Special Report

With Scandals Rife Across the UN, Are Managers at Fault?

April 24, 2019

A sea of new or lingering allegations of harassment and corruption in numerous agencies and programs in the United Nations system appears to be washing over a sprawling organization battered by scandal. Poor or careless management and oversight, from top to bottom, is partly to blame, but so is persistent, overt politicization of high-level …

Gender-Based Violence, Special Report, UN Agencies

2 Comments

The $64,000 Question: Can the UN Survive the Trump Era?

December 4, 2016

by Barbara Crossette

The United Nations will swear in António Guterres as its ninth secretary-general on Dec. 12, when the organization will be only weeks away from the inauguration of Donald Trump and the potentially most threatening, hostile political opposition to the UN ever assembled in Washington, D.C. The UN will have to be prepared to respond …

Special Report, UN Agencies, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

One Comment

Japan’s Take on Peace, Human Rights and the UN

June 14, 2013

by Dulcie Leimbach

Tsuneo Nishida, the Japanese ambassador to the United Nations, spoke recently on his country’s positions on peace and security, disarmament, human rights and UN reform. Japan, which is the world’s third-largest economy and second-biggest contributor (after the United States) to the UN’s general budget, is planning to run for an elected seat on the …

Asia, Human Rights, Peace and Security, Special Report

One Comment

SPECIAL REPORT

Nations Reject Gender Violence, but the Suffering Endures

March 27, 2013

by Barbara Crossette

The 57th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women ended in mid-March more with a sigh of relief than with jubilation. The commission, comprising 45 national delegations, managed to reach a final agreement (which it could not do last year) without losing ground on women’s rights that had been gained, …

Gender-Based Violence, Special Report, Women

5 Comments

SPECIAL REPORT

Signals of Greater Times Buoy Developing Nations

March 13, 2013

by Barbara Crossette

For the developing world, the news in the 2013 United Nations Human Development Report is almost all good. (More on that “almost” later.) The title of the report, The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World, sets the tone. New players with global clout, increased South-South trade and investment, strengthening regional …

Africa, Asia, Development, Health and Population, Millennium Goals, Special Report

10 Comments

SPECIAL REPORT

‘God Bless the Republic of Nauru and God Bless the United Nations’

September 28, 2012

by Dulcie Leimbach

Many diplomats spoke their piece – if not rambled – at the newest United Nations General Assembly session this week, delivering speeches by at least 120 heads of state on a revolving door of themes. Yet in this sometimes theatrical, often wearying annual event held in New York, no one ranted along the lines …

General Assembly, Special Report, Women

One Comment

SPECIAL REPORT

How Bad Is It? The UN Development System Needs an Overhaul

July 17, 2012

by Dulcie Leimbach

The clamor for United Nations reform has not stopped since its first days in 1945. Although ideas for changing the UN rise and fall each year, the newest calls for an overhaul involve development, one of the largest sectors of the world body’s system. With a Kafkaesque bureaucracy consisting of at least 30 agencies …