The significance of coordination in the United Nations System

The term 'United Nations System’ is used in this paper to denote all parts of the United Nations Organization itself which are concerned with promoting the economic and social goals set out in the United Nations Charter, as well as the specialized agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which are working with the United Nations towards the same ends. Coordination in the system is important in so far as it is a means towards those ends, but it should not be considered as an end in itself. As the then Director-General of the International Labour Office remarked a few years ago: ‘In the final reckoning, the test of all our efforts is what we do for human freedom and human dignity, what we do to banish fear and want, what we do to promote greater economic security and greater equality of opportunity… We will not be judged by the perfection or imperfection of the institutional pattern but by the quality of human life which our work makes possible.’

It may be argued that the contribution already made through the United Nations to economic development and social progress throughout the world has not been seriously affected by a touch, at least, of organizational incoherence. Indeed, some lack of coordination, including some duplication and overlapping of activities, disputes about competences, untidiness and discrepancies in administrative arrangements, occasional failures to cooperate, conceptual differences in regard to objectives–all of which are common phenomena in national administrations–is unavoidable in a dynamic, growing and pioneering international system.