On Oct. 8 I wrote about the second report by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, published Sept. 23, on reforming the U.N. An important innovation in this report (Chapter Two entitled "Doing What Matters") is that it actually tackles the substantive agenda of the organization's work program. The reason for this is very simple: The U.N. must be clear on what to do before it can learn how to do it well. As Annan notes in his report, "Unless we make sure that the organization is focusing on the issues that matter most today, as well as the issues that will matter most tomorrow, our goal of strengthening the organization will elude us." For in the end, "The remainder -- the structures, procedures, personnel and systems -- is intended to ensure that whatever we do, we do well."
The U.N. work program is both complex and comprehensive, as is to be expected of an organization asked to deal with almost every aspect of international cooperation. The U.N. Secretariat, like any bureau, is a means of structuring political vision into a feasible legislative agenda. All that the U.N. does today should reflect our collective vision of what we -- the peoples and governments of the world -- wish the world to be like tomorrow. Instead, far too much of what organizations do today tends to be determined by the precedents and inertia of yesterday.
The three great challenges facing us remain the creation of a world in which people live in freedom from want, freedom from fear and the freedom for future generations to sustain their lives on this planet. The great demand on the U.N. is to facilitate the attainment of the three goals in parallel, and to avoid a collision between growing ecological pressures, developing threats to political order and stability, significant challenges to social cohesion and equitable economic expansion. The organization must meet these demands and expectations by refining and modernizing its capacity to be the central forum for reaching and implementing common solutions to global problems.