I Love the U.N., but It Is Failing
我爱联合国，但它辜负了我们的期待
I HAVE worked for the United Nations for most of the last three decades. I was a human rights officer in Haiti in the 1990s and served in the former Yugoslavia during the Srebrenica genocide. I helped lead the response to the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Haitian earthquake, planned the mission to eliminate Syrian chemical weapons, and most recently led the Ebola mission in West Africa. I care deeply for the principles the United Nations is designed to uphold.
我在联合国工作了近三十年。1990年代，我在海地担任人权干事，并于斯雷布雷尼察大屠杀期间在前南斯拉夫工作。我曾帮助应对印度洋海啸和海地地震，策划了消除叙利亚化学武器的项目，最近还曾在西非指挥抗击埃博拉病毒。我深切地关心联合国着意维护的准则与理念。
And that’s why I have decided to leave.
这也是我决定离开的原因。
The world faces a range of terrifying crises, from the threat of climate change to terrorist breeding grounds in places like Syria, Iraq and Somalia. The United Nations is uniquely placed to meet these challenges, and it is doing invaluable work, like protecting civilians and delivering humanitarian aid in South Sudan and elsewhere. But in terms of its overall mission, thanks to colossal mismanagement, the United Nations is failing.
全球正面临一系列骇人的危机，从气候变化的威胁到叙利亚、伊拉克和索马里不断涌现的恐怖分子。在应对这些挑战方面，联合国有着特殊的地位，而它所做的工作也极其宝贵，例如在南苏丹及其他地区保护平民与提供人道主义救助。但是当我们谈及它的全面使命时，由于大范围的管理不善，联合国实则正日渐辜负我们的期待。
Six years ago, I became an assistant secretary general, posted to the headquarters in New York. I was no stranger to red tape, but I was unprepared for the blur of Orwellian admonitions and Carrollian logic that govern the place. If you locked a team of evil geniuses in a laboratory, they could not design a bureaucracy so maddeningly complex, requiring so much effort but in the end incapable of delivering the intended result. The system is a black hole into which disappear countless tax dollars and human aspirations, never to be seen again.
六年前，我成为联合国助理秘书长，前往纽约总部工作。我对繁文缛节并不陌生，但此处盛行的奥威尔式告诫与卡罗尔式逻辑的暧昧含糊，仍是令我措手不及。就算你把一群邪恶天才关在实验室里，他们也设计不出这种官僚体系，繁琐到让人发狂，耗费了大量精力到头来却一事无成。这样的体制就是一个黑洞，大把的税金和人们的抱负全都被吸到里面，有去无回。
The first major problem is a sclerotic personnel system. The United Nations needs to be able to attract and quickly deploy the world’s best talent. And yet, it takes on average 213 days to recruit someone. In January, to the horror of many, the Department of Management imposed a new recruitment system that is likely to increase the delay to over a year.
第一个严重的问题是僵硬的人事制度。联合国需要有能力去吸引全球最优秀的人才，并迅速把他们安排到合适的岗位。但现状是，招募一个新人平均要花掉213天。今年一月份，管理部门施行了新的招募制度，时间花费可能超过一年，让人深感恐怖。
During the Ebola epidemic, I was desperate to get qualified people on the ground, and yet I was told that a staff member working in South Sudan could not travel to our headquarters in Accra, Ghana, until she received a new medical clearance. We were fighting a disease that killed many thousands and risked spinning out of control and yet we spent weeks waiting for a healthy colleague to get her forms processed.
埃博拉病毒流行期间，我急需在当地找到合适的帮手，结果却被告知，一位在南苏丹工作的成员在拿到新的体检合格单之前，无法前来阿克拉的总部。我们正在与杀死数千人的流行病抗争，局面时刻有失控恶化的危险，然而却需要耗费数周时间去等一位健康同事走完表格流程。
Too often, the only way to speed things up is to break the rules. That’s what I did in Accra when I hired an anthropologist as an independent contractor. She turned out to be worth her weight in gold. Unsafe burial practices were responsible for about half of new Ebola cases in some areas. We had to understand these traditions before we could persuade people to change them. As far as I know, no United Nations mission had ever had an anthropologist on staff before; shortly after I left the mission, she was let go.
唯一能加快进度的办法就是打破规则，这种情形屡见不鲜。我在阿克拉招募一名人类学家作独立合约员工时就是这么做的。结果证明她真是帮了大忙。在一些地区，近一半的新增病例源于不安全的埋葬措施，我们必须在理解这些习俗传统之后才有办法劝说人们去做出改变。就我所知，在此之前联合国的任务团队里从未有过人类学家；而我离开这个项目后不久，她就被解雇了。
The heads of billion-dollar peace operations, with enormous responsibilities for ending wars, are not able to hire their immediate staff, or to reassign non-performers away from critical roles. It is a sign of how perversely twisted the bureaucracy is that personnel decisions are considered more dangerous than the responsibility to lead a mission on which the fate of a country depends.
维和行动的花费常达数十亿美金，其首长们肩负着结束战争的重大使命，却无法招募到他们的直属部下，或者调离重要职位上的不作为者。这个信号显示了联合国的官僚系统被扭曲至何种无理的程度：比起肩负关乎一国命运的重任，进行人事变动安排对他们来说反而更危险。
One result of this dysfunction is minimal accountability. There is today a chief of staff in a large peacekeeping mission who is manifestly incompetent. Many have tried to get rid of him, but short of a serious crime, it is virtually impossible to fire someone in the United Nations. In the past six years, I am not aware of a single international field staff member’s being fired, or even sanctioned, for poor performance.
这种机制失灵的结果之一就是问责制度形同虚设。当下，一个大型维和任务的总参谋长明显无法胜任，许多人都想把他赶走。但在联合国的体系内，除非他面临严重的犯罪指控，否则要解雇他几乎是不可能的。就我所知，过去的六年间不曾有一名国际部门的职员因为表现糟糕而被解雇，甚至连处罚都没有。
The second serious problem is that too many decisions are driven by political expediency instead of by the values of the United Nations or the facts on the ground.
第二个严重的问题是，太多的决策出于政治上的权宜考虑，而非基于联合国的价值体系或实际需求。
Peacekeeping forces often lumber along for years without clear goals or exit plans, crowding out governments, diverting attention from deeper socioeconomic problems and costing billions of dollars. My first peacekeeping mission was in Cambodia in 1992. We left after less than two years. Now it’s a rare exception when a mission lasts fewer than 10.
维和部队常常在没有清晰的任务目标或退出方案的情况下，就这么四处游荡长达数年，排挤了当地政府，转移了对更深层的社会经济问题的注意力，耗费掉数十亿美元。我参与的第一个维和任务是1992年在柬埔寨。不到两年时间我们就离开了。而现在，罕有任务会短于10年。
Look at Haiti: There has been no armed conflict for more than a decade, and yet a United Nations force of more than 4,500 remains. Meanwhile, we are failing at what should be our most important task: assisting in the creation of stable, democratic institutions. Elections have been postponed amid allegations of fraud, and the interim prime minister has said that “the country is facing serious social and economic difficulties.” The military deployment makes no contribution at all to solving these problems.
看看海地吧：那里已经10余年未曾发生过武装冲突，但是仍有超过4,500名联合国士兵驻守在当地。同时，我们却一直没有履行好最重要的任务：帮助当地人民建立稳定、民主的体制。选举因被指控存在欺诈而延期，临时总理也谈及“这个国家正面临严重的社会与经济困难。”然而军事部署对于解决这些问题毫无助益。
Our most grievous blunder is in Mali. In early 2013, the United Nations decided to send 10,000 soldiers and police officers to Mali in response to a terrorist takeover of parts of the north. Inexplicably, we sent a force that was unprepared for counterterrorism and explicitly told not to engage in it. More than 80 percent of the force’s resources are spent on logistics and self-protection. Already 56 people in the United Nations contingent have been killed, and more are certain to die. The United Nations in Mali is day by day marching deeper into its first quagmire.
我们犯下的最严重错误是在马里。2013年初，恐怖分子夺取了马里北部的部分地区，于是联合国决定派遣10,000士兵与警察前往马里加以应对。令人费解的是，我们派去的军队并无反恐的准备，并且被明确命令不要与恐怖分子交火。超过80%的部队资源用在了后勤和自卫上。到目前，已有56名联合国士兵牺牲，之后必然会出现更多人员伤亡。联合国将就此日渐深陷于马里的泥潭之中。
BUT the thing that has upset me most is what the United Nations has done in the Central African Republic. When we took over peacekeeping responsibilities from the African Union there in 2014, we had the choice of which troops to accept. Without appropriate debate, and for cynical political reasons, a decision was made to include soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Congo and from the Republic of Congo, despite reports of serious human rights violations by these soldiers. Since then, troops from these countries have engaged in a persistent pattern of rape and abuse of the people — often young girls — the United Nations was sent there to protect.
但是，最让我感到不安的是联合国在中非共和国的所作所为。2014年，当我们从非洲联盟手中接过维和任务时，我们可以选择接收哪些部队。没有经过合理的辩论程序，出于现实的政治原因考量，刚果民主共和国与刚果共和国的部队也一起被联合国接收，尽管当时已有报告显示这些士兵存在严重违反人权的行为。自此，这些军队强奸和虐待当地人民的情况持续不断出现，受害者通常都是年轻女孩，而这些人原本是联合国应当保护的对象。
Last year, peacekeepers from the Republic of Congo arrested a group of civilians, with no legal basis whatsoever, and beat them so badly that one died in custody and the other shortly after in a hospital. In response there was hardly a murmur, and certainly no outrage, from the responsible officials in New York.
去年，刚果共和国的维和部队在毫无法律依据的情况下逮捕了一群平民，对他们实施猛烈的殴打，导致一人死于监禁场所，另一人也随后死于医院。但纽约的负责人对此却毫无回应，更别提去表达愤怒了。
As the abuse cases piled up, impassioned pleas were made to send the troops home. These were ignored, and more cases of child rape came to light. Last month, we finally kicked out the Democratic Republic of Congo soldiers, but the ones from the Republic of Congo remain.
随着凌虐事件越积越多，当地人民陈情要求遣返这些部队。这些声音被无视了，同时越来越多强奸幼童的案子被曝光。上个月，我们终于赶走了刚果民主共和国的部队，但是刚果共和国的士兵现在仍驻留在当地。
In 1988, my first job with the United Nations was as a human rights officer in Cambodian refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border, investigating rapes and murders of the poor and helpless. Never could I have imagined that I would one day have to deal with members of my own organization committing the same crimes or, worse, senior officials tolerating them for reasons of cynical expediency.
1988年，我在联合国的第一份工作是作为人权干事前往泰柬边界的柬埔寨难民营，调查贫苦无助的平民所遭受的强奸和谋杀案件。我从未想到，自己日后竟要处理实施同样犯罪的联合国人员，更有甚者，还要处理那些出于现实的政治考量而容忍放纵他们的长官们。
I am hardly the first to warn that the United Nations bureaucracy is getting in the way of its peacekeeping efforts. But too often, these criticisms come from people who think the United Nations is doomed to fail. I come at it from a different angle: I believe that for the world’s sake we must make the United Nations succeed.
联合国的官僚体制正在成为它维和努力的障碍，我并不是第一个发出这样警告的人。但这些批评通常来自对联合国抱持悲观态度的人，而我则选择从不同的角度来看待这个问题：我相信，为了全世界，我们必须让联合国成功。
In the run-up to the election of a new secretary general this year, it is essential that governments, and especially the permanent members of the Security Council, think carefully about what they want out of the United Nations. The organization is a Remington typewriter in a smartphone world. If it is going to advance the causes of peace, human rights, development and the climate, it needs a leader genuinely committed to reform.
面对今年即将到来的新任联合国秘书长选举，世界各国，尤其是各安理会常任理事国，需要好好想想他们想从联合国得到些什么。这个机构就像一台智能手机时代的雷明顿打字机，如若仍有心继续推进关于和平、人权、发展与气候等议题，它就需要一位真心实意寻求变革的领导人。
The bureaucracy needs to work for the missions; not the other way around. The starting point should be the overhaul of our personnel system. We need an outside panel to examine the system and recommend changes. Second, all administrative expenses should be capped at a fixed percentage of operations costs. Third, decisions on budget allocations should be removed from the Department of Management and placed in the hands of an independent controller reporting to the secretary general. Finally, we need rigorous performance audits of all parts of headquarters operations.
联合国的官僚体系需要服务于各项任务，而不是反其道行之。第一步应先全面革新人事体制。我们需要一个外部小组来检视这个体制并提供变革建议。第二，所有行政支出都应该控制在任务总费用的某个固定比例内。第三，分配预算的权力应当从管理部门转移至一个直接向秘书长汇报的独立主管人。最后，我们需要对总部行动的各个部分进行严格的绩效审计。
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is a man of great integrity, and the United Nations is filled with smart, brave and selfless people. Unfortunately, far too many others lack the moral aptitude and professional abilities to serve. We need a United Nations led by people for whom “doing the right thing” is normal and expected.
潘基文秘书长为人诚实正直，联合国也充满了聪明、勇敢与无私的人。可惜的是，太多的人缺少必要的道德品质与专业能力。我们期望联合国被这样一个人领导：对他/她来说，“做正确的事”是平常且可以期待的。
翻译：Eartha（@王小贰_Eartha）
校对：慕白（@李凤阳他说）
编辑：辉格@whigzhou