UNITED NATIONS, July 2 - Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali is sending a strong anniversary message to the U.N. family: produce or perish. The Secretary-General, who has been wielding the the ax on dead wood, is implicitly suggesting the elimination of U.N. bodies that have failed to deliver the foods. I have greatly reduced the number of high-level posts in the Secretariat," he said last week, "I declared a hiring freeze. I sharply cut the number of offices and departments and I took

steps to reduce overlap, duplication and redundancy," he added. At the 50th anniversary celebrations in San Francisco, the Secretary-General was critical of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The Council has also come under heavy attack from at least two North-South expert groups who want it eliminated for the U.N. system. Established by the U.N. Charter 50 years ago, ECOSOC is responsible for coordinating social and economic development in the U.N. system. But Boutros-Ghali says ECOSOC "has so far not been an effective force in this direction." "New momentum and political commitment are required to ensure that the United Nations gives as much urgency to development issues as it does to security issues," he said. The criticism of ECOSOC's ineffectiveness comes at a time when the two expert groups have called for the dismantling of all U.N. bodies that are inefficient or redundant.

The Commission on Global Governance, a North-South expert group co-chaired by Ingvar Carlsson of Sweden and Shridath Tamphal of Guyana, said early this year, "the time has come to retire ECOSOC." Calling for a new Economic and Security Council to replace ECOSOC, the Commission said that effort to improve ECOSOC have amounted to a "salvage operation." "What is needed is a new vessel better designed and equipped to carry economic and social issues towards practical goals," the Commission said in a 410-page report. "Fifty years is long enough to know what works and what does not work within any system. ECOSOC has not worked," the report added. The Commission has also proposed terminating at least two more U.N. bodies: the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva and the U.N. Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna.

Meanwhile, in mid-June another group of North-South experts argued that the world's political and economic problems can be best tackled with the creation of three new institutions: an Economic Council, a Social Council and a new revitalized Security Council. Co-chaired by Tichard von Weizsaecker, former president of Germany, and Moeen Qureshi a former caretaker prime minister of Pakistan and senior World Bank official, the 12-member group called for the abolition of both ECOSOC and the Trusteeship Council "whose tasks would be done elsewhere or are completed," "There are certain other bodies which may now be redundant, or which for various reasons are unable to fulfill their intended purpose," the experts say. Without singling out these bodies by name, the group urged the General Assembly to consider "the elimination of such units." Ironically, the heads of the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized countries at their recent meeting in Halifax said they wanted "a more effective internal policy coordination role

for ECOSOC." But the G-7 expressed reservations over the usefulness of the U.N. Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and regional U.N., economic commissions.

Ambassador Ahmad Kamal, who is currently holding the one-year chairmanship of ECOSOC, says the remedy is not to dismantle ECOSOC, but to revitalize it. "You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater," he told IPS, just before his departure to Geneva where he is presiding over a four-week annual session of ECOSOC. "It is naive to jettison an entire institution with out offering a chance for it to reform," he said. "ECOSOC is supposed to be something very important and very fundamental. But yet it seems to have lost its dynamism to an extent that some people want its head chopped off,' he said. "The best way to silence the critics was to demonstrate by the quality of decision-making that those efforts were viable and necessary, and that the Council was the best forum for managing the task, Kamal told the opening session of ECOSOC last week. ECOSOC currently coordinates the work of several agencies, including the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the U.N. Population Fund

(UNFPA). "As the seedlings grew up and became trees, they began to cut of sunlight with budgetary cuts," Kamal said. "Now they are saying: 'Why need a mother at all when the children have grown up?' " he added. As its role crumbled, Kamal said, so did secretariat support for ECOSOC. Addressing the gathering in San Francisco, U.S. President Bill Clinton also called for reforms in the U.N. system. "In this age of relentless change, successful governments and corporations are constantly reducing their bureaucracies, setting clearer priorities, focusing on targeted results," he said. "In the United States, we have eliminated hundreds of programmes, thousands of regulations,: he said. "We are reducing our governments to its smallest size since President Kennedy served here, while increasing our efforts in areas most critical to our future. The United Nations must take similar steps," Clinton added. The president also said that over the years, the United Nations has grown "too bloated, too often encouraging dupli

cation, and spending resources on meeting rather than on results."