title: A mountain worth climbing: reforming the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Creators: name: Janus, Heiner
name: Weinlich, Silke
Publisher: name: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/01t3zke88
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Agenda 2030
subject: Entwicklungspolitik
subject: Vereinte Nationen
subject: Agenda 2030
subject: Development Policy
subject: United Nations

description: The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) is a key
 multilateral organisation for development. Since 2015, DESA has had the unique mandate of
 facilitating the efforts of all UN member states towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for
 Sustainable Development by supporting the High-level Political Forum. It is tasked to
 provide intellectual leadership through research and analysis, support norm-setting by the
 main UN bodies on development – the General Assembly (GA), the Economic and Social Council
 (ECOSOC) – and coordinate with the broader UN development system. <br> However, DESA has
 yet to unlock its full potential in playing a politically relevant and analytically
 authoritative role in sustainable development beyond the conference rooms of New York.
 DESA’s organisational structures have become increasingly outdated and inefficient. Since
 the founding of DESA in 1997, the department has been curiously exempt from the ongoing
 reforms of the world organisation. In addition, there is little transparency and analysis
 of actual reform needs and options. <br> Our reform vision is that DESA should become a
 more prominent voice of the UN in sustainable development and help to credibly raise
 ambitions for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda globally. Tasked with economic and
 social affairs, DESA could serve as the multilateral hub for advancing universality,
 assisting all countries (including high-income countries) in striving for sustainable
 development and coordinating global policies towards advancing the global common good.
 This vision calls for a department that is intellectually brilliant, politically capable
 and impartial in bringing together the whole UN system. <br> As a basic condition, DESA
 reform requires vigorous and consistent support from member states. The power of the
 Secretary-General (SG) and his heads of department to reorganise the structures are
 limited by member states’ oversight, which is mainly executed in the UN’s budgetary
 bodies. Moreover, DESA’s substructures have expanded organically around mandated tasks,
 creating a highly decentralised entity with various overlapping activities, thereby
 raising the stakes of reform. <br> The most recent reform attempts of DESA have
 stagnated in a geopolitical climate of mistrust and opposing priorities along the
 divisions between countries from the political North and South. DESA has been the home
 base of developing countries – organised as the Group of 77 and China (G77) – at the UN
 Secretariat, making it an advocate of developing-country interests. Since 2015, several
 countries from the political North (e.g. United States and EU countries) have called for
 DESA reform in terms of increasing effectiveness and efficiency, while the G77 has pushed
 back, suspecting attempts to diminish their power by cutting funding and staff. The
 situation has become increasingly complex, with growing speculation on the intentions of
 China, whose diplomats have been leading the department for the last decade. <br> In
 order to prepare the ground for a comprehensive DESA reform that is beneficial to all
 stakeholders, we suggest three steps to the SG and his reform team that build upon each
 other: 
 

 
 create greater transparency, substantive knowledge and participation on DESA
 reform
 

 interlink DESA reform with ongoing UN reform processes

 generate political support from member states and long-term payoffs from DESA
 reform.
description: Briefing Paper, 20/2018