Page 51 - 100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International_V-Petrovsky_private special edition

Bringing the Concept to Life

B. Though it is European based, Geneva is not Eurocentristic - it has 5
areas of global activities within framework of UNOG.

More than that, at present there are 10 UN Specialized Agencies in Europe,
6 of them located in Switzerland, namely: International Telecommunication
Union, International Labour Organization, World Health Organization, World
Meteorological Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, as
well as General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade which has a special status. The
Universal Postal Union has its Headquarters in Bern. The other four are locat-
ed in France, United Kingdom, Italy and Austria. Their work covers, without
exaggeration, all the main fields of global activity - economic development, in-
ternational trade, labour-business relations, science and culture and many
other things.

III. Geneva in transition, in adaptation to new environment.

This is in short what UNOG is now doing. The UN, however, is now in the
process of restructuring. All the aspects of its work are affected and the role and
the functions of the regional Headquarters as well as and their relations with
New York are also being reassessed. Streamlining of the UN organizational
structure is a complicated process and, in my opinion, should be considered
both from functional and geographical points of view.

The adaptation takes into account the specificity of the Geneva structure.

The Geneva UN structures were not created according to architectural
plan. Rather on case-by-case basis.

It is a mosaic, but good mosaic is a piece of art.

A. We have started with the coordination in the UN family.

B. Then have proposed decentralization - to give more authority to
UNOG in using human and financial resources.

SG adopted.

Next tasks.

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