As Myanmar Defends N. Korea, UNDP Covers Up For-Ex Losses, Mute on Revolving Door

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/undp1rk090908.html

UNITED NATIONS, September 9 -- Myanmar came to the defense of North Korea at the Tuesday Executive Board meeting of the UN Development Program. Urging resumed funding by UNDP to the Kim Jong Il government, despite financial and accounting irregularities found even by the reviewers chosen by UNDP, Myanmar decried "political motives" and called for "national ownership" of UNDP programs.

Notably, the Than Shwe government of Myanmar has shown itself adept at owning UNDP's programs and the funds of the wider UN system, requiring currency conversation into Foreign Exchange Certificates leading to losses of 20% of aid money. Just last week, UNDP Associate Administrator Ad Melkert answered Inner City Press' questions about currency exchange losses by saying that this had been a problem in North Korea, and would have to be resolved with the government there before any UNDP program could resume. But at Tuesday's session, before any other member had spoken the Executive Board president said that "the absence of UNDP from Pyonyang can only be temporary." Even if Kim Jong Il insists on choosen UNDP's staff, and taking their paychecks?

The North Korean representative, emboldened, called for a resumption of UNDP programs and offices "as early as possible." Iran spoke of the need to "redress damages" to North Korea, and said that UNDP has over-reacted to the charges of a whistleblower.

Throughout this saga, in reviewing speeches by member states on UNDP's Executive Board, it has become clear than many languages either do not have a word for whistleblower, or only have words with negative connotations like "rat" or "spy."

Apparently, the word "revolving door" does not translate either, at least not in UNDP world. Over the weekend it was announced that UNDP official Gilbert Houngbo was named prime minister of Togo. Inner City Press immediately formally asked UNDP's spokesman

"Regarding Mr. Houngbo, please disclose as soon as possible any and all involvement he has had in UNDP's programs regarding Togo and, separately, please describe any safeguards UNDP has in place to prevent conflicts of interest or 'revolving door' issues when its officials go directly to work for a government with which UNDP has economic relations."

In the two full business days since, no such safeguards have been described. Nor have questions, much longer standing, about currency exchange losses been answered. UNDP management hides behind the somewhat understandable closing of ranks by developing countries. But it is UNDP management which is responsible for not allowing, rather than covering up, losses of 20%, or even 5%, to government-required currency exchange and other chicanery.

Like any demagogue, it is not difficult to whip up supportive speeches. But this approach has led UNDP from one scandal to the next, each one averted only by self-selected investigators and rebuffing outside review such as by the UN Ethics Office. Ultimately the cause of development and poverty reduction is ill-served by this. But one wouldn't have known it on at Tuesday's meeting of UNDP's Executive Board.

Footnotes: while UNDP's Executive Board meeting proceeded in the basement virtually ignored by the rest of the UN press corps, there were cameras and microphones up on the second floor, where the star of the UN's symposium on supporting the victims of terrorism, Ingrid Betancourt, took questions on both Myanmar and North Korea. Inner City Press asked about her statement about Aung San Soo Kyi: is she a victim of state terrorism, and is Ban Ki-moon and the UN doing enough for her? "None of us are doing enough," Ms. Betancourt said, adding that her definition of terrorism includes any arbitrary detention "without reason" such as Aung San Soo Kyi's. Video here.

Asked about North Korea's abductions, including of more than a dozen Japanese citizens, Ms. Betancourt recounted the kidnapping of a school girl, whose name she said she didn't remember. To Inner City Press, it appeared to be the case of Megumi Yokota. Betancourt said "she should be in the Press every day." Oh that it were so.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/undp1rk090908.html

Jeffrey Sachs, Touchy About UNDP, Declines to Touch On Africa's Underfunding

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1mdgsachs030508.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 5, updated March 7 -- Globally, the greatest need for development is found in Africa. But, according to an analysis circulating within the United Nations, the UN Development Program spends more in Latin America than in Africa. As a spokesperson for even a Latin American country, Ecuador, told Inner City Press this week, UNDP has become too dominated by the agendas of its donors. In Latin America, this includes countries like Argentina and Brazil using UNDP to carry out government functions, but to get around local rules. And so less is spent in Africa than elsewhere, despite the need.

A major UN voice on the Millennium Development Goals, hosted in UNDP, is Jeffrey Sachs. Wednesday he came to brief the press, off-camera, about progress toward the goals. He spoke about his high-powered scientist colleagues; he did not mention, but reporters did, his hob-nobbing in the world of Madonna, most recently at a glitzy event held on the UN's North Lawn, which Gucci said was to celebrate its flagship store on Fifth Avenue. After his remarks Wednesday, he picked people to ask questions. Although not picked, Inner City Press asked him, since his unit is housed or hosted by UNDP, to respond to the analysis that more is spent in Latin America than in Africa. Before the question, Sachs demanded, "Is it about the MDGs?" Yes, it was. But once asked, why UNDP spends more in Latin America than Africa, Sach said "I can't address that." In the audience was the chief of staff to UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis. Apparent Sach was told not to answer any question about UNDP, despite or because of the money he has accepted from them.

The resulting defensiveness ill-serves the cause of the Millennium Development Goals, and development more generally. There were other questions to be asked, which Jeffrey Sachs should answer: is development served by UNDP's policy of not routinely making available copies of its audits to member states, or even donors? It's the kind questions, about transparency in development, to which Sachs ought to respond. In the glitzy by-invitation-only fashion tent of Gucci, perhaps it was not asked. But Wednesday's Sachs press briefing, not matter how controlled, took place in the UN. The Media Advisory promoting it asked "is doubling aid to Africa possible and will it happen? Please join Prof. Sachs for an interactive discussion about how to make sense." But it didn't make sense.

Another questions asked but not directly answered is whether climate change adaptation funding should be counted toward outstanding development aid pledges. We'll have more on this.

Update of March 7: a UNDP spokeswoman has written to point, as an answer to the question left unanswered by Jeffrey Sachs, to footage of a statement by UNDP's Gilbert Houngbo on October 16, 2007, click here to view. The spokeswoman wrote a second time to say that Jeffrey Sachs "has no staff at UNDP." Only "colleagues," apparently -- the word Sachs uses in the Acknowledgements section of his 2008 book "Common Wealth" for the aforementioned Houngbo, as well as Kemal Dervis and Ad Melkert. He also lists as "close colleagues" a number of people who at last report were getting paid by UNDP, among them one Guido Schmidt-Traub. Again, we'll have more on this.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1mdgsachs030508.html

UNDP's Top Official for Africa Gilbert Houngbo Refuses Any Public Financial Disclosure, As Burundi Procurement Cover-Up Is Dodged

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/undp1findisclosed021608.html

UNITED NATIONS, February 16 -- The UN Development Program, which preaches transparency to developing countries, has a Director for Africa who has rebuffed UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's request to make public financial disclosure. Gilbert Houngbo, who oversees 1500 UNDP staff members and 43 sub-Saharan African counties, has written on his form filed with the UN Ethics Office that "I have chosen to maintain the confidentiality of the information disclosed by me." Click here to view.

The stated purpose of the UN's financial disclosure program is to "demonstrate that UN staff members understand the importance of the general public and UN Member States being assured that, in the discharge of their official duties and responsibilities, staff members will not be influenced by any consideration associated with his/her private interests." It would seem that Mr. Hougbo disputes the importance of provide any such assurance to the public or even to Member States and funders.

Controversies have surrounded UNDP's Africa operations in recent months, from Kenya to Sierra Leone to Zimbabwe. On these topics and others, on October 16, 2007, Inner City Press questioned UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis and Mr. Houngbo about UNDP's relative paucity of funding for Africa, which receives significantly less than Latin America. Video here. More recently, last month Inner City Press published leaked documents showing that UNDP in Burundi gave one bidder's information to another, then refused to inform two funders of the underlying medical equipment purchase, the UK and Belgian, of the specifics of what UNDP after the report acknowledged as the "non-transparent procurement process." Click here for Inner City Press' January 17 story, which detailed how UNDP's affiliate the UN Office of Project Services, headed by another non-filer Jan Mattsson, quickly offered a senior post to Geert Vansintjan, the Belgian member of the joint UNDP / UNOPS Executive Board who had demanded information. UNDP on February 12 uploaded its own online spin, that

"UNDP's office in Burundi submitted a request for procurement of $2.3 million worth of medical supplies from Hospital Services (Burundi). After looking into the matter, the request was rejected by UNDP's corporate procurement review due to a perceived non-transparent procurement process. Contrary to recent allegations, UNDP's own internal controls identified the shortcomings and halted the procurement action."

Even assuming that were true -- in fact, the bidder whose information was improperly shown to another filed a protest -- UNDP has not even purported to address the obvious conflict of interest of its affiliate UNOPS hiring the Executive Board member who was asking questions about UNDP. Click here for the Jan. 17 Inner City Press story, which also noted that a request had been made for the UK's comment on demonstrably not getting the information. On February 15, a UK diplomat told Inner City Press that his government is not interested in speaking publicly about the "non-transparent procurement process" in Burundi, although it involved UK money. Asked what UK minister Mark Malloch Brown, previously the head of UNDP (when Gilbert Houngbo was his chief of staff), was doing in UN Headquarters, he listed three initiatives, including disarmament, Darfur and the millennium development goals.

While Kenya was not listed, that is another locus of UNDP controversy. Despite spending funds in the recent disputed election, including on monitoring and "improving" the media, UNDP afterwards downplayed any role in the election's problems, and even claimed the World Bank was misquoting UNDP officials as saying behind closed doors that Mwai Kibaki won and should continue to be supported. In Kenya itself, which Malloch Brown visited, the UK like UNDP is notably closer even post-election with Kibaki than other donors like Canada and Australia. UNDP's near-slavish praise of and provision of irregular services to governments in power, whether North Korea's Kim Jong-il or, as recently noted by the UN's own public information office in Freetown, Sierra Leone's Ernest Koroma. And still, UNDP's top official for Africa refuses to make any public financial disclosure.

UNDP's retaliation against whistleblowers has extended to Africa, where after protesting the no-bid diversion of funds for the environment in Africa to Canadian and European-based firms, Mathieu Koumoin was fired and has since twice been rebuffed by the UN Ethics office, based on UNDP's argument that it should review its own ethics. Click here for last story on this. Since then, Koumoin has urged the UN's Joint Appeals Board to speed up its review. We'll continue to follow this, JAB case 2007-015, set for April, not March, as this UN Ethics Office letter has it, also adding that "the Ethics Office does not have jurisdiction over staff of UNDP."

UNDP's senior official for Africa Gilbert Houngbo was quoted by China's Xinhua news service on May 3, 2007 that "reforming the United Nations is not an end by itself." Clearly not, to UNDP. It's easier just to seek to retaliate against those who raise questions. Developing.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/undp1findisclosed021608.html