By Naïma Abdellaoui
GENEVA, Jun 27 2025 – In an era defined by the gig economy and pervasive job insecurity, advocating for permanent contracts within the United Nations might seem anachronistic, even counterintuitive.
Yet, clinging to a culture of short-term, precarious contracts is not just detrimental to staff well-being; it’s a strategic and financial misstep that undermines the UN’s core mission.
Simultaneously, while internal restructuring under the banner of “UN 2.0” or “UN80” absorbs significant energy, the world burns with geopolitical fires demanding urgent, credible multilateral action. It’s time to re-focus: prioritize quality hires with stability AND make multilateralism genuinely effective, starting where it matters most – preventing mass atrocities.
The False Economy of Job Insecurity
The argument for limiting permanent contracts often hinges on perceived flexibility and cost savings. However, the reality is starkly different:
1. The High Cost of Turnover: Constantly recruiting, onboarding, and training staff for short-term roles is immensely expensive. Studies consistently show replacing an employee can cost 50-200% of their annual salary. For complex UN roles requiring deep institutional knowledge, context-specific understanding, and intricate diplomatic networks, these costs are amplified exponentially. Permanent staff represent a long-term investment whose value compounds over time.
2. Loss of Institutional Memory & Expertise: The UN tackles the world’s most complex challenges – climate change, pandemics, conflict resolution. Success requires deep historical understanding, nuanced relationships, and specialized expertise. A revolving door of staff erodes this vital institutional memory. Permanent contracts foster the accumulation and retention of irreplaceable knowledge critical for navigating protracted crises.
3. Diminished Loyalty & Engagement: Job insecurity breeds anxiety and disengagement. Staff on short-term contracts, constantly worried about renewal, are less likely to invest fully in long-term projects, challenge inefficient practices, or build the deep cross-departmental collaborations essential for UN effectiveness. Permanent status fosters commitment, psychological safety, and the courage to speak truth to power – vital assets for any organization, especially this one.
4. Quality Over Contract Length: The focus should shift decisively from “how long”someone is hired to “how well” they are selected and perform. Rigorous recruitment processes aimed at securing the best talent, coupled with robust performance management and accountability mechanisms, are the true guarantors of efficiency and effectiveness.
Permanent contracts for highly qualified, competitively selected, high-performing staff provide the stability needed for excellence, not complacency. It’s penny-wise and pound-foolish to sacrifice long-term capability for illusory short-term budget flexibility.
UN80 Reforms: A Distraction from Existential Challenges?
While streamlining processes and modernizing tools under initiatives like UN80 has merit, it risks becoming a consuming internal exercise that diverts attention from the UN’s fundamental crisis: the erosion of effective multilateralism in the face of escalating global turmoil.
The world confronts a resurgence of conflict, climate catastrophe accelerating faster than responses, democratic backsliding, and a fragmenting international order. Yet, the UN Security Council, the body charged with maintaining peace and security, remains paralyzed by the very tool meant to ensure great power buy-in: the veto.
The ghost of the League of Nations haunts us – an institution fatally weakened by its inability to act decisively against aggression because powerful members could simply block consensus.
Reform Must Prioritize Action, Especially Against Genocide
True UN reform cannot be confined to internal restructuring. It must courageously address the structural flaws that prevent the organization from fulfilling its primary mandate:
1. Veto Restraint on Atrocity Crimes: The most urgent starting point is suspending the use of the veto in Security Council resolutions aimed at preventing or stopping genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.
When a permanent member wields its veto to shield perpetrators of these most heinous crimes, it betrays the UN’s foundational purpose and renders collective security a mockery. This specific, targeted reform is not about abolishing the veto wholesale but about preventing its most morally indefensible application. It is a litmus test for the credibility of UN reform.
2. Effectiveness Over Bureaucracy: Reforms must demonstrably enhance the UN’s ability to deliver tangible results on the ground – mediating conflicts effectively, delivering humanitarian aid unhindered, holding human rights abusers accountable, and implementing climate agreements with urgency. This requires empowering agencies, improving coordination, and ensuring mandates are matched with resources and political backing.
3. Reinvigorating Multilateralism: The UN must become a platform that fosters genuine dialogue and compromise, not just a stage for grandstanding. Reform should seek ways to better integrate emerging powers, strengthen the role of the General Assembly where feasible, and rebuild trust among member states around shared principles of the Charter.
Conclusion
Advocating for permanent contracts is not a retreat into comfort; it’s a strategic investment in the UN’s human capital – the bedrock of its effectiveness. It fosters the expertise, loyalty, and long-term perspective needed to tackle generational challenges.
Simultaneously, obsessing over internal restructuring while the mechanisms for global peace and security remain fundamentally broken is a dangerous distraction.
The UN was born from the ashes of catastrophic failure. Its reformers must have the courage to confront the structural impediments – including the unchecked veto enabling atrocity and the erosion of staff stability – that threaten to lead it down the same path.
Let’s prioritize permanent expertise and permanent purpose. The world, beset by crisis, demands nothing less than a United Nations capable of fulfilling its promise.
IPS UN Bureau
Excerpt:
Naïma Abdellaoui, Concerned International Civil Servant and Staff Representative. Member of the Executive Bureau of UNOG Staff Union