Shortly before starting the job he campaigned so hard to get, Ban Ki Moon visited the UN Secretary-General’s offices. How, he asked, did the day begin? At 9am, he was told, when the SG met his close advisers. He asked: why not at 8? Long hours do not guarantee efficiency, but the message that maximum effort will be required of all UN staff is no bad way to revolutionise a closed and defensive bureaucratic culture, riddled with time-servers resistant to change.

Mr Ban, a career diplomat noted more for administrative energy than for a distinctive world view, will come under intense pressure to set out his “vision” during his first weeks in office. He has given little away, but his priority seems to be modernising the United Nations’ hidebound staff structures. The UN, he says, should be judged “not on what we promise but how well we deliver”.

This emphasis is courageous. First, because reform of the UN has come to be seen as too difficult, avoided by most secretaries-general and almost never pressed with sufficient determination by governments. When the reforming efforts of Kofi Annan hit sandbanks of Third World opposition, many European governments sat on their hands or whispered that the US and Japan were asking the impossible. Secondly, because housecleaning is hardly inspirational stuff; if Mr Ban sticks to his plans to work from the inside out, he risks being chided as “a mere administrator”, unequal to the public diplomacy dimensions of the job.

It is, however, a wise decision. Behind a succession of scandals that have eroded the UN’s ethical standing – Oil-for-Food, bribery in UN procurement, sex crimes by UN peacekeepers – lie systemic deficiencies, described by Paul Volcker as a “culture of inaction” and by the UN’s own oversight body as a “culture of impunity”. Governments will be more likely to use the UN responsibly once they see it as an accountable, efficient mechanism for getting things done. It may often do best as a catalyst for action by others, or by working with the modern world’s many other channels for collective effort. The world body may at last have a chief executive who understands that.

When Mr Ban makes enemies, as he will, Western governments must try much harder to rally support — particularly in the capitals of emerging global players, such as India, Brazil, Mexico and, not least, China, whose interests should lie not in perpetuating the outdated UN myth of “Third World solidarity” but in making multilateral co-operation work. It may help that he has appointed a Mexican, not an American as is customary, to head his management team. Above all, governments should be patient about reform of the Security Council; it is not imminent, and they should not ask the new Secretary-General to waste momentum on an issue that genuinely belongs in the “too difficult” file.

To avoid being charged with “lack of leadership”, Mr Ban will also need some early diplomatic successes, and they are unlikely to come in North Korea or Iran. Darfur, by contrast, is a remediable agony, where inaction mocks the UN’s recently adopted “responsibility to protect” endangered communities. A speedy protection mission in neighbouring Chad would be better than nothing, as would assistance to Somalia. He should use his bully pulpit, next, on the new UN Human Rights Council, which is working no better than its discredited predecessor. When the UN fails in these two areas, humanitarian help and human rights, it fails the “peoples” that it is pledged to serve. By shedding a clearer light on the UN itself, the new Moon will win allies to the global cause.