MICHELE MONTAS is the Spokesperson for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General and the Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly.
TV: UN WEBCAST TV VIDEO - 40 minutes

UN: UNITED NATIONS BRIEFING AND TV - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: TUESDAY, 08/04/2008 (MaximsNews Network)

UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / - 08 April 2008 -- Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary-General and UN Webcast TV Video.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Has a new country chief for Burma been appointed?

Spokesperson:  Not yet.

Question:  How long will it take?

Spokesperson:  I don’t know at this point.  I’ll let you know as soon as it’s done.

Question:  The Pope is coming next week to the UN.  I wanted to ask you if the Secretary-General has any expectations or if he expects to raise any particular issues in his talks with the Pope and if he has any expectations of what will come out of his present visit to the UN?

Spokesperson:  He’s expecting that visit and, as you know, he met the Pope before when he went to Rome.  He visited the Pope at the Vatican.  The Secretary-General is looking forward to the opportunity to meet him again and at this point I cannot tell you which issue they will be discussing, but we’ll try to give you a briefing before he comes.  First, you have a logistics type of briefing with Gary Fowlie on how things will be mapped out, and you’ll also have, after that, in that briefing, [something] about the visit itself.

Question:  Will Inner City Press be available on the UNHCR/Google website?

Spokesperson:  What are you talking about?

Question:  I don’t know.  Google has had a problem with one of our colleagues in the past. 

Spokesperson:  I don’t know.  I can’t answer that question.

Question:  I know, but another question about it.  Are Palestinian refugees going to be included, since they’re not being taken care of by UNHCR but by a separate refugee agency?

Spokesperson:  Of course they will be included.

Question:  I have a question on Iraq.  Has the Special Representative of the Secretary-General come up with any assessment in Iraq following what happened last week and what is now being described as a situation that’s going from bad to worse again?  Did he come up with any report as yet?

Spokesperson:  No, we don’t have anything new.  You asked the question yesterday and I answered what I’m answering now.  We don’t have any report yet.  But of course the Secretary-General gets regular briefings from his Special Representative on the ground, but we don’t have a written report at this point.

Question:  Talking about UNHCR, is there also no report on the Iraqi refugees in Jordan?

Spokesperson:  UNHCR has constant reports on the situation of refugees.  You can consult their site and get more information on that.

Question:  In his speech just now on management reform, the Secretary-General has said that some of his Special Representatives earn less and serve under less favourable conditions than those in UN funds or programmes.  Can we get more information on what he meant, in terms of what Special Representatives of the Secretary-General are paid and who in UNDP or any programme he’s comparing it to?  He seemed to say he’s calling for a reform of this, but if we can get underlying facts.  Are all Special Representatives of the Secretary-General paid the same amount?

Spokesperson:  We can get that information for you from the Management Office.  I don’t have it with me now.

Question:  I wouldn’t expect it.  Also, this issue off the coast of Somalia, the pirates who took the French boat.  Does the UN have any involvement in trying to get the sailors released?

Spokesperson:  No, the UN has no involvement in this.

Question:  Just France.  Okay.  There’s also an AP story I wanted to ask you about these two appointments, UNIFEM and UNDP in Asia.  It seemed to say that the Secretary-General had been approached by a coalition of NGOs very much in support of an Indian candidate for UNIFEM, but that somehow the Spanish candidate was chosen, and it seems to imply that this was based on contributions by Spain to the UN, both to UNDP and to UNIFEM in particular, and that the appointment, at the same time, of an Indian to this other post was somehow to make up for that.  Is that something the UN rejects in full?  What’s the connection between giving money and getting a post and the nationality of these two persons?  

Spokesperson:  There is no direct connection.  I can tell you that there is a constant concern to have geographical distribution within the system.  And in the case of the appointment to the post of UNIFEM, she has been appointed at the D-2 level and the selection process was comprehensive.  It was extensive.  It took into account both the challenges that UNIFEM faces and the broader requirements of strengthening gender-focused work within the whole gender architecture of the United Nations.  It was done in close cooperation, with the board choosing the candidates and the Secretary-General and the Director of UNDP.

Question:  The NGO group seems to think that this other candidate, Ms. Sen, was actually recommended by the panel.  Was the candidate ultimately selected the one with the highest recommendation of the panel?

Spokesperson:  I don’t have all the details.  I can tell you that it was a long process, a very thorough process and a very careful one.

Question:  In UNDP, selecting a head of a region for them, I know they do it in consultation, but it definitely involved the Secretary-General’s office?

Spokesperson:  It does.

Question:  And then one last thing that came up in the course of this.  It seems that Peacekeeping is going to open a logistics base in Valencia?  There’s a photograph showing Mr. Ban meeting with the Vice-President of Spain.  Does that compete with the Brindisi Centre?

Spokesperson:  It completes the Brindisi Centre.  It’s a different set up.  You can have the information on that very easily.  Okay.  Thank you very much.  Janos?

Briefing by the Spokesperson for the General Assembly President

Good afternoon, good to see you.

**General Assembly Debate on Management Reform

Let me start with something that Michèle already mentioned and that is this morning’s meeting that opened in the Trusteeship Council Chamber on the Management Reform.  Management Reform is one of the five priority areas of the current General Assembly session.  The meeting was called for, convened and opened by General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim.  The title of the two-day thematic debate is, “Towards a common understanding of management reform.”  And as the title suggests, the aim is for Member States, as well as Secretariat officials, to work towards a common understanding on management reform.  The debate is intended to take stock of ongoing reforms especially in light of the proposals of the 2005 Summit Outcome Document and also to provide Member States with the opportunity to express their views on management reform.

President Kerim in his opening statement stressed that a more effective United Nations was an essential part of bridging the gap between the global public’s high expectations and our ability to deliver.  He said, “All our reform efforts are fundamentally about improving the image, authority and relevance of the United Nations.”  “It is imperative that the whole of the Organization becomes more efficient, effective, transparent, and accountable to Member States, and ultimately to the peoples of the world.”  Taking stock of the reform agenda, the President noted that there is a need to advance further on human resources, procurement, information and communication technology, accountability and oversight to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Organization.

He also called for the United Nations to not only match the high ideals and public purpose it was founded upon, but to set the lead for others to follow in international management practice.  He urged Member States to use the debate as an occasion to agree to give greater coherence to all past management reform initiatives and reach a common understanding of the future role that they envisage for the Organization.  The President asked Member States to especially focus on three interrelated issues of crucial importance to the process of transforming decisions of Member States into delivered activities.  These are:  the way mandates are formulated, implemented and evaluated; the planning and budgetary process of the Organization; and finally, the management of human resources.

As regards these three issues: on mandates the President noted that the way these are formulated, implemented, and evaluated, was at the heart of the credibility of General Assembly’s decision making process and the outcomes that this organization delivers on behalf of Member States.  On the budget process, he pointed out that the membership had expressed its concern with the piecemeal approach to this, adding that Member States would be more informed in their debates about the organization’s spending priorities, its budgetary discipline and requests for additional resources if a more complete, timely and coherent analysis of spending, outputs, and outcomes were available.  The President also underlined that modern human resources management was essential to unleash the untapped potential of the Secretariat.  Human resources policies should encourage better career advancement opportunities and conditions of service, training, mobility, and retention of the best staff.  The full speech of the President is available for you upstairs in the Spokesperson’s Office and also on the website of the President.

Following the opening statement of the President, the Secretary-General addressed the meeting and after that, Member States made statements.  The meeting will continue this afternoon in that format, meaning that Member States will deliver their statements.  The second part of this thematic debate is going to be tomorrow in the afternoon and it will be in a different format, in the form of an interactive session among Member States and senior Secretariat officials.

**Rule of Law

Let me go back to something that happened yesterday.  President Kerim yesterday attended the presentation of the final report and recommendations from the Austrian Initiative 2004-2008 on “The UN Security Council and the Rule of Law.”  It was at the 59th General Assembly that Austria launched this initiative and worked on a final report in cooperation with the Institute for International Law and Justice at New York University School of Law.  The President, in his statement at the presentation meeting, noted that respect for the rights and sovereignty of other States, based on the rule of law, was the basis for a well-functioning society of States.  Each state, in turn, had a responsibility to protect and promote the human rights and dignity of their people, and support participatory decision making at the national level.

He stressed that the principal organs of the United Nations, such as the General Assembly and the Security Council, had to act in a way that bolsters international relations based on clear and agreed rules.  In this regard, he pointed out that that the General Assembly had reaffirmed that the promotion of and respect for the rule of law at the national and international levels should guide the activities of the United Nations and its Member States.  And as regards the various initiatives already taken by the UN system in promoting the rule of law, the President said that it was important to ensure that these efforts were sustained and supported by all principal organs of the United Nations.  And in this regard, the Security Council had an important role in promoting justice and the rule of law as an indispensable element of lasting peace.

**Disarmament Commission

A couple of other things.  You may have noticed from the Journal, and also among the press releases, that the Disarmament Commission opened its 2008 substantive session yesterday.  It is the third year of a three-year cycle in which the Commission is focusing on the agreed agenda items, which are nuclear disarmament and nuclear proliferation; and confidence-building in conventional weapons.  The Commission is expected to end its session on 24 April.

I am mentioning this because the Commission is a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, it is composed of all Members of the United Nations and it reports annually to the General Assembly through the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security).  So the report, as regards the outcome of this session, which as I said is expected to end 24 April, is going to come before the General Assembly through the First Committee at the next session, that’s the sixty-third session.

**Criminal Accountability of UN Officials on Mission

Something else that began its work, and that is one of the ad hoc committees established by the Sixth Committee (Legal).  This one is on Criminal Accountability of UN Officials and Experts on Mission.  I already talked about this before and I will brief you on the outcome as it wraps up its work this week.

**Upcoming Events

And just a very quick reminder of upcoming things.  One I mentioned already.  Tomorrow afternoon, the thematic debate on Management Reform continues in the interactive format session.  On Thursday, this is important, you have all been sort of waiting for, if I may say so, but I mentioned this already, and that’s the second meeting, meaning the second meeting as part of the sixty-second session of the Assembly, of the so-called Open-ended Working Group on the Questions of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters related to the Security Council, so in other words, on Security Council reform.  That’s going to be on Thursday starting at 10 a.m. in the Trusteeship Council Chamber.  Unfortunately for you, it is a closed session and it is expected to last the whole day.

And the third thing I wanted to flag, and this relates to some of these things because you will get more background information from it, is the press briefing of the President of the General Assembly.  That’s going to be on Friday at 11:00 o’clock.  So he’s going to talk to you about the outcome of the meetings on Security Council reform, on management reform and other things.

So that’s all I have.  If you have any questions, I’ll try to answer them.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  I just want to clarify, the Disarmament Commission is composed of all Members?

Spokesperson:  Yes, it is.  It’s a subsidiary body of the General Assembly.  It was set up by the First Special Session on Disarmament in 1978 and it is open to all Members of the United Nations.

Question:  Who are the active Members?  Are all Members active Members?  I know they have been meeting since yesterday but I thought the CD was composed of forty nine Members or so but you say no, it’s all Members.

Spokesperson:  As far as I know and according to my notes it’s open to all Members.  Who are the active Members?  There’s a good summary record of the meeting in the form of a press release so you can see from that who are the active Members, the ones making statements.  (Note: the Conference on Disarmament is a separate entity based in Geneva and has a membership of 65 Member States.)

Question:  Now, on this all important thematic debate on reform of the Security Council, which you say is going to be a closed door session, for my background, I want to know whether the debate will be based on the report of the last Assembly President or whether it will also include the report by the Ambassador of Germany.

Spokesperson:  It’s part of the process.  As you pointed out, the outgoing President of the sixty-first session, on the closing day of the session, on 17 September, had the report of the working group on Council reform adopted. Building on what is contained in that report, the current President, President Kerim, began his work on Council reform and had the first meeting of the open-ended working group during the current session on 14 December – and in fact even a month before there was also a meeting within the framework of the General Assembly on the work of the Security Council. Since the first meeting of the open-ended working group on 14 December, the President called on Member States to engage in intensive negotiations.  And as part of that phase of intensive negotiations, you had various different groupings of States working amongst themselves, trying to work together with other groups, and come up with various proposals.

As a result of that three letters arrived to the Office of the President: one by the Africa Group; one by the Ambassador of Cyprus on behalf of the so-called overarching group, with an attached set of proposals that this group thought to use to advance the work on Council reform; and then of course there was the Uniting for Consensus group, which also had a short proposal with a cover letter coming from the Ambassador of Italy.  So all that, together, will be part of the discussions on the second meeting of the open-ended working group.

Question:  What’s going to come out of these two days on management reform?  Is it as the G-77 wants it?  Is it actually going to have no impact on all actual reforms that are being considered by the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary)?  That’s how I read their statement, which is saying the Fifth Committee is the place for this, not this format.  And also, why is the debate on management reform closed?  Why is a debate on management reform and transparency closed?

Spokesperson:  First of all, this first day of the session is open and we’ve been saying this.  It’s tomorrow, the interactive session which is with Member States and Secretariat officials, which is designated to be a closed session.  That was on the advice of Member States.  That’s the way they wanted it.  As regards the statement of the G-77 and what their approach is, either the statement speaks for itself or you have to ask them to interpret this. 

Question:  And the outcome?

Spokesperson:  The outcome, this is what I mentioned while you were out, the title basically says it in the sense that what is intended here is to have a common understanding of how to go about management reform, first of all to take stock of what has happened over the various different reform initiatives emanating from the 2005 Outcome Document.  Then, it’s an opportunity for Member States to voice their views and ideas about how they think the Organization should track forward, how management reform should be understood and ideally, and this is what the President would like, and what the title is about, is to have a common understanding of what management reform is, a common understanding among Member States and common understanding as regards Member States and Secretariat. Ideally, to have coherence amongst Member States views as to how to approach management reform.

This is my understanding of what is the intention.  But let’s see what happens after the statements and after the interactive session.  But this is why it will be good to have the President here on Friday at 11:00 o’clock and he will be able to brief you on the outcome of the management reform thematic debate, as well as the Security Council open-ended working group meeting.

Question:  Going back to the President’s speech and human resources practices, he praised the Fifth Committee for normalizing the conditions of service and he said he hopes the discussion held in March, he sounded very upbeat, whereas Mr. Ban, on the very same topic, said he was disappointed that this topic was not finalized in March.  What was the President praising in terms of human resources?  What was actually accomplished in the March session of the Fifth Committee that he was praising so much.

Spokesperson:  If you remember, this issue did come up.  I don’t have my background notes here on the Fifth Committee, but I do remember that the Fifth Committee ended on 28 March.  On 31 March, I did give a briefing on the outcome.  If I remember correctly, human resources issues including conditions of service, contractual status, etcetera, were issues that were deferred to later action.  And I don’t really see a discrepancy here from the point of view that the President is optimistic that this issue is taken up by Member States and is going to be taken forward.  

Question:  On the other hand, it hasn’t been adopted.

Spokesperson:  I don’t detect pessimism here at all.  This is an issue that is with the Member States.  It is going to be discussed and it is taken forward and it is with the Fifth Committee.  And as you know, the Fifth Committee will continue in May and then, of course, will pick up again with the sixty-third session.

Question:  This system wide coherence and this management reform, do these things overlap?  Has anybody discussed that?

Spokesperson:  The interrelationship between the two and how the current President and the current Assembly session look at it, is something you can ask from the President on Friday.  But, while management reform is a broad subject, as I have mentioned the President asked Membership to concentrate on mandate issues, the formulation and evaluation of mandates, the budgetary process and the human resources aspects.  System-wide coherence is also something that emanates from the past couple of years and it is also a process that is taken up by the Member States, taken forward by this Assembly session, and in fact, I think it was actually yesterday that Member States, with the co-chairs, have taken forward the initiative.  The co-chairs are the Ambassadors of Tanzania and Ireland.  Yesterday they looked at funding issues as regards this exercise.

As you know, there are eight pilot countries.  That’s kind of an experimental approach.  These two co-chairs have recently visited four of those eight pilot countries and those four were Cape Verde, Tanzania, Viet Nam and Mozambique.  On 28 March they had a meeting when they discussed their experiences as regards those four countries.  Also, there was a meeting in Vienna, convened by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) on the same issue of system-wide coherence, which was attended by the co-chairs.  So this exercise is continuing, plus it ties into the CEB process and the upcoming CEB meeting, so it is definitely there.  Okay, last question.

Question:  In the G-77 statement, they talk about procurement, and they say that no procurement reform will be complete or effective without diversification in origins of vendors in UN Procurement.   The EU didn’t even mention procurement in their discussion of reform.  First of all, does the President view procurement and the diversification of procurement as part of management reform?  And there was a previous General Assembly resolution on exactly this topic.  Does he feel that it’s been effectively implemented by the UN in terms of where they actually issue these big contracts from DPKO? 

Spokesperson:  Again, this is one of those things you’ll be able to ask the President on Friday.  I don’t have an answer for you at this point.  But he will be here on Friday, as I said, and it’s a golden opportunity to ask him this.

Thank you very much for your attention.  See you soon.

Labels: United Nations,  U.N., Secretary-General

 

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