United Nations Secretariat
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The United Nations Secretariat is the administrative organ of the United Nations and, in addition to its headquarters in New York, has three field offices in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna. Its most important task is to provide organisational support to the other UN bodies. This includes, among other things, the organization of conferences, the writing of studies or reports and the preparation of a budget. To accomplish these tasks, the United Nations employs " more than 40,000 staff members" from 193 member states.
The UN Secretary-General (currently António Guterres) is elected by the UN General Assembly for a five-year term on the proposal of the UN Security Council. He has a special role within the UN because his frequent media presence makes him the "head of the United Nations" and its most important representative.
In late 1997, Secretary-General Kofi Annan created the position of Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, which Amina J. Mohammed has held since January 1, 2017.
Significant positions in the Office of the Secretary-General (OSG) are the Chief of the Executive Bureau (English/French: Chef de Cabinet), which since 1 January 2017 has been Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, and the Assistants to the Secretary-General (English Executive Assistants).
The highest-ranking German UN staff member was Assistant Secretary-General Angela Kane until October 2005, and Assistant Secretary-General Franz Baumann until the end of 2015. The German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis occupied a position in the third hierarchical level of the United Nations as a special investigator in the rank of "Undersecretary General".
António Guterres, current Secretary-General of the United Nations
Offices and departments
In addition to the New York headquarters, the United Nations maintains the following field offices of the UN Secretariat:
- United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG)
- United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV)
- United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON)
The activities of the UN Secretariat are divided among the following departments:
| Executive Office of the Secretary-General | EOSG | Executive Office of the Secretary-General |
| Office of Internal Oversight Services | OIOS | Office of Internal Oversight Services |
| Legal affairs | OLA | Office of Legal Affairs |
| Political Affairs and Peacebuilding Department | DPPA | Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs |
| Office for Disarmament Affairs | ODA | Office for Disarmament Affairs |
| Department of Peacekeeping Operations | DPO | Department of Peace Operations |
| Operational Support Department | DOS | Department of Operational Support |
| UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs | OCHA | Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
| Counterterrorism Bureau | OCT | Office of Counter-Terrorism |
| Department of Economic and Social Affairs | DESA | Department of Economic and Social Affairs |
| General Assembly and Conference Management Department | DGACM | Department for General Assembly and Conference Management |
| Press and Information Department | DPI | Department of Public Information |
| Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance Department | DMSPC | Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance |
| Office for Information and Communication Technology | OICT | Office of Information and Communications Technology |
| Office of the High Representative for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States | OHRLLS | Office of the High Representative for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States |
| Office of the United Nations Security Coordinator | UNSECOORD | Office of the United Nations Security Coordinator |
| UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction | UNDRR | United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction |
| UN Office on Drugs and Crime | UNODC | UN Office on Drugs and Crime |
The departments in the UN Secretariat are headed by an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (USG).
Secretaries-General of the UN (chronological)
(→Compare the list of Secretaries General and Deputy Secretaries General)
- 1946-1952: Trygve Lie (Norway)
- 1953-1961: Dag Hammarskjöld (Sweden)
- 1961-1971: Sithu U Thant (Burma)
- 1972-1981: Kurt Waldheim (Austria)
- 1982-1991: Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (Peru)
- 1992-1996: Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt)
- 1997-2006: Kofi Annan (Ghana)
- 2007-2016: Ban Ki-moon (Republic of Korea)
- since 1 January 2017: António Guterres (Portugal)
