Mandates – requests or guidelines for action issued by the general meeting, the Security council and the Economic and Social Council – have multiplied considerably since 1945. Today there are more than 40,000 active mandates, maintained by around 400 intergovernmental bodies. Together they require more than 27,000 meetings per year and generate around 2,300 pages with documentation every day, at an estimated annual costs of $ 360 million.
A growing challenge
Mandates guide the work of the UN in more than 190 countries and areas, from peace enforcement to humanitarian reaction and development. But many are outdated or overlapping and their complexity is increasing. Since 2020, the average number of words of the general meeting has risen by 55 percent, while the resolutions of the Security Council are now three times longer than 30 years ago.
“Let’s face the facts,” said Secretary-General António Guterres During a briefing to the general meeting on Friday: “We cannot expect much greater impact without supplying the means. By spreading our capacities so thinly, we run the risk of becoming more focused on process than results.”
A lack of coordination contributes to the tension. Different UN entities mention the same mandates to justify individual programs and budgets, leading to duplication and reduced impact. More than 85 percent of the mandates do not contain any provisions for assessment or termination. “Effective reviews are the exception, not the rule,” said Mr Guternes. “The same mandates are discussed year after year – often with only marginal changes in existing texts.”
A photo/Milton subsidy
The UN has carried out mandates all over the world, including the certification of the Namibia elections in 1989.
The UN80 initiative: a systemic approach
The Report of the mandate implementation review” Released on July 31, is part of the broader UN80 initiative of the Secretary-General-General-A multi-year effort to modernize how the UN works. Instead of assessing mandates separately, the report uses a “life cycle” approach, looking at how mandates are made, implemented and assessed and propose manners to improve each phase.
“Let me be absolutely clear: mandates are the case of the Member States,” Mr Guterres told the General Meeting. “They are the expression of your will. And they are the only property and responsibility of the Member States. The vital task of creating, revising or retiring them lies with you – and you alone. Our role is to implement them – complete, faithful and efficient.”
“This report respects that division,” he added. “It looks at how we perform the mandates that you entrust to us.”
From creation to delivery
To tackle duplication and complexity, the report requests digital mandate registers who make it easier to keep track of what has been assumed in different authorities. It also encourages shorter, clearer resolutions with realistic resources requirements. “We cannot expect a much greater impact without delivering the means,” said Mr Guterres.
The report also emphasizes the growing operational burden of meetings and reports. Last year the UN system supported 27,000 meetings and produced 1,100 reports – three of the five on recurring topics. “Meetings and reports are essential,” said Mr Guterres. “But we have to ask: do we use our limited sources in the most effective way?”
© Unmiss
The UN -peace mission in South Sudan, Unmiss, was imposed by the Security Council.
Financing and impact
Proposals include reducing the number of reports and meetings, streamlining formats and the use of the monitoring report to guarantee relevance. The Secretary-General also calls for stronger coordination between UN entities to prevent overlap and to ensure that each mandate is linked to clear results.
The report warns that fragmented financing undermines coherent delivery. In 2023, 80 percent of the UN financing came from voluntary contributions, of which 85 percent were reserved. “Freeded financing, combined with fragmented implementation, leads to fragmented impact,” said Mr Guterres. “Each of us must play a role to tackle this. And each of us must act on the levers in our control.”
Put people in the first place
For the Secretary General, reforms are not only about process, but also about impact. “Mandates are not an end to themselves,” he said. “They are tools – to deliver real results in the real world, in real life.”
He praised UN staff as centrally in this effort. “None of the work when implementing mandates is possible without our employees – the women and men of the United Nations,” said Mr Guternes. “Their expertise, dedication and courage are indispensable for this endeavor. If we want to improve how we implement mandates, we must also support people and enable the people they perform.”
VN -Photo/Rick Bajornas
Many of the UN mandates are agreed in the Security Council at the UN head office in New York.
A call to the Member States
In his last comments, the Secretary General underlined that the next steps of the Member States should be. “The path forward is yours to decide,” he said. “My responsibility is to ensure that the secretariat provides capacities and inputs that are needed for the way you choose.”
The report invites Member States to consider a time -bound intergovernmental process to help proposals and to ensure that this effort succeeds where there are previous failures. The result, the report, would be a more agile, coherent and impactful UN that is better at delivering programs and services.
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