UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented a report to the General Assembly Tuesday recommending sweeping reforms of the UN Secretariat's management in the areas of human resources, budget and administration.

The 33-page much-awaited report sets out 23 reform proposals, including outsourcing some administrative services, a one-time buyout of employees at a cost of some US$100,000 per staff member and a strengthened information system.

"The earlier reforms addressed the symptoms, more than the causes, of our shortcomings. It is now time to reach for deeper, more fundamental change," said Annan in an address to the 191-member assembly.

"What is needed, and what we now have a precious opportunity to undertake, is a radical overhaul of the entire Secretariat -- its rules, its structure, its systems -- to bring it more in line with today's realities, and enable it to perform the new kinds of operations that the member states now ask and expect of it," he stressed.

(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2006)