ABSTRACT
Opinions differ about whether or not the Secretary-General’s 2005 reform programme succeeded or failed. No one claims stunning success. Success, if it could be called that at all, was modest. More are willing to say that the enterprise failed. But that view, perhaps, gives too little credit to what was achieved. Whichever view one takes, three years after Kofi Annan launched his grand initiative it is plain that its practical outcomes have fallen far shortof his hopes and the international community’s expectations (Weiss and Crosette, 2006). In this chapter, I explore several explanations for this outcome. All have
substantial validity and are interconnected. In combination, they provide a persuasive portrayal of why it was that the Annan reform programme ran into so much difficulty. In so doing, they complement the analysis in the preceding case studies. To obtain a complete picture of events, however, one further cause will be added to those presented here. This was the UN’s ultimate failure, over the three years during which the reform programme was implemented, to bridge the North-South divide now so prevalent in, and characteristic of, the world organization. I examine that division and its formidable impact on the reform negotiations in the chapter which follows.
