In late September, my spouse and I visited our Alma Mater Macalester College to participate in the Macalester Festival, including a session on the Kofi Annan Institute for Global Citizenship which is located on the campus. In preparation, I read the book “KOFI ANNAN. A Man of Peace in a World of War” by Stanley Meisler. Kofi’s early education in the British colony of the Gold Coast and then independent Ghana, his arrival at Macalester College in the late 1950s and graduation in 1961, and the start of his career in the UN in 1962, is fascinating. I extracted two major similarities with the World Bank in the book and . First, the operation of the United Nations’ bureaucracy, and second, the call for a balance between State sovereignty and the predisposition for intervention by international institutions.
The first similarity in the book is the insight of how the UN Bureaucracy responds to their bosses, the Security Council of the United Nations sitting in New York. It is a highly political environment, much more so than how the staff of the World Bank responds to its Board of Executive Directors in Washington D.C. In the UN, Kofi was known as “an international civil servant who was not a bureaucrat”. All day he spoke softly but always directly”. He joined the UN system in 1962 as an administrative and budget officer in Geneva, served in Addis Ababa, in Egypt, and in various senior posts in New York dealing with human resources, budget, finance and staff security. As he advanced, it was clear that his soft-spoken and congenial persona did not deter from his strong inner convictions and speaking directly. He “did not go along to get along”.
In both the UN and World Bank, bureaucrats have developed very intricate and specialized processes and procedures (dances), and a nuanced language of communication. These dances and language is the “culture”. It is small wonder that the political masters of both the UN and WBG do not reach into the staff to select the leaders of these institutions, even when they repeat the adage that the staff are the “best and brightest”. Kofi Annan was the first and so far, only Secretary-General who had a 30-year career in the UN bureaucracy before becoming the Secretary General in 1997 and serving two terms ending in 2006.
The second theme is about the Balance between sovereignty and the right of intervention of the UN and the World Bank in the internal affairs of the State. It is about whether these institutions should act, especially in times of war, and when economic and social crises demonstrate clearly that the State is incapable of providing their citizens with the basics of physical safety (peace), food, and shelter. For the UN, the peace keeping of its blue berets is often accompanied by the UNHCR. The UN Secretariat does not make peace between warring factions in State conflicts. Its forces only keep the peace that is already agreed by the combatants, oft-time brokered by the Security Council. This is a necessary precursor for the UN to then intervene with humanitarian assistance and support to refugees and internally displaced people. The Nobel Committee recognized this and awarded the Peace Prize to Kofi Annan and the UN in 2001. The Nobel Prize was awarded twice to the UNHCR in 1954 and 1981.
Then, how come the World Bank Group of institutions and any of its Presidents have never been recognized by the Nobel Committee and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?. After all, the World Bank too is staffed with the “best and brightest” of international civil servants, has its own bureaucracy and culture that identifies difficult economic, social and humanitarian issues, deliberates on them, and then offers solutions for implementation. The argument that the World Bank should not be seen to “be in bed” with dictators, has given way to an argument that says while distance must be shown to the dictators, new and innovative devices have to be devised to assist and support the people who are suffering economic and social degradation. The World Bank has been magnificent here. It has found ways to partner with other international and bilateral institutions, relief agencies, and large and small domestic non-governmental organizations.
Nonetheless, when the client States of the UN and World Bank get weary of the bureaucrats (unelected, overpaid, and over here) they seek “reform”. Kofi Annan had to deal with the call for reform of the UN. Today, Ajay Banga, the 14th President of World Bank is dealing with the same issue. The tried-and-true approach at both institutions has been decentralization – get folks out of headquarters and move them to the field to be closer to clients; and reshuffling the boxes and shortening processes and procedures – change the culture. Has it worked before? Will it work now?.
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KEYWORDS Bureaucracy, culture, Nobel Peace Prize, Reform, UN
