The secretariat of an international organization is the department that fulfils its central administrative or

general secretary Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...

duties. The term is especially associated with

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...

s and

intergovernmental organization Globalization is social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Definition Social change may not refer to the not ...

s such as the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

, although some

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

s (for example, the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in A ...

) also refer to their administrative department as their secretariat. The building or office complex that houses such a department may also be referred to as its secretariat or secretariat building. Most secretariats of international organisations operate on the principal of extra-territoriality which means the staff are not - in their workplace - governed by the laws of the countries in which they are situated. This means the staff are governed by the staff regulations and this situation plus the requirement of most international organisations that the secretarits are multi-national in composition creates beaucratic and administrative problems. In some cases, the secretariat is not a bureaucratic organ, but one which includes a certain organization run by all its members who collectively help to organize the larger group, such as the secretariat of the International of Anarchist Federations, which is an office that rotates irregularly between its member federations. The

Zhongshu Sheng The Zhongshu Sheng (), also known as the Palace Secretariat or Central Secretariat, was one of the departments of the Three Departments and Six Ministries government structure in imperial China from Cao Wei (220–266) until the early Ming dynast ...

or simply the Secretariat was one department in the

Three Departments and Six Ministries The Three Departments and Six Ministries () system was the primary administrative structure in imperial China from the Sui dynasty (581–618) to the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368). It was also used by Balhae (698–926) and Goryeo (918–1392) a ...

structure in the

history of China The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the ''Book of Documents'' (early chapter ...

References

Public administration {{org-stub

See also

References