UN Releases Proposals For Streamlining Of Tasks As Part Of Major Reform Agenda; Pakistan Backs

UNITED NATIONS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Aug, 2025) UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has presented a set of proposals to member-states to make the UN more efficient, coherent and impactful, as part of his ambitious UN80 initiative.

The UN chief acted as duplication, fragmentation and outdated tasks that he said were stretching resources and undermining the U.N.'s ability to deliver for those who need it most.

Mandates -- requests or directives for action issued by the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council -- have multiplied significantly since 1945, it was pointed out. Today, there are more than 40,000 active mandates, serviced by around 400 intergovernmental bodies. Together, they require more than 27,000 meetings a year and generate roughly 2,300 pages of documentation every day, at an estimated annual cost of $360 million.

Mandates guide the UN’s work in over 190 countries and territories, from peacekeeping to humanitarian response and development, the UN chief said. But many are outdated or overlapping, and their complexity is increasing. Since 2020, the average word count of General Assembly resolutions has risen by 55 per cent, while Security Council resolutions are now three times longer than they were 30 years ago.

“Let’s face facts,” said the UN chief during a briefing to the General Assembly on Friday, “we cannot expect far greater impact without the means to deliver. By spreading our capacities so thin, we risk becoming more focused on process than on results.”

A lack of coordination adds to the strain. Several UN entities cite the same mandates to justify separate programmes and budgets, leading to duplication and reduced impact. More than 85 per cent of mandates contain no provisions for review or termination. “Effective reviews are the exception, not the rule,” Guterres said. “The same mandates are discussed year after year – often with only marginal changes to existing texts.”

The Report of the Mandate Implementation Review, released on 31 July, is part of the Secretary-General’s broader UN80 Initiative - a multi-year effort to modernize how the UN works. Rather than assess mandates individually, the report takes a “lifecycle” approach, looking at how mandates are created, implemented and reviewed, and proposing ways to improve each stage.

“Let me be absolutely clear: mandates are the business of Member States,” Guterres told the General Assembly. “They are the expression of your will. And they are the sole property and responsibility of Member States. The vital task of creating, reviewing or retiring them lies with you – and you alone. Our role is to implement them – fully, faithfully, and efficiently.”

“This report respects that division,” he added. “It looks at how we carry out the mandates you entrust to us.”

To address duplication and complexity, the report calls for digital mandate registries that make it easier to track what has been adopted across different bodies. It also encourages shorter, clearer resolutions with realistic resource requirements. “We cannot expect far greater impact without the means to deliver,” Guterres said.

The report also highlights the growing operational burden of meetings and reports. Last year, the UN system supported 27,000 meetings and produced 1,100 reports - three out of five on recurring topics.

“Meetings and reports are essential,” Guterres said. “But we must ask: Are we using our limited resources in the most effective way?”

Proposals include reducing the number of reports and meetings, streamlining formats and monitoring report usage to ensure relevance. The Secretary-General is also calling for stronger coordination among UN entities to avoid overlap and ensure each mandate is linked to clear deliverables.

The report warns that fragmented funding is undermining coherent delivery. In 2023, 80 per cent of the UN’s funding came from voluntary contributions, 85 per cent of which were earmarked. “Fragmented funding, combined with fragmented implementation, leads to fragmented impact,” said Mr. Guterres. “Each of us has a role to play to address this. And each of us must act on the levers within our control.”

PAKISTAN SUPPORTS

"We support efforts to make the United Nations more efficient, responsive, and fit-for-purpose," Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, said in a debate on the proposals in the 193-member Assembly.

"A key part of that effort is to review how mandates are implemented," he said. "At the heart of this process lies a fundamental question: Have mandates fulfilled the purpose for which they were established? The continued relevance of mandates should be judged by implementation, not age."

For the Secretary-General, reforms are not only about process but about impact. “Mandates are not ends in themselves,” the UN chief said. “They are tools – to deliver real results, in real lives, in the real world.”

He praised UN staff as central to this effort. “None of the work in implementing mandates is possible without our staff – the women and men of the United Nations,” Guterres said. “Their expertise, dedication and courage are indispensable to this endeavor. If we are to improve how we implement mandates, we must also support and empower the people who carry them out.”

In his concluding remarks, the Secretary-General underscored that the next steps must come from member-states. “The path forward is yours to decide,” he said. “My responsibility is to ensure that the Secretariat provides the capacities and inputs required by the course of action that you choose.”

The report invites Member States to consider a time-bound intergovernmental process to carry proposals forward and ensure that this effort succeeds where earlier ones have fallen short. The upshot, the report says, would be a more agile, coherent and impactful UN that is better at delivering programmes and services.

In his remarks, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar, the Pakistan envoy, also referred to the concerns about duplication of mandates based on shared citations, and said, "While we fully agree with the reports recommendation that UN entities should cite mandates where they have a clear comparative advantage, we stress that citation alone does not imply duplication.

"Resolutions like 70/1 are cross-cutting by design. Hence, we would ask whether there is an intention to undertake a more detailed analysis concerning resource allocations and functional outputs?"