UNITED NATIONS, May 18 – At the UN with Antonio Guterres 17 months into his term as Secretary General, there's talk of reform but little transparency. The attempted power-grab of the resident coordinator system has yet to be approved; the proponents have yet to answer Press questions. Guterres' proposed Global Service Delivery Model (GSDM) may, despite Guterres' murky attempts to over-ride his advisory team's recommendations, be an exception, as it would eliminate jobs in New York, jobs held by Americans. The proposal, which Inner City Press first wrote about in early March, is to move to cheaper location(s) back office functions like human resources, payments and payroll.
Inner City Press has reported -- and has published full documents on Patreon, here -- the four cities in Guterres' initial filing with ACABQ, the UN's Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. They were Budapest, Kuala Lumpur, Mexico City and Nairobi. The first three were each the product of conflict of interest. Guterres wanted Budapest, those involved say, in order to support or cover up his Budapest move while at UNHCR. But given Victor Orban's statements, why is Antonio "Mister Migration" Guterres tweaking the process to reward Hungary? On Kuala Lumpur, UNDP in that country "lent" John Kidd to mediate or change the outside consultants' recommendations - and include KL. Now Malaysia has said it cannot or will not commit the requisite resources, and Inner City Press is informed - not by Guterres spokespeople which it has repeatedly asked - that Kuala Lumpur is out. And then there were three. Inner City Press asked in each article in this series, What will happen to Entebbe which was set up by DFS for their GFSS Global Field Support Strategy? And now Uganda's Museveni has protested to Guterres, without response. Museveni called the decision "unfair;" his foreign minister Sam Kutesa has threatened to call a vote in the General Assembly, of which he was president (and allegedly accepted bribesfrom Patrick Ho of China Energy Fund Committee, still in Special Consultative status with UN ECOSOC. On May 7, Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric, again, about the GSDM and specifically about Uganda - and it turns out Guterres spoke with Kutesa, though presumably not about the CEFC bribery scandal, on which Guterres has yet to act. From the UN transcript: Inner City Press: I want to ask you again about this global service delivery mechanism. Seems that… you'd said you were going to give some granular guidance, but I wanted to ask you if it's the case that Kuala Lumpur has dropped out of the four cities and, if so, why, and also if you can confirm the receipt of a letter by the President of Uganda protesting their non-selection in… despite having this Entebbe situation and the various critiques he's made in it. There's been a call… at least they've said that Sam Kutesa, which… a name from the past, may call a vote in the General Assembly about the selection of Nairobi over them. And staff are… are… many people and I've asked here to see the underlying recommendations of how these cities were selected.
Spokesman: Not aware of Kuala Lumpur. On Entebbe, the Secretary-General spoke last week with the Foreign Minister of Uganda to explain the situation to him. A number of functions related to peacekeeping will remain in Entebbe.
Inner City Press: Could I ask you…
Spokesman: Go ahead.
Inner City Press: I want to ask you another… since it seem… so, was that called before or after the reported letter from the President?
Spokesman: It was before. I'm not… I can't confirm the letter's been received." On May 18, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Farhan Haq about reports in Uganda, video here, UN transcript here: in Uganda it's reported that the Global Service Delivery Mechanism reform would result in the loss of 290 jobs in the Entebbe centre and 205 of whom are Ugandan nationals, and so this is all over press there. And I've also seen it described that 58 jobs from Geneva would be moved to Budapest. Are these the real numbers? And… and when is the time where the Secretary-General will actually publicly say the impact of this proposed reform?
Deputy Spokesman: Well, this is still something that's under discussion, so I don't think we can treat anything as final. As we've made clear, we will continue with the use of Entebbe as a regional base for many of our functions." Many now say, particularly seeing a recent directive of ECLAC (on Patreon here) which is Alicia Barcena's other job, that Mexico City as a late replacement for Brazil was a favor for her. (Guterres, who only returned to New York on May 4 and from whose Lusophone garden party in the UN on May 5 his UN Security sought to ban Inner City Press from covering despite it being in the Media Alert of Alison Smale's DPI, will on May 7 and 8 be in Cuba with ECLAC; we'll have more on this). Impacted staff in Santiago are being told they can move to Mexico City - but G staff in New York cannot. We've put a memo on suspended external recruitment on Patreon, here. Now staff have provided Inner City Press with these critiques and comments, from before KL's drop out, posted and awaiting response from Guterres' Secretariat: "So the basis on which to choose the four locations, potentially leading to significant job losses elsewhere, was made on the basis of the three-page report (A/72/801/Add.1) mentioned above? Or are there other reports and behind-the-scenes decisions that aren't being shared in this rather brief article?
(2): In A/72/801/Add.1, one of the Assessment criteria is language requirements (II. 3. (c) “The specific requirements of different parts of the Secretariat, including language requirements”). However, the results of the assessment indicated that Budapest, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur and Mexico City were the highest scoring as they were deemed, among other criteria, to have “sufficient language capacity to serve global clients”, IV. 6. (c). Knowing that there are six official languages of the UN: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish with English and French as the working languages, how did the drafters of the Report of the Secretary-General and those who carried out the assessment (whomever they are) appraise that these locations do have “sufficient language capacity” unless it was decided that the official languages of the UN is only English, and incidentally Spanish?
(3): It is striking that the costs (staff, operations, setup) do NOT include the heavy and continuing costs of headquarters staff trying to work with out-stationed staff. The 2016 JIU report identified this as a weakness in past business case analysis and it is repeated here. I see the costs here with my FAO colleagues trying to work with Budapest and they are quite significant in terms of lost staff time." Guterres? On April 18, Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman Dujarric again, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: I've asked a couple times about this global service delivery mechanism, which sounds very dry, but would actually move 600 jobs out of New York to Mexico City, Budapest…
Spokesman: You know, I apologise. I will have language for you on that.
Inner City Press: Even more than language, I want to add an extra question before… maybe this… maybe the language is already written, but there seems to be a question, not only just about how the cities were selected, particularly Budapest, where, in the past, the Secretary-General, António Guterres, in his former job, already moved jobs to Budapest. And I'm wondering, does he have any thoughts now that there are protests about Viktor Orbán and the position on migration of moving more jobs to Hungary?
Spokesman: I will get back to you on all of that.
Inner City Press: And… and has… how was it decided that four cities was the right run…? There seems to be a question about that.
Spokesman: I will get back to you. " But he hasn't.
Spokesman: Not aware of Kuala Lumpur. On Entebbe, the Secretary-General spoke last week with the Foreign Minister of Uganda to explain the situation to him. A number of functions related to peacekeeping will remain in Entebbe.
Inner City Press: Could I ask you…
Spokesman: Go ahead.
Inner City Press: I want to ask you another… since it seem… so, was that called before or after the reported letter from the President?
Spokesman: It was before. I'm not… I can't confirm the letter's been received." On May 18, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Farhan Haq about reports in Uganda, video here, UN transcript here: in Uganda it's reported that the Global Service Delivery Mechanism reform would result in the loss of 290 jobs in the Entebbe centre and 205 of whom are Ugandan nationals, and so this is all over press there. And I've also seen it described that 58 jobs from Geneva would be moved to Budapest. Are these the real numbers? And… and when is the time where the Secretary-General will actually publicly say the impact of this proposed reform?
Deputy Spokesman: Well, this is still something that's under discussion, so I don't think we can treat anything as final. As we've made clear, we will continue with the use of Entebbe as a regional base for many of our functions." Many now say, particularly seeing a recent directive of ECLAC (on Patreon here) which is Alicia Barcena's other job, that Mexico City as a late replacement for Brazil was a favor for her. (Guterres, who only returned to New York on May 4 and from whose Lusophone garden party in the UN on May 5 his UN Security sought to ban Inner City Press from covering despite it being in the Media Alert of Alison Smale's DPI, will on May 7 and 8 be in Cuba with ECLAC; we'll have more on this). Impacted staff in Santiago are being told they can move to Mexico City - but G staff in New York cannot. We've put a memo on suspended external recruitment on Patreon, here. Now staff have provided Inner City Press with these critiques and comments, from before KL's drop out, posted and awaiting response from Guterres' Secretariat: "So the basis on which to choose the four locations, potentially leading to significant job losses elsewhere, was made on the basis of the three-page report (A/72/801/Add.1) mentioned above? Or are there other reports and behind-the-scenes decisions that aren't being shared in this rather brief article?
(2): In A/72/801/Add.1, one of the Assessment criteria is language requirements (II. 3. (c) “The specific requirements of different parts of the Secretariat, including language requirements”). However, the results of the assessment indicated that Budapest, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur and Mexico City were the highest scoring as they were deemed, among other criteria, to have “sufficient language capacity to serve global clients”, IV. 6. (c). Knowing that there are six official languages of the UN: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish with English and French as the working languages, how did the drafters of the Report of the Secretary-General and those who carried out the assessment (whomever they are) appraise that these locations do have “sufficient language capacity” unless it was decided that the official languages of the UN is only English, and incidentally Spanish?
(3): It is striking that the costs (staff, operations, setup) do NOT include the heavy and continuing costs of headquarters staff trying to work with out-stationed staff. The 2016 JIU report identified this as a weakness in past business case analysis and it is repeated here. I see the costs here with my FAO colleagues trying to work with Budapest and they are quite significant in terms of lost staff time." Guterres? On April 18, Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman Dujarric again, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: I've asked a couple times about this global service delivery mechanism, which sounds very dry, but would actually move 600 jobs out of New York to Mexico City, Budapest…
Spokesman: You know, I apologise. I will have language for you on that.
Inner City Press: Even more than language, I want to add an extra question before… maybe this… maybe the language is already written, but there seems to be a question, not only just about how the cities were selected, particularly Budapest, where, in the past, the Secretary-General, António Guterres, in his former job, already moved jobs to Budapest. And I'm wondering, does he have any thoughts now that there are protests about Viktor Orbán and the position on migration of moving more jobs to Hungary?
Spokesman: I will get back to you on all of that.
Inner City Press: And… and has… how was it decided that four cities was the right run…? There seems to be a question about that.
Spokesman: I will get back to you. " But he hasn't.
