The Wider Organization

Abstract

In its formal aspects, UNCTAD is composed of two distinct sets of personae: the national delegations of the 156 member states¹ which periodically meet to present and negotiate their official positions on issues related to trade and development, and the international staff of the UNCTAD Secretariat which numbers some 450 individuals. The assemblages of government representatives may be seen as the public life of the organization and a consideration of the organization and its functioning from their perspective is the main focus of the present chapter. Their attitude of general discontent with respect to the organization’s efficiency and cost-effectiveness in structuring their activities, to Secretariat staff initiatives in the field of primary-commodity control and to employment and promotion practices within the Secretariat are examined. Towards the end of the chapter, the functioning of the delegates themselves in relation to one another and to the aims of the organization receives special consideration. This representation of the organization, the accumulation of the values and behaviours of those of its individual member delegations, is in a sense the organization itself, although to many outside the system, as well as within delegations, the organization is easily, perhaps conveniently, confused with its Secretariat. Whether directly, through its members’ activities, or indirectly through their exercise of control over its Secretariat, the organization exerts a force sometimes greater, at times considerably less, than the sum of individual member energies and convictions.