Learning from the Front Line: Insights from the Global Heads of RCOs Retreat

In Nairobi, one sentence kept resurfacing, sometimes explicitly, often between the lines: those closest to the ground see the system most clearly.

From 8-12 December 2025, Global Heads of Resident Coordinator Offices (RCOs) gathered in Nairobi not to debate abstract reform concepts, but to reflect on the lived realities of leading UN country teams amid compounding crises, shrinking fiscal space, and rising expectations. What emerged was not a list of recommendations, but a shared reflection relevant to the UN at 80: how can we listen more carefully to the perspectives shaped by day-to-day responsibility?"

Listening to those closest to reality

At headquarters, transformation is often discussed in terms of systems, mandates, and coherence. At country level, it is experienced as judgment calls made under pressure, trade-offs between competing priorities, and the daily work of aligning global ambition with national realities.

What surfaced in Nairobi was not dissatisfaction with reform itself, but a sense of distance. Several participants noted that while they do not always follow the complexity of global processes, they understand with clarity what works on the ground and what does not.

As one participant reflected during the retreat, "This was a time when we needed to feel heard and understood." The retreat created a space where country perspectives were not treated as "inputs" but as essential intelligence for how the UN should evolve.

UN80 and the meaning of transformation

As conversations turn to UN80, the retreat surfaced a shared insight: transformation cannot be delivered to countries; it must be enabled with them. Participants repeatedly returned to the question: what does transformation actually look like at the local level?

One response was striking in its simplicity. Transformation is not about doing more but about doing less, purposefully prioritizing what needs to be prioritized. Several Heads of RCOs reflected the need to move beyond incremental process improvements and instead create space for a small number of actions that genuinely shift outcomes. Not one hundred priorities. Not even twenty. Something closer to a critical few.

The familiar idea of focusing on a "ten per cent" emerged not as a formula, but as a prompt for reflection. Not about protecting time for its own sake, but about safeguarding the actions that lead to real change. What if country teams were supported to identify and protect a small set of decisive actions, those that truly move the needle, along with the resources and political capital needed to deliver them? And just as importantly, what if they were supported in letting go of activities that no longer serve that purpose?

Innovation is already happening - often quietly

Another striking insight from Nairobi was how often innovation at country level goes unseen. Heads of RCOs shared examples of adaptive approaches to partnership-building, data use, convening, and problem-solving that rarely make it into global narratives of innovation, precisely because they are pragmatic, context-specific, and hard to package.

Yet this is where the UN's comparative advantage is evolving as a broker of ideas, a convener of unlikely actors, and a catalyst for collective intelligence instead of being a provider of predefined solutions. The retreat highlighted that innovation is about relevance and not novelty.

The retreat reminded us that country teams are not waiting for permission to innovate. What they need are incentives and structures that enable innovation such as recognition, reinforcement, and learning support that help them scale what works without forcing it into one-size-fits-all models.

Looking ahead: listening upstream, deciding together

The Nairobi retreat offered a clear message for the UN system as it looks ahead: transformation will not be achieved by perfecting global blueprints. It will be achieved by trusting country perspectives, creating room for deliberate focus, and backing the people who carry the system's risks and responsibilities every day.

As the UN reflects on its future, the question is no longer whether country-level voices matter. The question is whether we are ready to let those voices shape what we stop doing, what we protect, and what we dare to do differently.

Because the people at the country level are not asking for more guidance. They are asking to be heard and to be taken seriously as co-architects of the UN's next chapter.