London

The new director of Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, has given a damning report on the organisation in his first diagnosis since taking office three months ago.

Addressing Unesco's executive board last month, Koïchiro Matsuura said that the top-heaviness of Unesco's secretariat was “alarming”, that there was a “severe mismatching of skills to actual needs”, that the structure of the organization defied “all management principles and even logic”. Staff morale, he said, was worryingly low. He added that existing management practices were often questionable, lines of authority were unclear and transparency was applied “very unevenly”.

He also warned that Unesco was likely to overrun on staff costs by $11 million over the next two years. He blamed the projected costs on the large number of appointments and promotions made by director Federico Mayor shortly before leaving the organization.

Only one of Mayor's 50 appointments and 55 reclassifications and personal promotions — mainly to director level — conformed to staff rules and regulations.

Desperate move: hunger striker Brinda Runghen. Credit: PIERCE, COOPERPIX

When he took over, Matsuura placed a freeze on these ‘eleventh-hour promotions’ and established a task force to examine each appointment. Many staff were offended by this. In January two members of staff went on a ten-day hunger strike in the entrance hall of Unesco's Paris headquarters (pictured, right).

Countries like the United States and Singapore, which are no longer Unesco members, will be watching events closely to see if Matsuura can, as he says, cut costs and improve the management of the organization. This could justify their re-entry.

The US State department called Matsuura's address significant: “We told Matsuura that it's important he create an atmosphere in which the rules are followed, the trains run on time, and there is clear transparency in personnel appointments and management practices”. But at the same time, the US is not eager to see blame heaped on Matsuura's predecessor.

“We would not want this regrettable confusion and debate about eleventh-hour promotions to cloud the remarkable political turnabout Mayor brought about.” Some commentators say Mayor is admired for his transformation of Unesco and his commitment to democratic values and freedom of information.

In 1993 the US General Accounting Office reviewed the management of Unesco and said that the organization had a culture of management reform. They found that significant progress had been made in the improving administration procedures.

John Fobes, chairman of Americans for the Universality of Unesco, says that Matsuura comes with only limited experience of Unesco through the World Heritage Program and will need time to find his way. Fobes' group has been reporting on the organisation since the demise of the US National Commission for Unesco in 1984.

Fobes says his group agrees that, even with the management problems facing Matsuura, it would be best for the US to work inside Unesco as soon as possible. He also hopes that additional specific project partnerships will be sought between US entities and Unesco.

In outlining his plans for reform, Matsuura remarked that “we have a house to live in and repair at the same time. Some of the repairs cannot wait. The leaking plumbing and faulty wiring has to be mended straight away.”

“I must admit the real situation has turned out to be much worse than I imagined,” added Matsuura, who also warned that the culture of Unesco as a whole needed to be changed.