US: The United Nations should consider outsourcing some work or moving it to developing nations where it can be done more cheaply, UN secretary general Kofi Annan has recommended as part of a broad management overhaul.
In a report due to be released last night, Mr Annan proposes steps, including employee buyouts, a new computer system and taking more control over key departments.
Despite some savings, initial investments proposed in the report to train staff, update technologies and compensate dismissed employees could cost the organisation $500 million (€416 million), diplomats estimated. Staff buyouts are estimated at $100 million (€83 million).
Many of the proposals, including those on outsourcing, are expected to be opposed by developing nations, who could lose clout under the reorganisation or whose citizens now working in New York might be affected.
Moving the UN's extensive translation services out of its New York headquarters building could save some $35 million (€29 million) annually and release three floors of work space, according to a consultant's report dated February 12th.
The February report analysed contracting operations to a third party or shifting work to a lower cost location, perhaps in Asia. China is known to have an interest in this project.
About 4,500 people work at UN headquarters in New York, where its main bodies - the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council - are located.
Mr Annan's report was a response to a request by world leaders at a UN summit in September, following scandals over the oil-for-food programme in Iraq and contract-fixing.
The United States has made progress on management reform a condition for refinancing the UN budget on June 30th.
The financial plan, reluctantly approved by the General Assembly in December, has caused animosity between US ambassador John Bolton and many poor nations, who feel rich countries want to cut programmes and jobs that benefit them.
The report also asks the General Assembly to give the secretary general more power to allocate and consolidate jobs within the often bureaucratically entangled global body.