Riassunti completi esame Management of international and supranational organzations

International inter-governmental organizations (IGOs)

International inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) are defined as bodies based on a formal agreement between the governments of nation states, made of 3 or more nation states (as parties to the agreement), possessing a permanent secretariat performing ongoing tasks.

International organizations promote international cooperation among countries. Es. UN, WTO.

Supranational organizations promote regional integration through some form of economic and/or political sharing of sovereignty among countries. Ex. European Union, ASEAN, NAFTA.

IGOs can be categorized in 2 ways:

• By functions: operational, world security, financial.
• By geographical scope: regional/global.

Political system

1. Membership —> consists of the states (and other entities) that become members in accordance with provisions of the organization’s constitution. Can be universal or regionally defined and, based on the involvement of the state can be split in: full membership or permanent observing. It defines the identity of the organization, its power dynamics and functioning.

2. Voting procedures —> decision-making mechanisms influence the ability to move the organization forward and are made of 2 steps: A. Allocation of voting powers that can be: egalitarian (1 member 1 vote) or the weighted majority mechanism (by contribution, by population, by GDP). B. Decision making mechanisms: unanimity, majority or consensus.

3. Sources of income (funding sources): A. Core resources: for un-earmarked costs (regular work programme) such as mandatory contributions and voluntary contributions given by the community of member states and based on pre-set criteria. B. Non-core resources: are voluntary contributions made by single group of donors.

In the past years there has been an increase in non-core resources, pros:

• Higher transparency and accountability (donors want to know the allocations of their resources and have preferences over specific/limited activities).
• Increase competition among IGOs for funds based on efficiency and technical know-how.
• Pushes organizations to specialize in their respective areas.

Cons:

• Fragmentation of contributions obstacles reaching “critical mass”.
• Donors priorities can contrast with beneficiaries’ interests.
• IGOs need stable and predictable resources.

Win as much as you can - group 2B

“Win as much as you can - group 2B”: traditional way to think about decision making. It is divided in 2 levels:

Putnam Model —>

1. National.

1a. Domestic bargaining to define national interests;

1b. Intra-governmental development of negotiating positions and strategies.

2. International.

2a. Bargaining among governments.

2b. Provisional agreement in international settings.

Conditions of traditional decision-making processes:

• Product of different actors interacting, not a single actor’s choice;
• Actors under uncertainty face perverse incentives;
• Importance of communication and monitoring.

Common themes of the game:

• Individually rational actions produce collectively irrational outcomes.
• Motivations and incentives reinforce competitive behavior.
• Following individual self interest tends to be a dominant strategy.
• Rules of the game do not prevent non-cooperative behavior.

Globalization requires involvement of nation-states in processes of global governance and limits the room for maneuver of nation-states.

Managerial dimension

1. Organizational structure: formal system of tasks and authority relationships that control how people coordinate actions and use resources to achieve organizational goals. 3 key dimensions must be considered when analyzing the organizational structure of IGO: 1. Degree of centralization vs decentralization 2. Degree of specializations 3. Degree of autonomy.

2. Personnel management: international service —> multicultural composition of the staff, expatriation, character of the staff (loyal, independent and impartial).

3. Financial and Performance management: the way goals and actions are defined and financial resources are allocated to internal organizations units:

• Budget: develop closer relations between allocation of resources and information about performances + rearrange timing (effective tool for programming future actions).
• Accounting system: has been developed, now includes cost-calculation and performance measurements systems.
• Performance management: expanding performance indicators (more diffused for the evaluation of programs) and result-based management culture.

The United Nations system

Phase 1 - The founding (1941-1945)

The UN is an international organization founded in the middle of the WWII, as Roosevelt and Churchill (1941) signed the Atlantic charter, the first try to international cooperation.

In 1945, then during the San Francisco Conference the UN charter was written.

Phase 2 - Start up and stagnation in the cold war (1945-54)

During the Cold War, the first General Assembly meeting took place in London (1946), later, in 1948 the General Assembly approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However the signs of growing of the East-West Conflict had started to appear. Italy joined in 1955.

Phase 3 - Decolonization, the emerge of the Third World (1955-74) and the North-South conflict (1975-84)

A turning point in UN history happened during the 60s and 70s when the independence of colonies happened (many colonies became states after the WWII and needed help), therefore the UN started to expand its activities in development and change in power balance.

What’s more in 1974, the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States was written. It stated that "any state has the right to choose his economic, cultural and political behavior, based on the will of its people, without the interference of any state”.

From 1985 until these days - Renaissance, crisis and reforms

There has been an increase in peace keeping missions (from 14 to 57) and the end of the East-West Crisis.

It has also been a period of managerial reforms to increase a system-wide conference.

The UN today, the principal organs

General Assembly, is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN. All members are represented (1 country 1 vote). Decisions on ordinary questions are taken by simple majority, decisions on important questions (peace and security, budget, admissions) require a 2/3 majority. Most questions however are discussed in the GA’s six main committees:

• Disarmament and international security.
• Economic and financial.
• Social, humanitarian and cultural.
• Special political and decolonization.
• Administrative and budgetary.
• Legal.

The presidency of the GA rotates every year among five groups of states (principle of equitable geographical representation): Africa, Asia, Eastern European, Latin American and Caribbean, Western European and Other States.

The Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. It has 15 members: 5 permanent ones with Veto power (China, France, Russia, UK, USA) and 10 non permanent members, elected by the general assembly for 2 year term.

Representation: each member has one vote, to take a decision there’s the need of 9/15 votes.

Is has two unique powers:

• Can take decisions that are legally binding on members.
• Has the authority to enforce decisions through sanctions or the use of military force (ex. Embargo).

Members take turn at holding the presidency of the Security Council for one month (rotating presidency).

Secretariat: the main administrative organ of UN.

Comprises the Secretary General and the staff of the organization. It has around 44.000 staff members around the world. Under the Charter, each Member State undertakes to respect the rule non to influence them improperly in the discharge of their duties.

There also are non-principal organs such as, for example:

• Specialized agencies: independent, separate, legally autonomous organizations with their own membership, policy making and executive organs, secretariats and budgets. They are funded by both assessed and voluntary contributions. The UN Charter stipulates that each primary organ of the UN can establish various specialized agencies to fulfill its duties. EX: FAO governed by the Conference of Member Nations (175) which meets to review the work carried out by the organization, approve the policies and the budget of the next 2 years.
• Funds and Programs: are subsidiary organs of the general assembly and the economic and social council (they report to the GA through an executive board). Each of the funds and programs is headed by an executive director at the under secretary general level and is governed by an executive board. They operate in line with their respective mandates with the priorities defined by the executive boards. They are financed through voluntary contributions.

UN activities

• 63% operational activities for development: development (to promote social progress and better standards of life) and humanitarian assistance.
• 22% peacekeeping.
• 15% global norms, standards, policy and advocacy.

Sustainable development goals: global target-setting process to trigger multi-level stakeholder alignment and engagement.

• Planet.
• People.
• Peace.
• Prosperity.
• Partnership.

Important to set a global agenda to collaborate on a sustainable development regarding the ecosystem, poverty and war issues.

Contemporary challenges

1. Complexity of the UN system: numerosity (of agencies, departments and commissions which work in more than 70 countries); heterogeneity among agencies and funds; different levels: horizontal vs vertical accountability at agency/fund level.

2. Political will: reforms are linked to the will of member states, which are represented in the governing boards of the various organizations of the UN system, decide on mandates, priorities, methods of work and implementation. UN lack of coordination is linked to lack of coordination in governments policies.

3. Funding: inadequate and unpredictable funding of the system undermining the multilayer character of the UN. Lack of donor coordination and competition of non-core resources among UN agencies.

Delivering as One Reform

Delivering as One Reform: radical change in the way UN operational activities for development are carried out at the local level. The way it now operates is defined by 4 pillars:

• One program: a single development strategy made specifically for a country (on its goals).
• One leader: creation of a leader (resident coordinator) which oversees the Country Team through the system of a shared leadership.
• One Budget: common financial framework for all UN development entities at country-level updated annually (one coherence fund).
• One Defense: common premise and Business Operations Strategy and common office (if feasible).

World Health Organization (WHO)

World Health Organization (WHO): It is the United Nations specialized agency for health which consists in 194 member States and:

• Defines norms and standards for health.
• Provides leadership on matters regarding health.
• Articulates policy options for health.
• Monitors health trends.
• Provides technical support (especially in developing countries).

Its headquarter is In Geneva and has more than 7000 staff members.

The change at the WHO

The change at the WHO: It is one of the first examples of planned change process in IGOs. It started in 2003 when Dr. Lee was appointed as Director General of WHO, his agenda was clear: turn the WHO into a more flexible and result-oriented international organization.

He formed a small transition team to plan and design the implementation of the change strategy in 5 core areas:

• Decentralization: reallocation of resources to the local level.
• HR reform: aim at overcoming the cultural barriers and align position, responsibilities and competences.
• IT investments: replacement of the information system with a more efficient one.
• Administrative efficiency: several programs were started do strengthen the financial management, promote collaboration in order to increase administrative efficiency.
• Accountability: a performance auditing system was introduced.

Driving forces for change (support it):

1. Environmental forces: public health was changing (decline), especially global health was changing (HIV needed global coordination for example).

2. Organizational forces: such as organizational ineffectiveness and a change in agents (Dr. Lee was elected as the new Director General).

3. Individual level: competencies and performance auditing system.

Hindering forces (resist to the change):

1. Environmental forces: limited resources such as lack of budget.

2. Organizational forces: skepticism towards regional and country offices (local level).

3. Individual level forces: employees uncertainty regarding the future of their jobs + protectionism and passivity.

The path that he followed was a revitalization path:

• Strong and growing change force, appropriate when there’s a resistance based culture in the IGO.
• The pace of change is typically slow, but continuous.
• It is based on converting status quo agents into change agents.
• It can only be implemented if the organization can protect itself from negative effects of the change force long enough to accomplish the necessary cultural turning point.

How did Dr. Lee and his transition team manage the change process? (Six steps to effective change)

1. Mobilize commitment.
2. Develop a shared vision on how to organize.
3. Foster consensus, competence and cohesion.
4. Spread revitalization to all departments.
5. Institutionalize policies, systems and structures.
6. Monitor and adjust.

The success factors of Dr. Lee’s change strategy were: learning from the past, leadership and having a clear vision of the change process and its communication.

World Food Program (WFP)

World Food Program (WFP): 811 million don’t have enough nutritious food to lead an active, healthy lifestyle (10%). Due to covid there has been in increase in hunger (+ 161 M) and in poverty (97 M).

Main causes of hunger: conflict, climate change and economic slowdowns.

WFP, is the world’s largest humanitarian agency (headquartered in Rome) which works to help in various categories of humanitarian disasters:

1. Calamities.
2. Destructive actions: terrorist attacks.
3. Outbreaks: pandemics, famine, poverty.
4. Crises: political or refugee crisis.

Its main objective is to fight hunger worldwide, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience.

It has to reach Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, two of them are:

1. Zero hunger: end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutritions and promote sustainable agriculture.
2. Partnership for the goals: built partnerships between nations to help them cooperate and solve probs.

What does it do?

1. Saving lives —> humanitarian assistance during crises: emergency food (when there’s not enough food in countries ex. South Sudan, really expensive) and cash assistance (when there’s enough food, so that the problem is about people’s income, has positive effects on the economic of the entire country), food procurement, food security and market analysis.

2. Changing lives —> development programs such as smallholder farmer support (so that parents can sell food and send kids to school really important to escape poverty and hunger), innovation (technology), strengthening food system (many don’t work well, often due to conflict, climate and supply chain problems so that food gets rotten and chronic hunger never stops). It also helps with humanitarian logistics, they manage United Nations Humanitarian Air Service and are ready to deploy materials in case of emergency (especially helping in places where private companies don’t have economic interests to go).

Causes of interest in innovation in the humanitarian sector:

1. Increasing focus on cost effectiveness and efficiency.
2. Increasing food price volatility.
3. Global outbreaks of disease.
4. Increase in protracted conflicts (Syria emergency).
5. Increase in natural disasters due to climate change.
6. Donor budget constraints.
7. Aim to reduce carbon footprint.

Managing innovation in international organizations

Managing innovation in International Organizations:

1. Environmental pressures deriving from competition, demand and markets: the need to enter new markets or increase range of goods and services, or to increase market share.

2. Organizational pressures deriving from the production and delivery: reducing costs, improving flexibility and efficiency or speed of supplying goods.

An innovation is an idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by the unit of adoption:

• Product innovation: introduction of good/service that is new to significantly improved (es. Biometric beneficiary tracking ensures food is received by those in need or drones transporting blood).
• Process innovation: implementation of a new or improved production or delivery method.
• Organizational innovation: implementation of a new organizational method regarding the IGO’s working organization.

Dimensions of public sector innovation:

1. Directed (top-down) or undirected (bottom-up).
2. Is the innovation dealing with high uncertainty (exploration) or is it bounded within a relatively understood context (exploitation).

Thanks to these dimensions it is possibile to identify 4 types of innovation:

• It involves a clear outcom