In the UN Secretariat, there are many Americans in management and administrative positions, including some at senior levels. They are also represented, but are less numerous, in the political, economic and social areas. In the specialized agencies and IAEA, Americans are found both at headquarters and the field, in policy making and operational positions.

In order to achieve a geographically balanced workforce, the UN Secretariat and some of the agencies have developed formulas, based on factors such as assessed contribution and population, to establish a "desirable range" of professional positions for each member state. A relatively small number of these positions for example, interpreters and translators, are excluded from this process; which are best recruited from countries where the required language is spoken.

In terms of these formulas, Americans are adequately represented only in the UN Secretariat in New York. In most of the specialized agencies and IAEA located overseas, however, the number of American staff is below-often far below-the quota or "desirable range" specified for the United States.

UN PERSONNEL STATISTICS

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL STAFF-12/89

*Desirable range is for North America. Canada has one national employee.

We attribute this under-representation in the specialized agencies to various factors:

- Insufficient efforts on the part of UN agency heads to redress geographic imbalances and take the necessary steps to achieve the desired geographic distribution. The Secretariats of the UN agencies are under continuous pressure from other members to appoint more of their nationals and there remains a system-wide emphasis on hiring more nationals from developing

countries.

Geographic and language constraints. With most of the specialized agencies headquartered in Europe, distance and language requirements make it more difficult for Americans to compete and easier for Europeans. The British, French and Dutch, for example, are over-represented in many of these agencies.

UN organizations have difficulty competing with U.S. private industry salaries and career opportunities, and have difficulty attracting and retaining American candidates. This is especially true in fields such as law, medicine, scientific research, engineering and business administration.

Americans are seriously under-represented in four of the larger UN organizations: FAO, ILO, ICAO and UNHCR. Furthermore, in these agencies Americans were not hired or promoted during 1989 at rates which would measurably increase U.S. representation.

To help UN agencies balance their staffs, the U.S. Government recruits qualified American citizens to compete for UN job openings. For example, in 1989 the Department of State monitored over 1,200 vacancies and recruited and submitted candidates for several hundred. Other Federal Agencies recruited candidates for other, generally more technical positions. Unfortunately, during the past 3 years staffing efforts have been constrained because of budgetary problems within the UN system, due in part to growing arrearages in U.S. payments. These payment shortfalls also adversely affected our ability to lobby for U.S. candidates. With fewer vacancies and redeployment of staff due to budget pressures, a large share of positions continue to be filled from within the agencies.

As the United States restores funding to most UN agencies, we expect that agencies will begin filling more positions externally, which should open up more positions to international competition. We have urged all agencies in which American under-representation is severe to address the problem by setting elevated hiring goals for Americans. Also, we are working closely with the United Nations to increase the number of professional women in its ranks to a level of 30 percent by the end of 1990. This should provide to qualified American women a greater opportunity to become part of the UN system during the coming years.

Address by President Bush at the 44th Regular Session of the General Assembly