The report, Shifting Paradigms: United to Ship, outlines attainable changes in how the UN is structured, how its entities collaborate, and the way it operates. It’s the third main output of the Initiative, following earlier reviews on effectivity measures and on mandate implementation assessment. Issued simply earlier than the Basic Meeting’s Excessive-Degree Week, the doc is meant to tell Member States’ deliberations.
“It is a work in progress,” Mr Guterres says within the preface. “We look ahead to working with Member States – as homeowners of the method – to comprehend our widespread ambition: a United Nations system that’s extra coherent, simpler, and higher outfitted to serve ‘We the Peoples’.”
Principal areas of focus
The proposals handle all three pillars of UN work – peace and safety, sustainable improvement and human rights – in addition to humanitarian motion, methods to strengthen cross-pillar collaboration and system-wide enablers. It requires fewer silos, much less duplication and simpler collaboration, noting that the UN system, constructed up over 80 years, should adapt to right now’s much more advanced challenges.
- In peace and safety, the report proposes consolidating workplaces and management layers, establishing centres of excellence for peacebuilding and for Girls, Peace and Safety, and making ready leaner, extra built-in peace operations.
- A New Humanitarian Compact is proposed to streamline planning, combine international provide chains, broaden widespread back-office providers and strengthen humanitarian diplomacy, with the aim of serving over 100 million folks extra shortly and successfully.
- On sustainable improvement, the Secretary-Basic recommends assessing potential mergers of businesses, pooling experience by means of new joint information hubs, and reconfiguring regional and country-level operations for better affect.
- In human rights, the report proposes making a UN Human Rights Group, led by the Excessive Commissioner, to coordinate system-wide motion and cut back duplication.
- Amongst the system enablers, the report highlights the creation of a UN System Knowledge Commons, a Know-how Accelerator Platform, unified back-office providers, streamlined coaching and analysis, and reforms to strengthen pooled and core funding.
Subsequent steps
A number of proposals within the report lie throughout the Secretary-Basic’s authority and might be superior directly. Most, nonetheless, relaxation with Member States. Mr. Guterres has been invited by the President of the Basic Meeting to temporary on the report on 15 October 2025.
