A thought on choosing leaders of intergovernmental organizations

An AP reporter asked me a couple of weeks ago whether I thought the process for election of a new Director General for UNESCO should be scrapped and replaced by a new and better one. (I have been watching that process rather obsessively while posting news on the UNESCO's Friends group on LinkedIn.)

I replied that I feared that the idea was simply impractical. The current process of choosing leaders for intergovernmental organizations is fully in the hands of the international diplomatic community, and is intensely political. There are informal agreements that specific countries have the right to choose the heads of some organizations or that the directorships would revolve among the regions of the world. There are trade-offs with governments supporting each others candidates in parallel elections. Unfortunately, in the process the idea of selecting the best man or woman for the job seems often to get lost.

The process differs according to the governance of the organization involved. Some organizations work on one-country one vote, others on the basis of votes proportional to the economic contributions to the organizations, and for programs of the United Nations, the heads are generally appointed. While the processes differ, all seem to be infused by politics. There are clear examples of the process gone wrong.

If you are interested, check:

• Who Will be the Next UN Secretary General
• UNElections.Org
• Improving Global Leadership Selection

Think of the process for selection of senior officials for the U.S. Government. Relatively long lists of candidates for jobs are created, combining both unsolicited applications and nominations by a variety of influential persons. Then there are serious background investigations. Input is solicited from trusted intermediaries who know both the short list candidates and the job. Interviews are conducted. Finally, a person is selected by the executive branch and nominated for the job. Then the legislative branch provides checks and balances for the process, conducting its own investigation, interviews, and voting on whether to confirm the nomination.

For the UNESCO election to be held this fall, there are nine candidates, each nominated by one or more member nations of the Organization. A few have websites and others have online formal biographies, but the information on these sites is highly selective, designed to make the candidate look good. The Internet provides a means for obtaining more information from the press coverage of the candidates previous careers and there is also information on some from the blogosphere and social networking sites. It would seem, however, that some organization such as Transparency International or the OECD might perform a great service by doing full field investigations of the "short list" candidates for heads of the intergovernmental agencies.

UNESCO is exceptional in that at its creation the Organization's Constitution called for member nations to create National Commissions which were to involve representatives from the educational, scientific and cultural communities to participate in the governance of UNESCO. From my observation this system continues to work in some countries, but in many more countries decisions about UNESCO are left to the foreign policy establishment, an establishment that is less than imbued with enthusiasm for education, science and culture.

The intellectual communities would presumably focus on the intellectual qualifications of candidates to manage UNESCO's services to global education, science and culture. However, without better sources of information it is not clear how they could promote support for the best candidates from their national delegations to the Executive Council and General Conference where the Director General will be elected.

In short, I don't see the foreign policy establishment willingly sharing the power to name leaders for the intergovernmental organizations. On the other hand, the key constituencies for the organizations can probably elbow into the process. To do so well, however, there needs to be better information on the candidates available and organized for the relevant constituent communities.