At UN, UNviewable Debate Plays Bait & Switch With Stiglitz, Partners in Decay

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 4 -- The UN wants to play in the big leagues in terms of communication, which is fine. But there are mounting questions concerning how and if this is being carried out, and at what sacrifice.

  Monday afternoon at the UN illustrates these questions. 

  The UN Department of Public Information had promoted a debate on development and good governance, set for 5 pm in the Dag Hammarskjold Library Auditorium.

  This "Academic Impact" debate has to have featured Joseph Stiglitz, billed as "Professor of economics, Columbia University, and recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences."

   But at 5:10 pm there was no Stiglitz. The moderator, Maher Nasser of DPI's Outreach Division, described a process of point and counter-point that would add up to 30 minutes. So Inner City Press went to cover the meeting of the Sudan Sanctions committee of the UN Security Council.

  While staking out that meeting, and ultimately speaking with the committee's chairperson about using "good offices" to try to resolve the blocking of one of the sanctions Experts, it should have been possible to follow the UNTV webcast of the debate.

  But also another DPI official, Stephane Dujarric, wrote on February 1 to the Free UN Coalition on Access which raised the issue back in December, "Owing to technical issues that we working to resolve, only some of the live meetings are viewable on iOs devices (iPhones, iPads)."

  But the platform FUNCA complained of is the increasingly ubiquitous Android, on which the live webcast still does not work.

  And so Inner City Press after speaking with the Sudan Sanctions chairperson ran back to the Dag Hammarskjold Library Auditorium, where the debate was still ongoing. 

  By now, one of the three non-Stiglitz panelists was leaving: Susan Woodward of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York."

   Nasser took two more questions from the Internet -- good -- but then distinguished between those in the room from the beginning of the event, or who came in later. 

  Who did the bait and switch? And why can't DPI, with its budget, get its webcast working on a platform as ubiquitous as Android?

The session ended with a mock vote, on whether good governance helps development. But the question was posed in such a way that many in the audience groaned and asked for it to be rephrased.

  In this, it was reminiscent of an event in the same auditorium in late December, a general meeting of DPI's "main" (or only, according to Dujarric) partner, the UN Correspondents Association. 

 A 15 minute video, by FUNCA.info, is online here.

  At that meeting, right after a vote was taken rejecting naming and shaming those behind on dues, the president of UNCA denounced a particular member by name. What's the use of voting?

  Since then, including the same day of this UN Academic Impact debate, UNCA "leaders" told down substantive FUNCA flyers, while DPI for now allows UNCA -- and only UNCA -- to maintain a glassed-in bulletin board on which for months in 2012 UNCA displayed a five page letter denouncing the Press. Ah, free speech.

   Now there's talk of UNCA, under challenge, belatedly moving to amend its Constitution. But it already violated its Constititution. Dujarric on January 17 linked UNCA to the League of Nations. And it appears it should and will go the way of the League of Nations. Watch this site.

Footnote: one shame was that of the two remaining debaters, it was a return by Jomo Sundaram, previously of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and now Assistant Director-General at FAO.

   Earlier on Monday Jomo joked to Inner City Press that there are no similarly tough questions at FAO. But here at the UN, no questions allowed - no Monday evening, and prospectively not Wednesday February 6 at noon. UN Department of PRIVATE Information? Can or will the new guy turn it around? Watch this site.

At UN, Stiglitz Hits Bonuses and Subprime, Says 1% of Bailout Straight to Poor Countries

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un2stiglitz032709.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 27 -- In the run-up to the G20 meeting in London, economist Joseph Stiglitz spoke at the UN against irrational incentives in the financial services field -- read, the AIG and Citigroup bonus -- and in favor of the idea of a Financial Products Safety Commission, like the agencies conducting pre-release reviews of medicines and even electronics such as toasters.

Stiglitz noted that banks rush to exploit lower income and minority Americans with subprime loans has now damaged economies all over the world. And, we note, rather than accountability, those who engaged in predatory lending and securitizing have received bailouts. Whether any of this will be meaningfully addressed by the G20 is not known.

The UN's main pitch at the G20 is, with some vagueness and confusion, a request for $1 trillion. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made the request in a March 20 letter to G20 participants, then found himself unable to repeat the number when standing on camera next to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The next day, however, when Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson Michele Montas is despite the seeming backtrack Ban stands behind the $1 million figure, she said yes. She acknowledged that most of the $1 trillion is money already promised, but noted that Ban is asking for $25 billion on top of pre-existing ODA commitments of $100 billion, and that the rest of the trillion includes, for example, lending by the International Monetary Fund.

The Secretary of what's become known as the Stiglitz Commission, appointed by President of the UN General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, answered Inner City Press' question to Stiglitz about Ban's $1 trillion idea. He did not address the number, but rather to whom such money should go: directly to lower income countries, he said, and not to intermediaries like the World Bank -- or the UN or UN Development Program.

What Stiglitz' views are on providing cash with no conditions to governments like those of Myanmar or North Korea is not known. The IMF has been asked about conditions on a $1.9 billion loan it is negotiating with Sri Lanka, the proceeds of which the government has said may be used for camps for internally displaced people from which the IDPs cannot leave or receive visitors, even from family members: detention camps. Using a percentage of the bailouts to fund interment would give a new meaning to the UN system phrase, "Vulnerability Fund." To be continued.

Footnote: several reporters at Stiglitz's March 26 press conference joked afterwards about his lines that he not only predicted the financial meltdown, but also wrote the first academic paper supporting micro-lending. This last claim seems dubious, unless one discounts academics in, for example, Bangladesh. Maybe with whatever turns out to be their share of the requested $1 trillion, Bangladesh can more widely promote its scholars.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un2stiglitz032709.html