By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, June 7 – The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is moving to get rid of its Governance and Multilateral Affairs unit. Executie Director Natalia Kanem's “vision statement” says it will cease being a separate business unit by the third quarter of 2018, which starts in 23 days. The unit's role in recent CPD draft resolutions, and interactions with missions particularly from Africa, are part of the reasoning, on which we'll have more.
But for now, chutes and ladders: sources exclusively tell Inner City Press that while some of the staff are being sent back out to the field, the director of the unit Mr Kwabena Osei-Danquah is looking to stay in New York - perhaps, the sources say, as chief of staff to the incoming President of the General Assembly.
Inner City Press on June 7 asked the spokesman for the current PGA Mirosla Lajcak what the timeline for Lajcak's successor staffing up will be. The answer, it appears, is that it is between Ecuador's Mission and the UN Secretariat. Transparency has been promised, but has often been lacking from the UN Secretariat. We'll see.
As to UNFPA, its response to the sexual harassment charges against Diego Palacios in India, on which UN Security trying to undermine the investigation has now been complained of to the Indian government (Inner City Press' story here) raise further governance questions - as does some duplicity in the draft ECOSOC humanitarian resolution currently under silence procedure until 3:30 pm on June 8. Watch this site.
