Issues

Two years have passed since the UN RSysistem Staff College was permanently set up in Tuni, with the mission to create a common management culture across te UN organization.

I n support of this initivative a group of Turin public figures and institutions was created, Globus et Locus and the CSP are part of this group. The workshop on Glocalization..." held in Turin on the 13 and 14 March was horganized to gfive intellettual support to this initiative.

It is now nearly two years since the United Nations System Staff College was permanently set up in Turin as a working reality to train the top cadres of the whole United Nations System (on this see the Director of the Staff College’s report to the UN Assembly in the documentation folder). The idea of the Staff College was formulated in 1996 by then Secretary General Boutros Ghali, and has become even more relevant in the context of the Organization’s reform process promoted by Secretary General Kofi Annan since 1997 and confirmed in the Millenium Declaration. “The Staff College at Turin”, writes Kofi Annan in his September 2002 Report Strengthening of the United Nations: an Agenda for further change, “offers us the potential to create a common management culture across the Organization.” Actively supporting the venture of the Staff College in Turin there have been a group of public figures, Authorities, Public Institutions and Associations (notably the Compagnia di San Paolo, a prominent Italian banking Foundation, and the Association Globus et Locus). Turin was already the headquarters of the ILO International Training Centre and other internationally renowned training institutions. This made the town especially suitable for the new UN System Staff College.

The growing awareness among a group of those supporting the Turin Staff College initiative that it was necessary to contribute intellectually, not just through logistics and organization, to its development. Turin and Northern Italy are the centre of the initiative, though a cultural contribution to the Staff College should come from the entire world. This spirit and policy gave rise to the idea of setting up an international network of scholars and public figures, representing territories and cultures across the globe. Their task: to set in motion a top-level review process encompassing the whole project of UN reform and, in this framework, the Organization’s training system, by focusing specifically on the requirements for a common corporate culture. The Turin workshop aims to provide a first opportunity to address this agenda, which may lead to the setting-up of an open and open-ended network.