UN
Staff Protest OCHA Budget
Cuts to New SG Guterres, ICP
Asks For His Response
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
January 17 – After UN staff
wrote to new Secretary General
Antonio Guterres to protest
budget cuts by Stephen O'Brien
of the Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs, Inner City Press asked
UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq
for comment.
Haq
replied that the budget cuts
are not yet final -- which is
NOT what impacted staff tell
Inner City Press.
Inner City
Press asked if Guterres
believes that heads of departments
facing budgets cuts - and there
will be others - should confer
with impacted staff. Haq did
not say yes - he said, these
cuts are not yet final. We'll
have more on this.
The letter
to Gutteres asks that he:
"ensure OCHA
discloses the information we
have requested;
establish a staff-management
working group on the
downsizing in line with SMC
guidelines and extend all
contracts until the process is
complete;
promulgate those same
downsizing guidelines; and
bring strong and fair
leadership to OCHA and take
decisive action to fix OCHA’s
management culture."
At the UN
Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs, a
Functional Review circulated
on June 10 by USG Stephen
O'Brien, and exclusively
published by Inner City
Press
here, lays bare (some
of) the problems at OCHA. Examples
below.
On June 15, Inner City
Press wrote to Ban
Ki-moon's two top
spokespeople and asked
them for the UN's
response to or comment
on this
report that the UN -
that is, global
taxpayers - had paid
for. Neither similarly
UN paid spokesperson
ever confirmed receipt
of the Press
questions.
So on June 16,
Inner City Press at
the noon briefing
asked Ban's lead
spokesman Stephane
Dujarric about it -
and he refused to
comment, calling it a
"leaked" document,
akin to internal email
(on which, of course,
comments are often
made.) Vine
here.
Now
we publish the
response by
many OCHA
officials and
experts, some
of whom Inner
City Press has
previously
reported about
and supported,
when for
example they
faced de facto
expulsion from
a country.
Some tell
Inner City
Press O'Brien
is trying to
angle to stay
one when Ban
Ki-moon
leaves. Here
is the letter,
exclusively
published by
Inner City
Press, here.
On
the 2017 cuts,
IRIN has
reported that
OCHA "will
reduce
spending by at
least $20
million in
2017. The
10-percent
cuts,
including at
least 173
staff layoffs,
come along
with an
internal
reform process
sparked by a
damning
independent
review"
- a
review that
Inner City
Press first
reported on.
We'll have
more on this.
***
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