We live in a time of tumultuous global change, crisis, uncertainty, and potential. As the UN
strives to keep pace with economic and financial stringencies, climate change, and food
insecurity, with shifting fulcrums of power, the Arab spring and the Occupy movements,
what will it take to meet urgent new needs? Beyond strategies, politics, and competencies,
organizational culture is critical. The UN has developed a range of formal and informal
arrangements to apply its principles. These reflect the history of the organization, as well
as the interests and resources of the system’s actors. In the organization’s culture, formal
adherence to impartiality, geographic representation, and professionalism are nuanced
by practical institutional measures, management approaches, and values dilemmas that,
inter alia, may foster myopia, risk-aversion, and competition. Efforts towards coherence
and system functioning include interagency collaborations, “Delivering as One,” agency
consolidation, and the human-rights-based approach. Progress toward a more fully valuesaligned
culture, higher level system functioning, and greater responsiveness to its broadest
constituencies, will signal strides toward meeting twenty-first century needs and more
sustainable realization of the UN mission.
