Something's amiss at the United Nations

Not all is well at Dag Hammarskjöld hall. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the head honcho of the world's best known super-bureaucracy, has called the last 12 months an annus horribilis, and rightly so. First came allegations of bribery and mismanagement with the Oil-for-Food scandal, and then repeated allegations of sexual harassment on the part of high-ranking U.N. officials. Next came reports of U.N. peacekeepers raping Congolese women and girls in exchange for food and money. All of this while the UN faced legitimacy questions following its defeat by the Bush administration over the war in Iraq.

How does Annan respond? Quietly, and only when absolutely necessary. For far too long, high-ranking U.N. officials have denied that a large-scale problem exists, instead pinning the blame on a few bad apples or a unilateralist Washington seeking to destroy the organization. What Annan and his staff miss is that a real problem exists, a problem that will get worse if untreated and will eventually cause the United Nations to be universally regarded as impotent and useless.

The crisis of confidence in the organization can be surmounted in the same way an alcoholic quits booze — by stepping up and admitting that there is a problem. Secretary-General Annan should start by accepting responsibility for all previous mistakes and announcing firmly that that the organization must change. Full — and I mean truly full — cooperation with the Volker investigation and report is imperative. No reports should come out that the Secretary-General's office is withholding documents, and Annan should see to it that every U.N. bureaucrat provides all future investigations with what they need.

Secondly, the senior staff should be replaced. Annan has already started this process, but he is not finished yet. A new cabinet will begin to set a precedent of catharsis. That catharsis, however, will only be a mirage unless the United Nations can finally control its employees. It should create a new code of conduct that establishes rigid guidelines concerning bribery, theft, conflict–of–interest, sexual harassment and rape. Those who engage in these actions should be immediately suspended and eventually fired. It should apply universally to U.N. employees, from peacekeepers and aid workers in the field to high-ranking bureaucrats in New York and Geneva. Unlike most of its Westphalian counterparts, employees of the United Nations are not accountable to voters, and this lack of accountability creates a breeding ground for inappropriate behavior. If the United Nations is to continue to be a viable organization, its leadership must step up and keep its own house clean. A transparently enforced zero-tolerance policy toward inappropriate conduct would begin to do what the voter would do normally — throw out the trash and restore confidence in the beleaguered organization.

But that's not all. Annan must transform both the perception and the practice of the United Nations from a continued whine-a-thon for countries whose USAID checks are too small into an organization that not only enforces standards but also accomplishes results. By choice or by need, this will force the United Nations to understand that the United States is most often a partner and not its enemy. It is patently ridiculous that the United States was removed from the Human Rights Committee in favor of Sudan, a nation where slavery is still openly practiced. The United Nations should stop hosting conferences that bash Zionism but ignore fundamentalist Islamic terrorism and should instead focus on why it failed to prevent genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia and now Darfur.

An across-the-board emphasis on results and accountability in areas that range from poverty and disease reduction to international conflict management would do wonders in restoring the United Nations' image from that of a clumsy, hyper-bureaucratic relic of the Cold War to a viable and necessary international organization that is uniquely equipped to handle the challenges of the 21st century. Think that it is impossible? The Gates Foundation has done innovative work with far fewer resources and significantly less infrastructure. Annan — if he is lucky enough to keep his job — has his work cut out for him, but like the ancient Chinese proverb says, every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Matthew Gold is a politics major from New York, N.Y. He can be reached at mggold@princeton.edu.