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

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

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.

Jeffrey Sachs, in the UN but won't answer questions about it

            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.

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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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