In defense of unread UN reports

Beware of simple narratives

Of the three workstreams of the UN80 initiative, the mandate review (workstream 2) is the one that has been most visible. A mandate source registry has been developed, a report of the Secretary-General has been issued, and the General Assembly is about to establish an informal ad hoc working group to consider the proposals contained in the report. The discourse around the mandate review, however, has been dominated by simplistic and misleading narratives. The Secretary-General argues that that UN has too many mandates that overlap and are obsolete, and that therefore the mandate review

should result in the identification of duplications, redundancies, or opportunities for greater synergy on implementation.¹

To him, part of the problem is that resolutions are too long.

Longer texts may add value, addressing issues comprehensively, citing relevant considerations and advancing important objectives. However, more complex texts can also obscure priorities and detract from potential impact.²

And too many of these resolutions request reports.

Last year alone, the Secretariat produced 1,100 reports…Yet many of these reports are not widely read…one in five reports receives fewer than 1,000 downloads. And downloading doesn’t necessarily mean reading.³

These talking points and statistics make for a good story, but they don’t stand up to scrutiny. It is important for the informal ad hoc working group to actually understand how and why mandates are implemented so that its efforts do not end up being a waste of time. A nuanced understanding of how and why mandates are generated is also necessary to push back against the weaponization of these simplistic narratives by those seeking to denigrate or dismantle the UN.

Today, I want to focus on the claims related to UN reports, as those were the focus of a widely-circulated Reuters article and are the subject of many uninformed hot takes on social media.