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At UN, Transparency Debated in Secret, Labor Discussed in the
Basement, Arnault in DPKO Mix
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
April 10 -- At the UN
these days, there is talk of accountability and reform. A closed-door
meeting
was held on the topic on Wednesday; the press was not allowed t hear
what UN
management said to member states or vice versa.
A glimpse
was to be had
Thursday in the basement, when Under Secretary General for Management
Alicia
Barcena took the podium to speak to the UN Staff Council, and to take
their questions.
She acknowledged that the Compact that she signed with Ban Ki-moon,
uploaded to
the UN's internal website under the heading Accountability, blurred to
May 1 a March
1 deadline set by the General Assembly.
She noted
the Staff Union's critique of
the appointment
of the UN's new Ombudsman. She implored not only the Union,
however, but also Inner City Press to help her with reforms. "I don't
always like what you write," she told the Press, "but you help raise
the visibility." So here goes.
The
Staff Council says Management wants only to consult, not negotiate,
that as in
the case of the tour guides, it responds only to negative media
coverage and,
in that case, a sick-out by the guides. A member asked if the Union
will be
allowed to make a presentation directly to the General Assembly, saying
this
was blocked under the tenure of the previous head of the Office of
Human
Resources Management, Jan Beagle. On accountability, he said that
"heads
should roll" over the failure in the implementation of the UN's system
of
performance reviews.
But
at the level of UN Management, heads never figuratively roll; there is
little
accountability. Ms. Beagle was rewarded with an assignment to Geneva,
using an
UNCTAD deputy chief post the work of which she is not doing. (It is
said that
the Thai chief of UNCTAD Supachai Panitshpakdi now wants this post
back, watch
this space.) There's not even accountability on the failure to move the
UN's
accountability proposal. With much fanfare, the Department of
Management said
it would create a ten-person Office of Accountability, with at the top
a new
D-2 post. Cynics said this post was specifically created to reward, a la Jan Beagle, long time official
Nancy Hurtz-Soyka. Then Inner City Press
was told, the report on the new Office is coming out soon, no questions
would
be answered until the report came out.
Well,
even during the March resumed
session of the UN's budget committee, no report on the proposal came
out from
the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. Ms.
Barcena
confirmed this Thursday afternoon in the basement. So the question is,
who is
going to be accountable for this failure to move even this
accountability
proposal?
Mr. Ban and some of Staff Council, UN Reform
not shown
Also
present Thursday in the basement was the new Assistant Secretary
General of the
Office of Human Resources Management, Catherine Pollard.
As
previously reported, prior to her being
named to the post, Inner City Press e-mailed Ms. Pollard a copy of a
staff
complaint against her, seeking in fairness her comment before
publication. She
did not respond, then or since. Thursday she spoke only briefly, and
she was
generally greeted with openness, and a hope she will at least be more
open that
her predecessor. A cynic in the room opined that perhaps given the
Caribbean
leadership of the Group of 77 this year, Ms. Pollard being Guyanese was
viewed
as politically savvy.
Ms.
Barcena also confirmed that even Ban's proposal to move the UN to one
form of
contract (Barcena put it at three forms) would not break down the wall
between
General Services and Professional staff. She showed Inner City Press a
glimpse
of a binder of color-coded proposals, some that the Secretary-General
could
implement on his own, the rest requiring General Assembly approval.
Perhaps at
Wednesday's session on reform, some commitments were obtained. This is not known, because the discussion on
transparency was held behind closed doors. And, despite Ms. Barcena's
statements for more than a year now about implementing a UN Freedom of
Information policy, nothing has been done. Perhaps this, too, was
discussed Wednesday in secret. Only at the UN...
Footnotes: while the topic was not
mentioned at Thursday's basement session, rumors continue to circulate
that Ms.
Barcena will leave, either to ECLAC in Santiago or the UN's University
of Peace
in Costa Rica, and that her successor may be the German Joaquim Rucker,
who is
said to have recently threatened, along with his deputy Larry Rossin,
to resign
from the UN Mission in Kosovo, but was told if he left UNMIK, there
could be no
USG of Management post. Other rumors have UN Georgia mission chief Jean
Arnault
being considered to replace his fellow Frenchman Jean-Marie Guehenno as
head of
UN Peacekeeping. Unlike Ruecker,
Arnault at least has filled out his
public financial disclosure, noting a country house in Guatemala.
Coming full circle, it's said
Guehenno is being considered as a special envoy on Northern Kosovo, to
"pull a Bosnia," as one insider put it, meaning to negotiate some
form of cantonization or even de facto partition. We'll see.
* * *
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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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