Reform is always a fraught enterprise in a vast, entrenched bureaucracy such as the United Nations. Reform against the backdrop of a severe budget crunch triggered by the Trump administration’s foreign assistance cuts invariably leads to questions about the real reason for the reform — and whether it’s a reactionary, indiscriminate approach or a serious attempt at improving the U.N.
Guy Ryder, U.N. undersecretary-general for policy, insisted it’s the latter.
“We are taking a strategic approach,” Ryder told Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar during a briefing shortly before the 80th U.N. General Assembly. “The secretary-general is very deliberately investing in some areas and necessarily deprioritizing in others. But it's a thought-through, reflective approach to the way we have to invest our time, effort, and resources in the future.”