On Belated Sahel Plan, Is Prodi's UN Gravy Train Leaving the Station?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 26 -- It took Romano Prodi more than eight months to complete the Sahel report he presented to the UN Security Council on Wednesday. 

   During that time, Inner City Press received complaints from within the UN's Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions that Prodi was charging $1200 for travel between Bologna and Rome. 

   Diplomats complained about his ideas for a fund, and about the UNOWA operations in Dakar, Senegal.

After Prodi's low key presentation and consultations, June's Security Council president Mark Lyall Grant came to the stakeout, saying among other things that Morocco will prepare a Presidential Statement on the topic.

Inner City Press asked why the report took so long, if Prodi will has a role, and what the role of UNOWA would be in the strategy.

Lyall Grant replied, as transcribed by the UK Mission to the UN:

Lyall Grant: It was explained that there have been very close cooperation between UNDP and DPA in producing this report that, Mr Prodi himself said that, his job was to inject some new thinking, present the report, ensure that implementation began, but then fade away. He was not looking to sustain his role in the longer term. His role was not completed yet, but once the train, I think the expression he used was, once the train had left the station on implementation then he was not looking to do his role, continue his role, and that the next stage would be taken forward by perhaps operating out of the UNOWA office in Dakar. Now there was a recognition that the mandate of UNOWA of course goes much wider than the Sahel countries, but that UNOWA mandate was also on the Security Council’s agenda later this year and there might be some adjustment of that to take account of this fact.

  The “train leaving the station” image brought to mind Prodi's travel and cost: seems he doesn't take the train. Another Council member told Inner City Press it was that Prodi said he wanted to see the train start moving. Would that be the gravy train? Watch this site.

  

To G8 in Lough Erne Ban Ki-moon Wasn't Invited, UK Tells ICP; IMF's Lagarde Was there: UN in Decline

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 26 – During the recent G8 meeting in Lough Erne, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde and World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim were both there. But where, Inner City Press asked, was Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations?

Physically, he was in China. But the question was, had Ban Ki-moon even been invited to the G8? The question was asked at the UN, of Ban's Deputy Spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey. He said he didn't know, he said he would check; there was never an answer. This seemed to imply Ban had not been invited – particularly since the meeting touched on Syria – but it seemed to make sense to ask the host, the United Kingdom.

The UK Mission to the UN's spokesperson, Iona Thomas, told Inner City Press she didn't know but would ask “the capital” but that it might take time. On Wednesday morning, Inner City Press asked again. She indicated that maybe now that the dust had settled, an answer might be possible.

And then it came. Wednesday afternoon at an otherwise empty Security Council stakeout as the Council's meeting on the long delayed Sahel report by Romano Prodi started up, Iona Thomas of the UK told Inner City Press that No, Ban Ki-moon was not invited. So there you have it.

What does it mean?

Often people critique not only the G8 but also the G20 for being unrepresentative, contrasting it to the G193 of the General Assembly. The UN Secretary General could be a bridge, and it seems to some that previous Secretary General Kofi Annan might well have been invited.

So what is happening to the UN? As another UN official pointed out to Inner City Press, even on Mali, a case right in the UN's wheelhouse, it was not the UN brokering the deal -- not Prodi or Bert Koenders or Said Djinnit -- but Blaise Campoare of Burkina Faso. Would he have been invited to the G8? Watch this site.

  

Exclusive: UN Overpays Prodi Rome Travel, Seeks to Cut 59 Publishing Jobs: Counter-Proposal Here

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 -- The UN says it is tightening its belt. But if so, it is very selective.

  Inner City Press has previously questioned why the UN's envoy on the Sahel, Romano Prodi, gets to work from Italy. Wednesday UN budget sources approached Inner City Press to complain it is worse than this.

  Prodi is not in fact based in Rome, they told Inner City Press. He is in Bologna, and he charges the UN $1,200 for each trip to Rome, so far to the tune of $36,000.

  And the report on the Sahel strategy of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon which he was charged with preparing back in October 2012 has still not be presented to the Security Council. "It's a joke," one source told Inner City Press. "A bad joke."

  (Another source snarked that the vehicles to be bought for Herve Ladsous' Department of Peacekeeping Operations' new mission in Mali will in all probability come from French or Japanese manufacturers.)

  As Inner City Press asked and got confirmed, the UN's envoy to the Great Lakes Mary Robinson is being allowed to be based in Dublin. Are there any UN staff there? And what about the travel costs?

  Meanwhile at a lower level of the UN, staff in the Publishing Section were told that 59 "posts" -- that is, jobs -- would be eliminated. Management used the destruction of equipment in the third sub-basement to further their plan of eliminating the posts.

There was fight back, and now a counter-proposal has been sent to Ban Ki-moon; Inner City Press has exclusively obtained a copy and includes a section, below. 

 The same Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions which considers Prodi and Mary Robinson should consider these lower ranked staff member's proposal, with the same solicitude:

For a more economically efficient, flexible, and reliable printing operation, it is imperative to deploy four smaller capacity digital presses of overall capacity up to or about 90,000,000 page impressions... a total of twenty-four staff members in Trade and Craft staff category would be required for the operation of the print shop, in addition to fifteen General staff for distribution and fulfillment, and five General staff for the front office. The whole operation would be managed by a Professional staff at the P-3 level, supported by senior Trade and Craft at the TC-8 and TC-7 levels. The currents posts of the Chief (P-5) and Deputy Chief (P-4) of the Publishing Section would be abolished.

A total of twelve staff in the General staff category would be relocated to the Meetings Servicing Unit for Paper Smart meetings support. The remaining staff of the Publishing Section would be afforded real employment opportunities and appropriate training.

  So does this UN only care about the comfort of people like Prodi, charging big bucks to travel from Bologna to Rome? Or about these underground printing staff? Watch this site.

Amid Sahel Standstill, UN Advisory Committee Asks Why Envoy Prodi Is Based in Rome: UN Waste?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 10 -- When Romano Prodi, ostensibly the UN's envoy on if not in the Sahel, became a candidate for the Italian presidency, the UN of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made excuses, telling Inner City Press the question of conflict of interest was "moot," because Prodi lost.

  But the UN Advisory Committee of Administrative and Budgetary Questions is not so forgiving. Their report on Prodi's office says that Prodi's fundraising

"does not necessarily require the headquarters of the Office to be located in Rome, or a large share of the staffing of the Office to be located outside the Sahel region. The Advisory Committee ...believes that closer proximity to or its placement in the region would allow the Office of the Special Envoy to fully engage and coordinate with the numerous United Nations offices/entities and international actors present in the countries of the Sahel dealing with similar issues."

  And so, "the Advisory Committee recommends that the General Assembly invite the Secretary-General to review the current arrangements for the Office of the Special Envoy and to consider alternative locations of the Office in the Sahel region. In developing his proposals, the Secretary-General should be requested to take full advantage of the opportunities for realizing synergies with the other United Nations entities present in the countries of the region, and avoid all duplicative activity."

   Why IS Prodi allowed to be based in Rome? And what has he accomplished? The Sahel Strategy, assigned to him in October, is still not done, pushed back to June 15. Now this. Is it time for a change? Watch this site.

With UN's Sahel Strategy Still Missing, Is It Time to "Pull the Plug" on Moonlighting Romano Prodi?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 1 -- Is it finally time to pull the plug on Prodi? That was a question that came up several times Wednesday after the UN Security Council set its program of work for May.

  The vaunted Strategy for the Sahel, which Prodi back in October was given a full time Under Secretary General's post to complete, is still not finished. A Sahel session slated for May 7 will now, Inner City Press was told, in all probability not take place.

  In the interim, as Inner City Press covered, critiqued and questioned about, Prodi was in the race, and ultimately failing at that too, to be Italy's president.

  This obvious conflict of interest was haltingly excused by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Secretariat. At first they told Inner City Press they were not aware of it -- how not?.

  Then they said it was moot, because Prodi failed. Some endorsement.

  Finally they sent Inner City Press this:

Subject: Your question on Romano Prodi
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 9:51 AM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

Mr Prodi is the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Sahel. Mr. Prodi did not campaign for the office of the Italian Presidency while working as the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General.

In the Italian political system, the President is elected by the Parliament. This is not a direct election, nor is it a position that is campaigned for. Mr. Prodi was nominated for one round of voting while he was in Mali attending an international meeting on the crisis in that country. He withdrew his name for consideration immediately after one round of voting.

  But being in that round of voting was, more than one Security Council has told Inner City Press, an outrage; it's time to pull the plug on Prodi. What is the UN coming to, that it has no rules, or rules only for some?

  It is an obvious conflict of interest to run for public office while still serving as a UN official. This precedent would allow any Under Secretary General -- why not Secretary General? -- to do it.

  And where is the Sahel Strategy that Prodi has been paid -- how much? -- to compile? Watch this site.

At UN, Ban Ki-moon Switches From Woman to German Man as Police Adviser to Ladsous, of Gender, Veto Power & WW2 Echoes

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 19 -- When the UN announced on the afternoon of April 18 that it was replacing as Herve Ladsous' Police Adviser in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations the Swedish Marie Orler with a Germany man, Stefan Feller, there was little time to put the switch in context.

  But it is noteworthy that just as Ban Ki-moon replaced a female Deputy Secretary General, Asha Rose Migiro, with a Swedish man, Jan Eliasson, now he has replaced a woman, not by coincidence Swedish, with another man. 

   That Feller is German is not the main point -- but that he is European, like Ladsous the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping (and like Eliasson) is significant.

  Why has France been allowed to name the last four DPKO chiefs? Because it has a veto on the Security Council, including over selection and re-appointment of UN Secretaries General. And why does France have that veto power? Because it ostensibly was a victor in World War II.

  Now, over 70% of the UN's and DPKO's work is in Africa. What does it say that both the head of DPKO, Ladsous, and his top Police Adviser, Feller, are European?

  Inner City Press raised this issue when Secretary General Ban Ki-moon named out of work Italian politician Romano Prodi as his envoy to the Sahel in Africa. For that, there was push back from the UN Secretariat. 

  (And on March 18, the UN Department of Public Information conducted a non-consensual raid on Inner City Press' office, rifled through papers and took photographs, which were leaked on March 21 to BuzzFeed right after that publication contacted Ban's spokesman for comment on the raid.)

  Perhaps not surprisingly, on the evening on April 18, UN DPI official Stephane Dujarric contacted Inner City Press “urgently” about its tweet -- yes, a 140 character message -- about Feller's appointment. Durjarric has previously criticized Inner CIty Press' tweet about Ban himself. This time, Dujarric demanded an explanation of the tweet. Well here it is:

  It reflects UN decay that Ban Ki-moon's top Peacekeeper and top Police Adviser are both European men, given the percentage of their work that is in Africa. It smacks, yes, of colonialism. And of the UN being lost, in top appointments, in the legacy of World War 2. 

  And what of Ban's speeches about women in top positions in the UN? Here, an outgoing official, one of the UN's top women, is replaced by a man, just as Ban replaced Asha Rose Migiro with a man.

  (Orler, as Inner City Press reported, was at least responsive to questions, unlike Ladsous, who on camera refused questions about 126 rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army, his partners, on November 27, December 7 andDecember 18. 

  On February 1, Orler's office sent answers to questions Inner City Press asked Orler in her final briefing. And how will Feller be? The UN, including DPI and Dujarric, done nothing publicly or substantively about Ladsous' outrageous refusal to answer question.)

  But where is Asha Rose Migiro now? Ban named her his envoy on HIV / AIDS in Africa. And?

  Back on December 27, 2012, Inner City Press asked Ban's top three spokespeople about the process to replace Orler (and whether France or another European country would get the post). They responded:

From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 5:08 PM
Subject: Question
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

On the Police Adviser: DPKO advises that the post of Police Adviser is a rotational post that is filled by active-duty officers on secondment from national service, normally for a limited period. The current Police Adviser has been in service since 2009 and a note verbale has been circulated to seek nominations from member states to the post. The selection process is in progress.

  Then it still took more than three and a half months, and then was announced not in a noon briefing but in an afternoon e-mail. But Dujarric was there, with his hawk-eye on even the tweets of the media he acccredits to enter the UN. Or is it ALL media, he watches? We'll have more on this. Watch this site.