Reform of the United Nations has been identified by many, including the congressionally-directed Task Force on the United Nations, as being vital to the effectiveness and relevance of the United Nations in dealing with the wide range of world problems and issues.

In particular, basic UN management and accountability structures and practices need to be modernized and improved. As the 2005 report of the Task Force on the UN stated, the reform agenda must include "wide-ranging institutional reforms, without which other reforms will be more difficult to implement."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is now in the last six months of his ten years in office. His successor will take over just as many international problems, emergent as well as systemic, need attention and action by the world community. What key problem areas must be addressed in the months ahead, including at the opening of the next General Assembly, in order to enable the next secretary-general to structure and manage "UN business" more efficiently and effectively, and with better accountability? How can a broader base of support for basic management reform be advanced, including among the 132 nations of the Group of 77 (G-77)?

Speakers

• Paul Volcker
  Chairman of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN Oil-for-Food Programme; former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System of the United States
• Roderick Hills
  Partner, Hills Stern and Morley, LLP; member of the Task Force on the United Nations; former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
• Donald Hays
  United States Institute of Peace; former U.S. Ambassador for UN Reform, U.S. Mission to the United Nations
• Gary Matthews, Moderator
  United States Institute of Peace