As responsibilities of the international civil service increase, resources lag behind to ensure adequate staffing. On average the qualifications of personnel are inadequate to the responsibilities implied by the tasks they are called upon to perform. This has severe negative consequences for the results of programmes and projects and aggravates other difficulties of such bodies.
In the United Nations, for example, 25% of those in professional grades (staff engaged in programme design, management, research and drafting) have had no university training and 10% have had less than three years of university studies. In the higher grades, where the implications are much more serious, the percentage of staff members without university education is approximately the same. In 1993, the threat of insolvency of organizations such as the UN had a corrosive effect on the management of human resources, notably with the drastic decision to defer salary increases.