International day of UN Peacekeepers "Protecting Civilians-Protecting Peace"

We would like to talk a bit about Unity, International Civil Servants and United Nations.

On this day and age, the concept of a “Nations United” appears to be slipping away somewhat, a growing wave of nationalist sentiments across many nations seems to be chipping away at the notion of a United Global Village and is creating more of “us versus them” rather than “we, together as one human race”.

Growing inequality between people due to a host of reasons globally that favours a small percentage of humanity seems to be fuelling disunity rather than unity.

A growing erosion of the observation and application of basic Human Rights for its citizens by various nation states are fuelling anger and resentment and the trust deficit in Governments by its people appears to be growing bigger all the time. In the arena that we work the human rights abuses are all too obvious very often. Innocent civilians continue to be victims of horrendous violence in many conflicts around the globe. Hence, this years theme for the International Day of UN Peacekeepers.

On this day we honour the peacekeepers that have given their lives in the service of peace and we pay tribute to their invaluable contribution to the organisation. Since 1948 more than 3800 have given their lives serving under the UN Flag.

Within our own United Nations Organization, the very structures that we have in place that dictate our “hierarchy” and staffing structures do not embody Unity but rather create class differences, the “us versus them” rather than “we and togetherness”.

The various different categories of staff don’t offer the appearance of a “United Staff”, but seem to project a “divided” staffing system, that often feeds into inflated ego’s and projected self-worth, rather than real professionalism and a truly United UN staff.

In December 2002, former Secretary General Mr. Kofi Annan (May He rest in Peace) declared a “New Nomenclature” for Staff of the United Nations, as part of his own recognition of these “class differences” in our organization he wanted to bring more unity, to make UN Staff a “UNITED” Staff.

In particular he stated, “The current nomenclature, which refers to General Service and related categories and Professional and higher categories, is antiquated and tends to cause unnecessary divisions in the workplace. Effective 1 January 2003, all United Nations staff members will be referred to as international civil servants”. The change of nomenclature is an integral part of the process of building a new organisational culture, where the contribution of each one of us, at all levels, individually or as part of a team, is valued and respected”. 

In times of uncertainty, budget cuts, staffing reviews, downsizing, GSDM, Management Reforms etc. these “divisions” of which he spoke tend to get emphasized and we as International Civil Servants lose focus of the fact that we are indeed ALL International Civil Servants.

Team "Future" (Ticket-1) will strive for a Unified Staffing Structure and System, one that offers equal career advancement opportunities to all staff within this organization without artificial barriers imposed, recognizing and rewarding valued contributions. A unifying structure rather than a dividing one, so that we are a United International Civil Service.

So, on this International Day of UN Peacekeepers, we call for Unity and express the hope that the spirit of Unity that Kofi Annan tried to inject into our organisation will be picked up by our current Secretary General and expanded upon with a vision for a United Staff in a unified staffing structure with equal opportunities for all. 

Team Future aims to bring unity in purpose and values to the UNFSU Membership based on the premise that..

We Are Stronger Together!

Kind regards,

Mark, Leila and Liliya