UN Can Be Wholly Effective by Doing What's Right

When I started authoring this article, I typed the phrase “United Nations” and the spellcheck asked, “Do you mean Untied Nations?”

Yes, even my computer knows that the U.N. needs reform. Actually, overhaul.

Enter Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy whose Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is planning to shake out U.S government bureaucracy.

But why stop there? Let’s look at the U.N. bureaucracy, too.

Yes, this DOGE moment must not pass without including the U.N.

We call it DOGE-UN. It is a private initiative to “X-size” U.N. bureaucratic bloat.

DOGE-UN is based on my U.N. reform activism, most recently as Special Assistant to President Donald Trump in the National Security Council for International Organizations, and earlier as U.S. negotiator for the most recent major U.N. reform that satisfied Helms-Biden legislation for paying $1 billion of U.S. arrears to the U.N. in 1999.

DOGE-UN is looking for high “U.N.-Q” individuals to bring the ideas (see DOGE-UN on X, formerly Twitter).

Among its early recruits are insiders, outsiders, friends and critics. This includes several former presidents of the U.N. General Assembly, each battle-scarred by the U.N. permanent bureaucracy. We are coming together to make the U.N. matter again.

The U.S. funds the U.N. with other member states. But U.N. staff “snaps to” only when the United States cracks the whip, usually by withholding dues until the secretary-general cries “uncle” — maybe years later.

The membership cannot afford to wait for that. Campaigning for the next secretary-general is already underway for the end of 2026.

DOGE-UN is already compiling tough measures for the candidates to see. U.N. managerial reform must be topline.

DOGE-UN ‘s key aim is to incentivize and equip stewardship by U.N. member states over their U.N. secretariat staff for accountable administration and management of the organization.

Granted, most diplomats would prefer the bright side of the spotlight instead of managing the workings of the house. But the house will crumble unless they insist on in-house managerial reforms.

After that, a separate menu of institutional reforms regarding the size of the Security Council, the amount each member is billed, and other membership matters might be more usefully prepared.

DOGE-UN wants to quell the tyranny of the expanding administrative state abroad in international organizations. It will assess whether the noble principles and purposes of the U.N. Charter are being administered responsibly and with accountability.

So, DOGE-US asks: "Is the U.N. organization working?" and "Is it working for us?"

Good questions. Some might not want a U.N. that works — cautioning against overreach toward world governance. Others would remind that “working for us” includes our allies and mutual interests.

And what are those interests? The U.N. Charter lists them: peace and security, economic and social development, and respect for human rights.

These are priceless. And their price tag has grown to over $3.4 billion per year.

The U.S. is billed about a quarter of that based on share of world output; the top 10 countries combined pay 90%. The remaining 183 sovereign equals are apportioned the 10% balance.

Now sit down. If we add other U.S. payments to the many U.N.-related entities such as UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and dozens more at the trough, the U.S. total exceeds $18 billion per year (up by $2 billion in the Biden years).

U.N. offices consume resources whether working or not. And if working they prefer policy posturing and prescription over their Charter-specified role: administration.

How did this arrogance evolve?

Over time U.N. members offloaded the unfinished details of their agreements to the secretary-general (or “the SG,” which can also stand for “scape goat”) to finesse or ignore. The SG evolved from chief administrative officer into the Mighty Oz we see today at podiums and other heights on the world scene.

Further, he increasingly broke the glass to warn the Security Council on urgencies and threats to peace and security; and he had carved out a role as a conflict mediator.

The secretary-general became a political actor in his own right, even if not so envisioned by the U.N.'s founders.

So, in the U.N. brahmin bureaucrats evolved from custodians of the house to taking custody of its narratives and prerogatives. The secretariat has positioned itself as the ordained conscience and moral guardian of the organization’s principles and purposes, pontificating daily in front of the camera on not only urgencies but on any other topic of its liking, such as Israel-bashing, without being fact-checked.

This has come at the expense of the secretary-general’s administration for a relevant, robust, and well-resourced organization. Lamentably, the annual “report to shareholders” says nothing of program budgeting or evaluation, rather it finger-waves a list of world woes.

Administrative truancy and managerial delinquency have become regularized. Ensuing corruption in the ranks is papered over.

Perhaps worse is the public perception of the U.N. as irrelevant in today’s world. Worse yet is a potential subversion of the U.N. itself.

On this point, China is embedding in the U.N.’s deep state to hijack the U.N. brand to its own authoritarian ends, such as siphoning U.N. resources for Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative. DOGE-UN is the bull in that China shop.

As the U.N. deep state continues to feather, straw and mud its bureaucratic nest, Syria, Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan go hungry. The U.N.’s November COP29 green dream environment conference drew scant interest and flopped. And again this year the U.N. organization is spent-out months before its fiscal year end.

So, the “E” in DOGE-UN needs to means Efficiency.

Let us make it dual purpose also to stand for effectiveness, too.

Why?

Effectiveness means doing the right thing. Efficiency means doing the thing right.

Yes, the U.N. needs to do the right thing and do the thing right.

If not, then that double “Eff” would translate to Fund-less and Failure.