Panel on System-wide Coherence determined to streamline the UN system.

A DISTINGUISHED GROUP OF WORLD LEADERS convened on 5 April 2006 to harmonize efforts in development, humanitarian assistance and the environment across all the units of the United Nations system. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the panel, co-chaired by three Prime Ministers--Luisa Dias Diogo of Mozambique, Jens Stoltenberg of Norway and Shaukat Aziz of Pakistan--to produce a stronger, more effective Organization.

"I count on your personal and collective leadership and efforts to help produce bold but implementable recommendations that will lead to a UN system that is greater than the sum of its parts in the areas of development, humanitarian support and the environment. A United Nations that is better able to ensure that these areas are much more closely and effectively integrated and coordinated with its other key pillars: peace and security, and human rights, norms and standards", Mr. Annan said in his statement to the first meeting of the High-level Panel on United Nations System-wide Coherence in the Areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance and the Environment.

The Panel will produce a study, requested by Member States at the 2005 World Summit, which is intended to lay the groundwork for a fundamental restructuring of UN work in the field. It is also meant to complement other major reform initiatives currently under way in the Organization, including the newly created Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council, as well as the proposal for a comprehensive management reform recently submitted to the General Assembly.

"We are meeting at a time of great global challenges", the Secetary-General told the Panel, citing "uneven progress in poverty reduction in many parts of the developing world, natural and man-made disasters that vastly outstrip our capacity to respond, and increasing environmental degradation that threatens the sustainability of our future well-being". There is an expectation that the Panel, he added, "can help make a decisive breakthrough in realigning and revitalizing the United Nations in the crucial areas of our work, so that the Summit's political goals...