UNITED NATIONS: U.N. Saves Hefty Dollars by Going High-Tech

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 1997 (IPS) - A cash-strapped United Nations says it is saving millions of dollars by just going high-tech.

These savings have come mostly from electronic mail, video- conferencing and access to the global information superhighway, the Internet, which is home to press releases, voluminous U.N. documents, and more than 30,000 international treaties.

“Over 450 efficiency projects have been initiated,” says Joseph Connor, Under-Secretary-General for the Department of Administration and Management. Almost half have already been completed, and all are well underway.”

The Geneva-based U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) says it has saved 300,000 dollars in telecommunications costs simply by eliminating 60 unused phone lines and expanding e- mail which now exceeds 20,000 messages per month.

The U.N. Office in Geneva claims it has saved 350,000 dollars by restructuring its communication support services.

In a new, 51-page report, the United Nations provides a long list of “efficiency measures” which are expected to cut 100 million dollars from its 1.2-billion-dollar budget for 1997.

Connor told reporters that the United Nations also plans to modernise and enhance services and information provided to member- states, expanding the use of information technology and the availability and transparency of information.

The key goal is to link all 185 New York-based U.N. missions electronically to the Secretariat by June, reducing the quantity of paper documents by 25 percent by 1998.

The U.N. Home Page registered more than one million “hits” per week in the month of February alone, says Connor.

“The Internet is invaluable in helping greatly increased numbers of people to understand what the United Nations does,” he notes. “It is also an invaluable tool for reaching our goal of cuttting the quantity of paper documentation we churn out by 25 percent.”

The U.N. Secretariat, which currently produces almost a billion pages a year, has to conform to stricter page limits set by the General Assembly.

The Santiago-based Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has streamlined its administrative support areas. It has also automated checque writing and launched the electronic processing of travel authorisation. This has resulted in a saving of about 1.68 million dollars.

The Department of Political Affairs is credited with improving the quality of its Disarmament Yearbook by reducing the book’s size from 500 to 325 pages. The Disarmament Periodic Review has been cut from 200 to 100 pages.

The U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs has saved 645,000 dollars over two years through the use of verbatim unedited transcripts in the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

Since the overall savings have been substantial, the United Nations has singled out for special reward the teams of staffers who worked on implementing projects “which enhanced the effectiveness and efficiency of their departmental activities.”

As part of the ongoing restructuring of the world body, Secretary-General Kofi Annan last month announced sharp cuts in staff, a reduction in administrative costs, the merger of three U.N. departments and a new code of conduct embodying accountability in performance. The Secretariat also plans to elimi~ate about 1,000 jobs in the U.N. system, mostly through attrition.

“The reforms are aimed at making the United Nations a leaner, more efficient, more effective, and more relevant organisation,” Annan said.