_{BlindSpot review of the United Nations}
by James Greyson, March 2008.

The United Nations is a great idea. All countries really should collaborate to achieve visionary global goals; this cannot happen without some form of organisation. There are many in the UN who strive to achieve such goals. However the United Nations seems to be incapable of initiatives with a chance of actually achieving the goals. In 1972 a United Nations conference inadvertently set the scene for markets to escape most of their responsibility for solving the problems they cause. The responsibility of markets was transferred to nation states, which have largely failed to hand it back to markets. Competing concepts of development (industrial economic development and sustainable development) were set against each other. Compartmentalised thinking was institutionalised with a focus on symptomatic problems, gradual change, national initiatives and data-gathering. The UN has remained stuck in this mindset ever since 1972. The potential for rapid global change remains untested. Faced with worsening global problems, the UN seems to be saying, "let's try more of the same thinking".

Evidence
1. Experience of participation in an UN ECOSOC email forum between 4600 UN staff and sustainable development practicioners. The facilitators made only one intervention during the two 3-week discussions, to request participants to focus on national experiences. Facilitators did not attempt to lead discussion towards shared views which could have informed the 2008 Ministerial Review. The UN-appointed facilitators' summary of the first 3-week discussion was circulated at the end of the second 3-week discussion, when participants could no longer comment on it. This summary was concerned with action at local and national levels, with international action limited to exchanges of experience. The proposal of correcting the UN's 1972 oversight was not reported. Participants' proposals for aligning economic, ecological and social goals by implementing circular economics were not reported. However the summary was able to highlight a recommendation (by UN staff) for greater international "commitment to the UN" in order to direct more funding through the UN. Other recommendations echoed wishful thinking unchanged since 1972, offering a vision of ever more administrators planning, informing and monitoring.

2. The UN's struggle to face current challenges is indicated by the failure of UNEP experts on energy scenarios to respond to a simple question which was posed at their invitation, "What should be done about peak oil?" A follow-up enquiry to the 'experts' programme organiser also received no response. This raises a further question, "Would the UN rather collude with national governments in ignoring peak oil than help them face it?"

3. The UN has no Department for Sustainable Development. Sustainable development is handled by a 'division' of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (ECOSOC). This neatly divides the UN into a large body that promotes 'development' (industrial economic development?) and a small part that promotes sustainable development. The UN Division for Sustainable Development focuses primarily on 'developing' countries despite 'developed' countries having the greatest unsustainable impacts.

Making the UN relevant to global problems
The world is now reaching the predictable end-point of unsustainability. 36 years years ago, in 1972, the UN proclaimed the urgency of aligning ecological, economic and social goals but proposed doing this in ways which could not work. As everyone knows, these goals were never aligned and unsustainability has worsened ever day ever since. The world needs, now more than ever, global institutions which can really address global issues. If they can't do that then what are they for? (This has been accepted within the UN- see last paragraph of http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2000/20000403.ga9704.doc.html.)

So why no discussion of paradigm change in global problem-solving? The reason given by UN staff is a fear of exceeding its mandate and imposing on national sovereignty (see for example the 3rd reply here.) However UN mandates explicitly empower the UN to develop policy and to "bring emerging issues to the attention of governments and the international community for action". So the UN's mandate is no obstacle. Similarly, fears about sovereignty are no longer a serious obstacle. If the global boat is going down there's little point squabbling over the seating. Ecological and economic collapse could be avoided whilst reducing total interference to sovereignty, including interference by trans-national business. It's the same for economic growth, which need not be threatened by a paradigm shift to circular economics. Paradoxically, growth is now being undermined by the instabilities and unaffordable damages that follow from failure to consider economic paradigm change. Any hope of future growth, stability and sovereignty for any nation depends upon a rapid global switch to an economic model which can be sustained.

It can be concluded that the UN's struggle for relevance has very little to do with the usual excuses of lack of funds, mandates or sovereignty. More realistically, the UN's trouble is institutional inertia. The same obstacle that haunts national governments. Problems are carved up into departmental compartments. From these boxes come compartmentalised solutions; plans, programmes, responsibilities and routines that don't cover the scope of the problems. The UN's organisational culture self-censors thinking that doesn't fit into these boxes. UN efforts to create coherence have so far led to a proliferation of new programmes intended to coordinate existing programmes.

Organisational cultures are always resistant to change. However there are positive factors. There is a need for change, which could hardly be more obvious or more urgent. The UN need not wait for any external changes to its mandate or funds or anything. The 'emerging issue' of new faster joined-up global thinking should be pursued without delay. This could be pursued by UN leadership (the Chief Executive's Board for Coordination, which considers system-wide coherence), by the body responsible for UN system-wide responses (UNEMG), ECOSOC (including a division intended to provide sustainable development leadership to the UN), UNEP, or by any UN-related initiative. An institutional habit of self-censorship is like a silent room; it doesn't take much to change the mood. The UN has 70000 skilled staff. Among these are many who are deeply motivated to make the UN wholly relevant to global problems. Those individuals should know that the world and I are waiting; the time to act is now.

April 2008 update
The UN Climate Neutral Network announce BlindSpot as a new participant at an international press conference at the Business for the Environment (B4E) summit, held in Singapore on April 22-23.
The UN ECOSOC forum (see 1 above) issues a summary of the discussion that includes BlindSpot's proposed tools for circular economics, reform of GDP and stewardship of nature. BlindSpot's work formed the bulk of the summarised recommendations against economic and financial barriers to sustainable development. The summary included just one proposal for promoting equity in environmental resources; this was from BlindSpot. However (due to the lack of facilitation) as a whole the summary is a patchwork of sometimes conflicting and redundant proposals which may not help policy-makers at the July 2008 Annual Ministerial Review to get a grip on sustainable development whilst this may still be possible.

See also:
The 1972 UN Declaration - setting the scene for ineffective global action.
Specific policy proposals for the UN.

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