By Todd Howland
Ban Ki-moon is going on 18 months at the helm of the United Nations. It is a huge responsibility with insufficient authority and resources. History has not been kind to most secretary generals.
It is much too early for speculation regarding Ban's legacy. Interestingly, what may hold the key to his success may be similar to some of the factors that contributed to the stunning development, both politically and economically, that characterized Korea in the last few decades.
The United Nations, given its interstate essence, does nothing quickly and change is something that is normally resisted. It has one structural limitation followed by a political one at every turn.
It is a culture worlds away from Korea, where decisions are made quickly, change is embraced and all projects are works in process.
Understanding these limitations, the United Nations has too often traded the appearance of doing the job needed to be done with actually doing the job well and appearing to do it.
Discussions of ineffectiveness and the need for reform seem to be a never ending process, but the sweeping reforms seem to create more expectations than they meet.
Contributing to this complexity is the United States. A country that contributed greatly to establishing the United Nations is now lost in a shallow unproductive debate as to whether the organization is good (Democratic Party) or bad (Republican Party).
Neither position contributes to improving its two principled goals: creating a world where we all enjoy peace and achieving the respect for human rights. China and Japan, like the United States are too tied up with domestic concerns and previous decisions and policies to help the United Nations maximize its potential.
Secretary General Ban should not go the same path as many other secretary generals with grand schemes for change that eventually shipwreck on the shores of vested interests of major powers.
While there is little that can be done to make Security Council and General Assembly decisions more effective, the secretary general can impact the operations of the United Nations from peacekeeping agencies, as they all report to him.
The ``secretariat" can move to value innovation and pragmatism to eventually overcome vested interests and produce an impact throughout the system.
The secretary general should choose a few countries and a few areas where the U.N.'s efforts are widely recognized to have failed to achieve the desired contribution to peace and human rights.
A very good example would be the United Nations intervention in Haiti. Ban should obtain cooperation from the members of the Security Council, major contributors to peacekeeping like Japan and the United States as well as key states in the region for a new and innovative approach.
The focus should not be on a grand scheme of anything permanent, but to create a work in progress that is goal oriented. Ban needs to free himself from most of the bureaucratic and structural impediments that have contributed thus far to sub-optimal performance by the United Nations in Haiti.
In other words, he needs to use a Korean approach to the problem. Once he has secured support for innovation relative to a particular place, he can unleash the power of the Korean way.
Keeping the goal in mind, doing more for less and not holding any past decisions or structures as sacred. Haiti should be a work in progress, where innovation that contributes to the end goal of facilitating the creation of a Haiti that is peaceful and where human rights are respected.
Let's throw out the past and embrace the future for Haiti and other places where the United Nations has spent significant sums but has not achieved success.
Ban has indicated Darfur is a priority. After 18 months, limited progress has been made. In Korea this would most likely result in tossing out the first idea and team and replacing it with fresh ideas by new players. So why not try this at the United Nations?
At least in this case of Haiti let's experiment with how the United Nations structures its peacekeeping operation and agency interventions in order to address the problems effectively that motivated the Security Council to send a mission: human rights violations.
Once the secretary general manages to free himself from political and bureaucratic restraints in a few chosen places, he will be able to unleash the Korean way of operating that focuses on the goal and rewards innovation to get to that goal.
Once it works in one place, he will find a new more effective United Nations growing in an organic fashion similar to how Korea did. Indeed the path to success may be based firmly on the Korean way of operating.
Todd Howland is a professor of human rights law at the dual degree program of the U.N.-mandated University for Peace and the Graduate School of International Area Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul. He can be reached at toddhowland@yahoo.com.