This transformation in expertise and tradition, encapsulated within the Secretary-Basic’s imaginative and prescient of a UN 2.0, is targeted on fostering cutting-edge capabilities in information, digital, innovation, foresight and behavioural science – to ship stronger outcomes, higher Member State assist, and sooner progress in the direction of the Sustainable Improvement Targets.
Throughout a roundtable with Member States, a bunch of UN leaders and consultants defined the potential and techniques of UN 2.0. They highlighted early success tales, that, when replicated, will enhance on-the-ground influence of a stronger, extra versatile and fashionable UN. This occasion got here earlier than the launch of the Secretary-Basic’s coverage temporary on the problem of a UN 2.0 revamp.
On the core of UN 2.0 is the so-named ‘Quintet of Change’, a strong mixture of information, innovation, digital options, foresight, and behavioural science options.
Opening the dialogue, Melissa Fleming, the Underneath-Secretary-Basic for World Communications, emphasised the necessity for change, highlighting that the progress in the direction of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Improvement – adopted by all UN Member States in 2015 as a blueprint for peace and prosperity – is at present not on observe.
Responding to the rising demand for reform, UN 2.0 represents a shift in how UN system organizations function, aiming to speed up progress in the direction of the Sustainable Improvement Targets (SDGs).
Man Ryder, the Underneath-Secretary-Basic for Coverage, who brings in depth expertise from his decade-long tenure main the Worldwide Labour Group (ILO), defined that the aim of UN 2.0 is to equip UN organizations with the modern experience required to be an efficient accomplice for Member States within the twenty-first century.
A reworked UN leaves nobody behind
Catherine Pollard, the Underneath-Secretary-Basic for Administration Technique, Coverage, and Compliance, defined that the first beneficiaries of UN 2.0 are the folks the UN serves in its 193 member nations. “However equally necessary, UN 2.0 is about UN organizations themselves, as a result of they are going to develop new expertise, new expertise, new goal to raised ship our mandate.”
The UN continues to be a related participant within the multilateral enviornment. To take care of this relevance, Ms. Pollard mentioned, the Group will develop workers’ expertise, supply extra coaching, appeal to new abilities, and enhance human sources insurance policies.
Like many issues within the fashionable world, UN 2.0 can be pushed by digital options and cutting-edge applied sciences. Robert Opp, Chief Digital Officer of UNDP, the UN company selling worldwide growth, advocated for the potential that new applied sciences supply and contemplated on what the longer term can convey.
“AI is the present problem, however there can be quantum computing and different breakthroughs across the nook, what we haven’t even anticipated,” he mentioned, including that when the ‘Quintet of Change’ is efficiently carried out throughout the UN system, the Group’s agility in responding to new challenges and in serving to Member States will improve dramatically.
Knowledge, digital, innovation, foresight and behavioural science play key roles
The UN is actively supporting Member States of their pursuit of latest options. A community of innovation labs has been established in additional than 90 nations, serving as platforms for sharing new experience in expertise, information and different areas.
One notable success story comes from Indonesia, defined Faizal Thamrin, Knowledge Scientist at UN World Pulse Asia-Pacific. He illustrated how his staff collaborated with the Authorities and hundreds of small and medium enterprises to arrange for the longer term. Moreover, the staff’s information analytics expertise, mixed with Indonesia’s expertise, helped replicate early warning methods for pure disasters throughout the area.
UN 2.0 extends past information and digital options. Behavioural science, a multidisciplinary subject that integrates insights from psychology, economics, communications, information science, sociology, and extra, performs a vital function within the ‘Quintet of Change’.
Claire Hobden, an ILO professional on home work, supplied an instance from Argentina’s casual sector. With assist from UN colleagues, the Authorities was in a position to considerably broaden social safety protection to home employees, resembling nannies and caregivers, who are sometimes onerous to achieve.
“By means of a really small intervention we hope to have the ability to give extra folks entry to social safety, realizing their rights and entry to respectable work,” mentioned Ms. Hobden noting the large potential of replicating these strategies, as there are 75 million such employees across the globe.
‘With new instruments, we are able to do higher’
In dialog with senior diplomats, Mr. Ryder emphasised that UN 2.0 is about potential of doing our job higher “if we take a recent have a look at among the issues we’ve been doing for a very long time.”
Commenting on the journey forward for UN colleagues, Mr. Ryder mentioned “What you’ve executed has been nice. Now we have now new instruments. Let’s decide up these new instruments, use them and possibly we are able to enhance on what we’ve executed earlier than. It’s not saying what occurred previously was unhealthy. It’s saying what we do sooner or later could be higher”.
The occasion was co-organized by the Everlasting Missions of Norway and the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations in partnership with the Govt Workplace of the Secretary-Basic.
