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Donors Ask for UN Jobs,
America Owns Some, UNHCR Deputy Johnstone Says
Byline: Matthew
Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
April 22 -- Donor countries ask for jobs, the UN Deputy High
Commissioner for
Refugees L. Craig Johnstone told Inner City Press on Tuesday. In the
last week
alone, he said, three countries have lobbied him for more
representation based
on the money they give. "I would cast an eye toward trying to help a
country
out," Johnstone said.
Following Inner City
Press'
reporting on UNHCR's agreement with the United States to aim to hire
13% of its
professional staff from the U.S., UNHCR's spokesman stopped
responding to
questions, including about the agency's lack of insurance for those
working for
it in Algiers, impacted by the December 11, 2007 bombing there. Even
without a
stonewall from UNHCR, Inner City Press published
that story, and one on staff
dissatisfaction within the agency. Johnstone
came for a 45 minute interview, to
clear the air.
Johnstone's selection as Deputy High
Commissioner is explained by some close observers as a deal in which
the
Europeans supported his candidacy in exchange for UNHCR directing its
out-posting
of jobs not to Asia but to Eastern Europe.
Simultaneous with Johnstone beginning at the number
two UNHCR post, the
agency announced the awarding to Budapest of back-office jobs moved
from
Geneva.
Johnstone pointed out that the U.S.
essentially owns the Deputy High
Commissioner slot. He said that High
Commissioner Gutteres reserved the right to go outside the selection
process if
he was not satisfied with the result. "To
be perfectly frank," Johnstone told Inner City Press, "I got added to
the list to make sure that wouldn't happen."
On a secondary theory, that
PriceWaterhouseCoopers was given the job of choosing or recommending
the
out-posting city in exchange for contributions, Johnstone said, "Ask
Wendy,"
Chamberlin, his predecessor.
Inner City Press asked why Africa
hadn't even been one of the four locations considered . (The others
were
Bucharest, Chennai and Kuala Lumpur.) "Is Africa the right place to
establish
a procurement center?" Johnstone asked. "A payroll center? What are
the capability of the local people to carry out the functions?"
UNHCR's Craig Johnstone in Jordon, donor asks
not shown
He said that Hungary gave a building
free of change. "Did that help? Of course." But
is this who the UN should do business, if
the result if the exclusion of Africa?
A former UN envoy to the DR Congo,
William Lacy Swing, is the U.S. candidate to take over as head of the
International Organization on Migration. Johnstone asked, Has his
battle with
Brunson McKinley been resolved? He said, "to be perfectly frank,"
that those casting secret ballot in the IOM election need to "think
carefully" about not having an American head up an agency of which the
U.S. is the major funder. And so we've come full circle.
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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