As UNDP's Helen Clark Not Ban Ki-moon Meets Chad's Deby, No Darfur Read-out, UN Africa Adviser Maged Not Seen

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 26 -- How does the UN system deal with Africa? Is its approach coordinated? 

  At the African Union events in the past two days, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with three foreign ministers, of Mauritania as well as Norway and the US' John Kerry. Click here for Inner City Press story on these.

Meanwhile UN Development Program administrator Helen Clark met with at least two African heads of state with whom it appears Ban Ki-moon didn't meet: Ghana's John Dramani Mahama and Chad's Idriss Deby.

(Clark's UNDP does not issue Ban-like read-outs of such meetings, only tweets of 140 characters including photos, no replies to mentions. Nor does Clark do press conferences in New York, as Inner City Press has repeatedly requested - we'll have more on this.)

  At least to Deby, there are things Ban should have had to say: Deby's recent invitation to and reception of International Criminal Court indictee Omar al Bashir of Sudan, and the perhaps related reports of Chad's Army attack anti-Bashir rebels in Darfur. (The UN, typically, went late to where that was reported, and then reported they say nothing: click here for Herve Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping's response to Inner City Press.)

  In all this, where was Ban's supposed Special Adviser on Africa Maged Abdelaziz? To the consternation of the African Group of states at the UN, Ban left that post vacant or filled only half time for years - then gave it to Egypt's Maged Abdelaziz, long time Mubarak ambassador to the UN, after Mubarak fell.

A Google News search find no mention of Maged Abdelaziz in the last 30 days, not in Addis Ababa nor anywhere else. Meanwhile a UN webpage for the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa, under OSAA Press Coverage, has nothing since January 2011, more than two years ago.

Is this the UN system's approach to Africa? What does it say? Watch this site.

Ban Ki-moon's UN Fetes Africa But Gave Sahel to Italy, W. Africa to EU, Maged in Defense

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 16 -- As the UN trumpeted its Africa Week on Tuesday, Inner City Press asked the UN's Special Advisor on Africa, Egypt's former Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz, to respond to criticism that for example the UN's top envoys in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire and now the Sahel are all Europeans, that Tanzanian Asha Rose Migiro was replaced as Ban Ki-moon's Deputy by Jan Eliasson of Sweden, and USG Tibaijuka taken out. Video here, from Minute 23.

  Maged Abdelaziz, whose taking of the OSSA post also drew criticism from the UN African Group directly to Ban Ki-moon, offered an on-camera defense, initially of Eliasson.

  He said Eliasson has a "genuine passion for Africa," that he has traveled with Eliasson in Africa and will do so again in mid-November, to Addis Ababa. OK, but what about the West Africa envoys, and Romano Prodi for the Sahel, being paid as a full time Under Secretary General while working from his native Italy?

  Maged Abdelaziz said the UN is a "multicultural organization," and that it should not be expected that all its envoys to Africa would be Africans.

  He rattled off other posts held by Africans: UNFPA, UNAIDS -- whose chief, at least according to the UN, is from France -- and the threatened with merger mandates of children and armed conflict and sexual violence in conflict. 

  To list someone he didn't mention, there is Adam Dieng in the Genocide Prevention job (rather than DGACM, which has been given for now to a Belgian, holding the post for someone else in the future).

  OK, but why was Ian Martin given Libya, and then Prodi the Sahel? Or Bert Koenders given Cote d'Ivoire? To what end?

  Inner City Press also asked about Sudan and South Sudan, and NEPAD's Ibrahim Assane Mayaki replied that the government in Juba invited NEPAD to help design their development plan.

Footnote:   During the press conference, an 80 page "NEPAD Guide 2012" was distributed. There is a section on water -- praising Rio Tinto.

   There is a full page devoted to "General Electric in Africa." Both are listed as "Platinum Members" in the back; one of the Corporate Members is Citigroup, whose former chief of Africa (and Europe and the Middle East) Michael Corbat replaced Vikram Pandit on Tuesday. Multicultural, indeed...

Complaints that Maged Helped Keep UN Africa Post Empty, Got It as Reward

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 15 -- Amid a growing perception that the UN under Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has snubbed sub Saharan Africa, the African Group's call for the appointment of a full time Special Adviser on Africa was repeatedly rebuffed by Ban. Assisting Ban in this, numerous African Group sources complain, was Egypt's Permanent Representative Maged Abdelaziz.

Now, the complaint continues, Maged Abdelaziz has ironically been rewarded by being handed the Special Adviser on Africa post. "He help Ban not fill the post," one Permanent Representative told Inner City Press on Thursday, "then he got it for himself."

Even before March 8 when it was announced, Inner City Press on February 21 reported that Ban was leaning to giving this reward to Egypt's Mubarak era ambassador. (Back when Maged publicly criticized Ban for his canned statements about Egypt, well placed sources describe closed door communication far more embarrassing for both Maged and Ban.) But when the announcement was made, Inner City Press asked:

Inner City Pres: What’s the Secretary-General’s response to criticism from the African Group that they no longer have the Deputy Secretary-General and that the Special Adviser on Africa post is going to a North African not sub-Saharan?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: Africa is a continent and Mr. Abdelaziz is from the continent of Africa.

This answer was met with much derision in the African Group. Inner City Press asked, at least, Maged would be a full time Special Adviser. On March 15, Nesirky provided this response:

I was asked earlier about the posts of Special Adviser on Africa and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States. I can confirm that these will be two separate positions. Cheick Sidi Diarra is still the High Representative and, as you know, the Secretary-General appointed Maged Abdelaziz as Special Adviser on Africa on 8 March.

Cheick Sidi Diarra is said to be headed for the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Ethiopia, whose incursion into Eritrea went uncommented on by Ban's spokesman Nesirky on Thursday despite a question, and Maged is said to not be too long for the Special Adviser job.

Many are saying that sub Saharan Africa "at least" has to be given the Department of Field Support, which Atul Khare, Catherine Polland and maybe Tony Banbury are vying, or another of the remaining open Under Secretary General spots.

But with Ban, you never know. Watch this site.

Footnote: Meanwhile ASG Jomo Kwame Sundaram is said to be vying for the top job in the International Labor Organization, just as Ban's adviser Jeffrey Sachs is openly campaigning for the presidency of the World Bank. Inner City Press has asked if this is a conflict of interest; Nesirky has so far not answered. Only in Ban's UN.