.

He said he had been “very much impressed” by Ms. Bárcena’s ability to manage the UN when she was former Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Chef de Cabinet as well as by her management skills when she served as Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) for four years.

To ensure tight management, he said he planned to conclude a compact with all senior managers for performance targets. “They should submit their performance targets, and this performance management board will review their performance at the end of the year or at the end of their contract date,” he added.