United Nations: State Department Should Better Assess Its Efforts to Increase Employment of Americans at UN Agencies
Fast Facts
The UN strives for equitable representation among its workforce. Many UN agencies use factors such as a country's membership status, financial contributions, and population size to set targets for its representation in certain categories of employees.
American UN employees we spoke with cited challenges such as long hiring processes and unclear compensation packages as barriers to UN employment.
To address recent declines in U.S. representation in these jobs, the State Department has taken steps to promote UN careers to U.S. citizens. But State hasn't yet assessed these efforts to determine how well they're working. We recommended doing so.
Highlights
What GAO Found
U.S. citizen employment at UN organizations, or U.S. representation, was generally below targets at all five United Nations (UN) organizations GAO reviewed. Some UN organizations establish targets for member state representation among certain professional positions. Representation of Americans was below the established target at all five UN organizations each year from 2015 to 2021. In 2022, the World Health Organization met its minimum target of employing 188 Americans, but representation of Americans was below the targets at the four other organizations (see figure).
Number of Americans Compared to Targets at Five United Nations Organizations, as of December 31, 2022
*IAEA's representation target is a single number rather than a range.
Americans who participated in seven discussion groups at the five UN organizations GAO reviewed reported challenges affecting the recruitment, hiring, and retention of professional staff. Consistent with GAO reports since 2001, discussion groups identified challenges such as lengthy hiring processes and unclear compensation packages. In addition, some Americans reported new challenges at certain UN organizations, such as the perception that an agency preferred to hire outside candidates for senior positions. UN officials highlighted actions that address some of these issues, such as efforts to streamline hiring.
The Department of State (State) is responsible for supporting the U.S. presence in the UN system and has taken actions to promote U.S. employment at UN agencies. State's Bureau of International Organization Affairs developed a strategy in 2023 to encourage U.S. citizens to pursue careers in international organizations. The strategy includes actions to assist in achieving this goal; however, the bureau has not established performance indicators for all its actions or set targets for the indicators. GAO's work on managing federal efforts calls for offices to establish indicators and targets to measure performance. By creating additional indicators and setting targets, State can better understand the extent to which its efforts are encouraging U.S. citizens to pursue UN careers.
Why GAO Did This Study
Global competitors are increasingly prioritizing the hiring of their citizens as employees at UN agencies to expand their influence in the UN. In 2010, GAO found that Americans were underrepresented in UN employment at the agencies GAO reviewed. Members of Congress have raised questions about the representation of Americans in UN organizations.
GAO was asked to review U.S. representation. This report examines (1) U.S. representation at five UN organizations; (2) issues affecting the employment of American staff at these organizations; and (3) the extent to which State has recently undertaken and assessed efforts to increase U.S. representation.
GAO analyzed employment data for 2015-2022 from five UN organizations that comprise over 50 percent of total UN professional staff. GAO also interviewed U.S. and UN officials and held discussion groups with Americans employed at the five organizations. These organizations were: the Secretariat; the World Health Organization; the Food and Agriculture Organization; the International Atomic Energy Agency; and the International Labour Organization. Finally, GAO assessed State's efforts to increase American employment at the UN.
Recommendations
GAO is making four recommendations to State, including to establish additional performance indicators and set targets for all indicators to track the progress of its actions to implement its strategy to encourage U.S. citizens to pursue UN careers. State concurred with the recommendations.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of State | The Secretary of State should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs assesses the actions contained in the "Strategy for Encouraging U.S. Citizens to Pursue Careers with International Organizations" to determine the extent to which they will contribute to the goal of encouraging U.S. employment in the UN system. (Recommendation 1) |
In its written comments on the draft report, State concurred with this recommendation. In the letter outlining its plans, the Department stated that it planned to review the actions in its strategy on an annual basis to ensure that they contribute to the goal of encouraging U.S. citizen employment in the UN system. The letter also listed steps State has taken to advance additional actions that contribute to encouraging U.S. citizen employment in the UN system such as redesigning the IO Careers website. However, while the periodic review of the strategies to encourage U.S. citizen employment in the UN system and the redesign of a key resource such as the IO Careers website are welcome actions that can contribute to better results, neither of these actions provides information on the extent to which State's measures contribute to the level of U.S. employment in the UN system. To fully implement this recommendation, State needs to provide documentation to corroborate that its response includes an assessment of the actions in its strategy that measures the extent to which they contribute to the goal of encouraging U.S. employment in the UN system. By fully implementing this recommendation, State will be able to determine the degree to which these actions are sufficient for achieving the goal of encouraging U.S. employment at the UN and will have better information with which to adjust its strategy/approach. We will continue to monitor State's actions to implement this recommendation.
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| Department of State | The Secretary of State should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs identifies any actions, in addition to those in its "Strategy for Encouraging U.S. Citizens to Pursue Careers with International Organizations," to mitigate long-standing challenges to U.S. employment at UN organizations and takes steps to implement them. (Recommendation 2) |
In its written comments on the draft report, State concurred with this recommendation. In the letter outlining its plans, the Department stated that it planned to identify actions where the Department can effectively engage and will take steps to implement these actions where appropriate, such as providing information and resources on their external IO Careers website. The letter also stated that some challenges are ultimately outside of the U.S. government's ability to change. To fully implement this recommendation, State needs to provide documentation for its identifications of new actions and the implementation of these actions. We will continue to monitor State's actions to implement this recommendation.
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| Department of State | The Secretary of State should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs creates performance indicators for measuring progress of all actions contained in the "Strategy for Encouraging U.S. Citizens to Pursue Careers with International Organizations." (Recommendation 3) |
In its written comments on the draft report, State concurred with this recommendation. In the letter outlining its plans, the Department stated that it has developed a performance management plan for the strategy that includes indicators that will be used to track the Department's implementation of the strategy. To fully implement this recommendation, State needs to provide a copy of the new performance management plan with the performance indicators. We will continue to monitor State's actions to implement this recommendation.
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| Department of State | The Secretary of State should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs develops targets for all performance indicators related to actions contained in the "Strategy for Encouraging U.S. Citizens to Pursue Careers with International Organizations." (Recommendation 4) |
In its written comments on the draft report, State concurred with this recommendation. In the letter outlining its plans, the Department stated that it has developed a performance management plan for the strategy that includes indicators that will be used to track the Department's implementation of the strategy. To fully implement this recommendation, State needs to provide a copy of the new performance management plan with the performance indicators and targets as well as documentation that the data for the indicators was collected and analyzed against the targets, such as a subsequent strategic plan with a management discussion of results. We will continue to monitor State's actions to implement this recommendation.
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