9th Annual Meeting of the UN Strategic Planning Network

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a pleasure to be with you today for the annual meeting of the UN Strategic Planning Network. I am glad to welcome you back to Geneva and I am delighted to see that – since I was last with you 3 years ago – the UNSPN has grown in both numbers, scope and impact.

Before we turn to more serious matters, let me just say: Congratulations and happy ten-year anniversary!

When speaking about strategy and plans, you often hear the somewhat dismissive saying that “no plan survives first contact with the enemy” – the ‘enemy’ being in most cases, quite simply ‘reality’.

That may be true, but – to stay with the military imagery for a moment – it is equally true what General Eisenhower once said about preparing for battle, namely that “plans may be useless but planning is indispensable.”

That is to say, that plans must never become dogmas – rather, they must be flexible enough to adapt to changing realities without being too general to lose their ability to meaningfully guide our actions.

There is, of course, one such plan that fits this description and has rightly become the guiding Road Map for everything we do: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

With its 17 goals and 169 targets, our plan is broad and nimble enough to afford us the flexibility we need to adjust as we implement. It is sprawling – capturing everything from health to the rule of law – but focused enough to give all of us a clear and common direction.

This careful balance between focus and scope is rooted in an important realization: that the interdependent nature of the challenges we face render old divisions nonsensical.

This is precisely why the 17 goals are indivisibly part of a single agenda. Because progress in one field depends on action in another. Because we either all make it, or none of us will.

Our pledge to “leave no one behind” is not a benevolent acknowledgement that those most vulnerable merit our attention; it is the very prerequisite for our common success.

The universal and integrated nature of the SDGs cuts across issues, organizations and generations, and challenges all of us to work in a more horizontal and collaborative manner than we have ever done before.

We have to strengthen partnerships, within the UN family, with regional organizations and other partners, including the private sector, civil society and academia, to achieve a better coordinated analysis and response.

We need to think holistically. We need to be integrated. We need to act together. We need to deliver and invest as one.

All of which is easier said than done.

Most of you here will know why. You have experienced how bureaucratic divides from yesteryear – at every level of governance – incentivize hoarding information and duplicating initiatives. How hard it can be to bridge silos, to overcome institutional inertia, to streamline and harmonize across funds, programmes and agencies.

But to deliver the 2030 Agenda, all of this needs to change. The status quo is simply not an option.

This is why, in taking his oath of office, our Secretary-General António Guterres has promised to make reform a priority.

The reform – like any plan – is not an end in itself. Its purpose is straightforward: to make the United Nations fit for the 21st century – focused more on people and less on process, more on delivery and less on bureaucracy.

To achieve this, we are pursuing three strategic priorities for reform: in our work for peace, our support for sustainable development and our internal management.

We are reforming our peace and security architecture to ensure we are stronger in prevention, more agile in mediation, and more effective and cost-effective in peacekeeping operations.

We are reforming our development system to become much more field-focused, well-coordinated and accountable to better assist countries in implementing the 2030 Agenda.

To underpin all of this, we are working on fundamental management reform – to simplify procedures and decentralize decisions, with greater transparency, efficiency, agility, and accountability.

Because we are a global organization with 90 per cent of our people serving in the field, we need to bring decision-making closer to the people we serve; empower managers to deliver on mandates entrusted to them; reform cumbersome and costly budgetary and administrative procedures; and eliminate duplicative structures.
Part of realizing this new management paradigm must be a greater emphasis on collaboration, strategic planning, transparency and accountability for results.

Strategic planning is critical to the UN system because it develops yardsticks for judging short-term decisions; for evaluating medium-term progress; and for giving long-term directions.

But to provide long-term directions that unites us and aligns us with the 2030 Agenda, we need to address the fragmentation in management structures. This fragmentation is also reflected in the variety of strategic planning instruments and mechanisms that exist between different organizations. Some of it is based on the differences in mandates and funding. But part of it might just be old habits, past practice, and little coordination.

This is where we count on you. By bringing together strategic planners and results-based management practitioners from across the UN universe, UNSPN can greatly contribute towards achieving the cohesion and transparency necessary to make the UN as a whole more effective, accountable, integrated, and fit for the tasks ahead.

Achieving greater cohesion and fostering partnerships is one aspect of the critical work that you do; facilitating knowledge sharing and good practices another. In this respect, I am delighted that Nadia Isler, Director of our SDG Lab, will facilitate a session on “Sharing experiences in implementing the 2030 Agenda.”

Geneva’s concentration of actors and expertise, as well as its cooperative mentality and incredible number of initiatives, are what make it a global hub for action on the SDGs. In an effort to leverage this potential, I set up the SDG Lab in my office earlier this year. It is focused on supporting actors in Geneva and beyond who are dedicated to delivering on the Goals. The SDG Lab does this by convening and connecting, creating avenues for knowledge exchange, asking difficult questions, showing and amplifying best practices, and fostering innovation and collaboration. I encourage you all to take advantage of the knowledge and insights that the Lab has to offer your organizations.

Looking at not only this excellent session, but the programme more generally, I hope you will find much value in your meetings today and tomorrow and I wish you productive discussions.

Thank you very much.