UN General Assembly
1997

international realities demand that the United Nations system should undergo substantial reform if it is to respond more efficiently and effectively to the needs and concerns of its Member States and their peoples, now and in the future. The United Nations system needs to be streamlined to remove administrative bottlenecks, weed out corruption and other malpractices and eliminate duplication in the activities of its organs, agencies, programmes, funds and offices. It is in that spirit that Botswana welcomes the recent reform initiatives of the Secretary-General as the basis for further discussion and debate on the reform process. My delegation will have occasion to pronounce itself on the various elements of the reform package in due course. At this juncture, I can only observe that Botswana is disposed to a holistic consideration of the package by the General Assembly. The reform proposals constitute a single unit, and its constituent parts should be discussed with that understanding in mind. This means, therefore, that those elements of the package — the greatest number, we would hope — which