Over the past quarter of a century, high-level panels have become an ever more popular change management tool at the United Nations. Successive UN Secretaries-General have increasingly relied on the work of such panels to push for institutional reform, drive policy adaptation, and promote normative development in virtually all of the UN¡¯s mandate areas.
This article reflects on the evolving UN experience with high-level panels ¨C particularly the marked rise in their use since the 1990s ¨C explores the types of impact they have had, and analyses how they might prove most valuable going forward. It discusses five factors that have emerged as key to success: the potential to address an unmet demand; balanced composition; quality of product; management of politics; and follow-up. The article concludes that panels should be used more sparingly in order to preserve a tool whose value resides at least in part in its rarity.
Access The Rise of High-Level Panels: Implications for the New UN Secretary-General .
