At UNDP, Former Staffers Get Consulting Contracts, Dalberg in Ethiopia Called "Insiders' Game"

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

UNITED NATIONS, January 17 -- The UN Development Program contracts with a company, Dalberg Global Development Advisors, whose founder Henrik Skovby worked for UNDP "both at their headquarters and in the field," and is still listed as a UNDP employee. The lead person on Dalberg's advisory board, Sam Nyambi, lists his experience as having supervised 110 staff at UNDP and served as UNDP Resident Representative in Ethiopia. Dalberg has advised the government of Ethiopia, "along with a UN program to support private sector development activities."

    Dalberg's promotional materials state that it is now "assisting UNDP in developing a toolkit to support its interventions in Private Sector Development. The project involves developing a diagnostic and analytical toolkit for supporting the design of programs in Private Sector Development."

            While this work may be laudable, it raises questions, which Inner City Press posed on Tuesday to UNDP's Communications Office:

"what are UNDP's contracts with the company Dalberg, how much are they worth, how were they awarded and what is UNDP's position on awarding contracts to companies on whose advisory board long-time UNDP employees sit? Please disclose any other UNDP contracts with companies on which ex-UNDP employees sit on the board or executive board."

            UNDP's Communications Office responded at 5:52 p.m. on Tuesday that

"we’ll look into it and try to get you something as soon as we can.  If you need an initial comment for publication we can send you that."

            Since Inner City Press' question was specifically "on deadline," at least some comment would have been expected. But half an hour later, UNDP wrote that

"we'll need to get in touch with colleagues in different offices in different places to address them, so a more substantial response tonight is simply not possible."

            One might expect that UNDP had a computer system that could quickly confirm if a company has UNDP contacts, and for how much. One contract of particular interest involves Dalberg in Ethiopia in the summer of 2004. But even as of 5 p.m. deadline on the second day, Wednesday, no information had been provided by UNDP's Communications Office.

The UN in Ethiopia (Dalberg not shown)

            Online, one still finds Mr. Henrik Skovby with a UNDP email address, and an office listed at the FF building on 45th Street, Room 604.  A visit there, to the Bureau of Development Policy, on Wednesday afternoon found a different name in front of room 604: Salil Shetty. The staff list in the front of the office lists "Private Public Partnerships," staffed by Arun Kashyap. There are two consultants listed, Olga Ioffe and Lisa Burnett-Leacock.  There once was a non- (or pre-) consultant Lisa Burnett at UNDP's Bureau of Management.

            Other informed sources, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation by UNDP, have characterized Dalberg Global Development Advisors as "the Halliburton of the UN system," explaining that Dalberg has been given contract largely due to political and regional connections.  These sources say that Jan Mattsson when he was head of UNDP's Bureau of Management was instrumental in Dalberg being awarded open-ended Long Term Agreements, including compensation of $1000 a day for experts. "It's an insiders' game," one source said, asking Inner City Press to inquire more closely into this and a range of other UNDP practices the source called "non-transparent." Other contacts to Dalberg were awarded by Tina Hansen's Internal Consultants Group, based like UNOPS in Copenhagen. Jan Mattsson is now in Copenhagen as head of UNOPS, on which we'll have more in the near future.

  Again, because a number of Inner City Press' UNDP sources go out of their way to express commitment to serving the poor, and while it should be unnecessary, Inner City Press is compelled to conclude this installment in a necessarily-ongoing series by saluting the stated goals of UNDP and many of its staff. Keep those cards, letters and emails coming, and phone calls too, we apologize for any phone tag, but please continue trying, and keep the information flowing.

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

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At UNDP, Book Costs Rise to $737,118 While Other Funding Stays Secret like Somalia, Out of Date

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

UNITED NATIONS, January 15 -- The expenditures of the UN Development Program on a laudatory oral history book have grown by $170,000, while the agency refuses to provide either audits of its spending in Afghanistan or descriptions of its current programs in Somalia.

   Forty days ago, Inner City Press reported on a book that the UN Development Program had commissioned about itself, and cited UNDP's disclosure at the time about the cost: $567,000. The story was subsequently picked up by the London Sunday Telegraph, in Italy and Washington, DC.

            Now UNDP has amended the figure, raising it by $170,000, following an appeal by Inner City Press to the agency's Public Information and Documentation Oversight Panel. Despite the appeal, UNDP refuses to provide including about for example its recent expenditures in Somalia, and audits of its operations in Afghanistan. On book costs, UNDP now states:

Subject: Update

From: cassandra.waldon [at] undp.org

To: Inner City Press

Sent: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 9:44 AM

Dear Matthew,

...we want to set the record straight on an error on our part. The accounting of spending on the UNDP history book we sent you last month was inaccurate. The total cost of the book project, to date, has been approximately $737,118. This is partially due to the fact that UNDP is still paying bills associated with the book, including a large year-end rent payment -- and we should have made that clear to you -- but also can be attributed to errors we made in putting together the total for you last month. As you know, the project dates back to 2004, and its course ran through two Administrations and staffs, some of whom have since left the organization or moved on to other endeavors. Still, we apologize for the mistake.

 We are confident that this new number is accurate, and that all spending associated with the book will soon be complete. We would also add that the project remains significantly under its original budget of $941,430. We are sure you will set the record straight, and you should, of course, attribute any inaccuracies published relating to the expense of the book to our error.

We reiterate that the author had full editorial independence in researching and writing "A Better Way?". The book represents the first published history of UNDP in its 40 years of existence. The costs of this project are in line with or significantly less than those of history projects at similar institutions.

            The above seems to speak for itself. UNDP's itemization in December to Inner City Press included "$26,752 for office space." So there was an additional "large... rent-payment" on top of that? On the statement about editorial independence, we'll simply note in light of the first part of this report that the 15-page index of the book has a single listing for "human rights," which when turned to refers without irony to UNDP's "human rights advocacy."

  One might also compare the above to a book about the UN's World Food Program, "Bread and Stones," which was produced without any funding from the UN and which contains both praise and critical analysis of WFP, and which cites to two other histories of WFP. For example, "Bread and Stones" describes "Italy's insistence on supplying increasing quantities of high-value freeze-dried products... in order to assist a politically influential Sicilian firm over-invested in their production" and that "the U.S. insists that its food be transported in American ships." As is relevant to current "reform" proposals, "Bread and Stones" recounts that "some UNDP representatives took seriously their responsibility to the WFP Executive Director for the work of the Program and some did not."  

   By contrast, "UNDP: A Better Way?" brags that "by 2004 Afghanistan, where the United States and its allies had removed the government that had sheltered the 9/11 terrorists, has become the country where (in financial terms) UNDP delivered the most." Note that UNDP has denied access to any audit of its and UNOPS' "delivery" in Afghanistan, see below.

Afghan students could use $737,000

            We've recently noted that even as Inner City Press has asked persistent and critical questions to WFP, for example about inconsistencies in statements about when incoming executive director Josette Sheeran Shiner will begin, WFP has nevertheless continued to timely answer requests for information about its operations, for example in Eastern Congo. At UNDP, since the week's of its initial book-cost disclosure, only one responses was received, about a UNDP Global Environmental Facility 100-person junket to Goa.

            Inner City Press was pleasantly surprised to receive the above-quoted message from UNDP, and another, quoted below, largely denying but at least acknowledging receipt of other requests for information. The book-cost message followed by a day an in-person outreach by UNDP, during which a better dynamic in 2007 was hoped for, and candid admission was made of UNDP having called other media to urge them not to cite Inner City Press. Inner City Press was told that if its coverage became more positive, more information would be forthcoming.

            But a day prior to this offer with its questionable linkage, Inner City Press had filed an appeal with UNDP's Public Information and Documentation Oversight Panel. Upon consideration of the interim response quoted below, UNDP's outreach and information provision appears to flow only from an appeal being filed.

In a message dated 1/9/2007 10:03:38 PM Eastern Standard Time, [Oversight Panel Co-Chair at] undp.org writes:

Dear Mr. Lee,

This is to confirm receipt of your email request to the Public Information and Documentation Oversight Panel. Pursuant to the UNDP Information Disclosure Policy, at paragraphs19 through 21, the Organization has 30 business - not calendar - days in order to respond to requests for information or documentation. You have indicated that your initial request was dated 5 December, so the 30-business-day period for a response has not yet passed. We will therefore encourage the relevant parties within UNDP to respect the policy and be timely with a reply. Regards,

James Provenzano, Co-Chair, Oversight Panel

            So the Oversight Panel's co-chair, who is also UNDP's chief legal officer, finally encouraged UNDP's Communications Office to "beat the clock" and provide at least some responses before the 30th business day, which will be January 19, the very day UNDP's Executive Board meeting begins. It appears that UNDP's Communications Office will only respond to questions on deadline by UN-accredited but critical media  on the 30 business day time frame in the agency's Information Disclosure Policy, and even then only after an appeal is filed. Still several of the responses provided are, in essence, denials of access to information, which the Oversight Panel must review. For example, Inner City Press had repeatedly asked for "information about UNDP in Somalia, including but not limited to response to reports that UNDP now has a presence in Baidoa, reportedly funded by Italy." In response, UNDP merely points to its Somalia website:

"We would direct you to the UNDP Somalia website for info on that country program: http://www.so.undp.org/"

            But on that site the press release section has not been updated since 2004, and on the front page the most recent document is from 2005. This is a non-response to a direct question about UNDP's current operations in Somalia. The UNDP "Standard Basic Agreement" provided for Russia is a marked-up copy dated 1993 (listed here, click here to download); for Honduras it is dated 1995 and has no signature page, click here to view. No agreement for UNDP's operations in Liberia has been provided.

            In response to Inner City Press' requests for information about expenditures by and audits of UNDP and its UNOPS in Afghanistan, the following was provided last week:

"As an ongoing business practice, UNOPS frequently conducts internal audits, investigations, and analyses of its work in order to discover any errors or inefficiencies and make necessary corrections and improvements.  These inquiries form a routine part of UNOPS performance monitoring.  As a matter of policy, the organization does not comment on the fact, number, or specifics of such internal monitoring in order both to facilitate the process and to protect privacy.  There are no special investigations being carried out regarding UNOPS activities performed on behalf of UNDP in Afghanistan."

            We'll see. Inner City Press' longstanding question about UNDP's funding of disarmament in Uganda's Karamoja region, where the army subsequently burned villages and killed civilians in the name of disarmament, has still not been answered.

            On other questions, which include the seeming expenditure at Headquarters of trust funds which donors limited to use in country offices, in order to pay the salaries of Millennium Development Project staff brought into UNDP without any normal recruitment process, UNDP last week "reiterate[d] that we are not going to comment on unsubstantiated allegations about UNDP recruitment and personnel practices."

            Still, in the spirit of a new 2007, it is better to receive some answers, even if only in response to an appeal and even if the answer is a mere citation to a website, than to receive no answers at all, as has been the case for a month. Also in this new spirit -- and, seemingly under UNDP's offer of otherwise-required responses in exchange for some positive coverage -- we wish to praise a UNDP-funded initiative which has resulted in increased calls for transparency (though not by UNDP Headquarters). On January 14, KUNA news agency reported that

"Arab journalists and media figures from Egypt, Morocco, Egypt, and Lebanon called on Saturday for the dissolving of the information ministries in their countries and implementing a law that guaranteed media freedoms. Concluding their two-day regional conference on the media situation in the four countries, they called for affiliating media outlets and placing the issuance of media-related licenses under independent authorities that were not linked to governments... The conference was organized by the Jordan-based Arab Center for the Rule of Law and Integrity in cooperation with the UN Development Program."

            This UNDP-funded logic casts in a different light UNDP's Office of Communications having devoted its internal and external communications to trying to discredit and even disaccredit a critical media source, and denying information to this media source. Nevertheless, in the interest of receiving more timely and substantive responses from UNDP, we have today uploaded a list of UNDP's requested corrections, click here to view. The coverage will continue.

Other Inner City Press reports are available in the ProQuest service and some are archived on www.InnerCityPress.com --

At the UN, Mysterious Deletion from Iran Sanctions List of Aerospace Industries Organization Goes Unexplained

At the UN, Iran Resolution Passes 15-0 Amid Media Frenzy While Somalia and UN Reform Are Ignored

At the UN, Security Council and GA Games and Holiday Spirit As Revolving Door Ban Disappears on Final Day

UNDP Not Covered By Weak UN Post-Employment Restrictions, Dervis and Mizsei and Aid to the Scapegoated

UN Post-Employment Restriction Are Watered Down for Senior Officials, Comparison to June Draft Reveals

At the UN, Curt Eulogies for Dictator, Revolving Door and Budget Left for the Last Day

UNDP's Dervis Backtracks on Transparency, Promises Accounting of Funds, Denies Role in Uganda Abuse

At the UN, Jeffrey Sachs Answers the $75,000 Question But Not on UNDP, Still Laudable Goals for 2025

Burundi Spin at the UN, Amid Coup Trial and Ceasefire Not Implemented, Great Lakes Commission Moves In

At the UN, Iran Resolution Goes Blue as Ivory Coast is Traded Away With No Follow-up on Hmung

At the UN, Annan's Long Goodbye, With Oil for Food in the Air and Hothouse Musical Chairs

At Kofi Annan's Farewell, UNDP Transparency is Raised, and Brian Gleeson Steps Up

At UN in Beirut, Dueling Charges of Job-Trading and Tax-Evasion, the Burden of Mervat Tallawy, Retaliation from Below

UNDP Will Be Called to Greater Transparency, Says President of Spain, on UNDP's Board, and Flaws of UNOPS

UNDP's Ad Melkert Says He Will Finally Increase Transparency, Describes Fraud in Russia, Dodges Uganda

In Eastern Congo, Kidnapper of UN Peacekeepers Is Made a Colonel, Clooney And Now Guehenno Might Stay

At the UN, Ocampo 1 Says Kony To Jail and Ocampo 2 Sees No Serious Bertucci Charges, Dueling Parties

In UNDP's Book, Strong's Scandals Are Missing, While Workers Complain, MMB Schmoozes the Korean Mission

At UNDP, Flighty Rhetoric Founders in Mismanagement, MMB's Net, a Genocidaire and Whither ECOSOC

At the UN, Disabled Are Freed from a Footnote, Murky Answers from Gbagbo to Kosovo to a Genocidaire

Countering UN's Vanity Press, UNDP Histories from Below, Brussels and Two Views of Omar Bakhet

At the UN, Indigenous Indignation, Revolving Door Mysteries and Peace Pipe Belatedly Smoked

At the UN, Questions of Congo Mass Graves and Kazana, Mugabe and Forests and Rich German Ships

UNDP Is Important For The Poor, and Therefore Must Be Made Transparent

As UN Speechifies, UNDP Audits Are Still Being Withheld, While War in Somalia and Sudan, Pronk Blogs On

Waste, Fraud and Abuse at UNDP in Vietnam, While UN Secretariat Urges Censorship

At the UN, Questions of Humanitarian Aid and Congo Body Count, Despots' Crackdown on Dissent

In UNDP, Questions of Money Wasted, Neutrality Trampled, Russian Office Audits Withheld and Sachs Expenses

From Baidoa to the UN, Denials on Ethiopian Troops Being in Somalia, Resolution Is Passed

Retaliation Found at UNDP, While Dervis Is Focused on Turkey, In Two Weeks Will Take Questions

Annan's Spokesman Silent on 150 Dead in Congo, War in Somalia - But in Loud Defense of UNDP's $567,000 Book

At the UN, Interlopers into Somalia Are Discussed, With Chadian Pull-Back, Peacekeepers and Uganda's Karamoja

UNDP Spent $567,000 on Book to Praise Itself, While the Well-Placed Feed Off UNDP's Core Budget and Prime Postings

As UNDP Questions Mount, Mark Malloch Brown Calls Them Irresponsible, Answers Only in Vanity Press

In UNDP Series, Questions of Jeffrey Sachs and Associates Payments, From $1 to $75,000

From Sleaze in Vietnam to Fights in DC-1, UNDP Appears Out of Control at the Top

On Somalia, Past Arms Embargo Violations Forgiven in Zeal to Contain Islamic Courts

In UNDP, Drunken Mis-Managers on the Make Praised and Protected, Meet UNDP's Kalman Mizsei

From Violent Disarmament in Uganda to the National Bank of Serbia, UNDP Leaves Others to Answer for It

UNDP Sources Say Dervis Fires Malloch Brown-linked Officials, Then Offers Hush-Up Jobs

On Somalia, Fiji and Oil-for-Food, UN Ambiguity Leads to Hypocrisy and Corruption

At the UN, Indigenous Rights Get Deferred, As U.S. Abstains, Deftly or Deceptively

At the UN, Threat and Possible Statement on Fiji Spotlights Selection and Payment of UN Peacekeepers

At the UN, China and Islamic Dev't Bank Oppose Soros and World Bank On How to Fight Poverty

At the UN, Misdirection on Somalia and Myanmar, No Answers from UNDP's Kemal Dervis

UNDP Dodges Questions of Disarmament Abuse in Uganda and of Loss of Togo AIDS Grant, Dhaka Snafu

At the UN, The Swan Song of Jan Egeland and the Third Committee Loop, Somalia Echoes Congo

UN Silent As Protesters Tear Gassed in Ivory Coast, As UNMOVIC Plods On and War Spreads in Somalia

In the UN, Uzbekistan Gets a Pass on Human Rights As Opposition to U.S. Grows and War's On in Somalia

At the UN, Cluster Bombs Unremembered, Uighurs Disappeared and Jay-Z Returns with Water -- for Life

From the UN, Silence on War Crimes Enforcement and Conflicts of Interest on Complaint from Bahrain

En Route to Deutsche Bank, the UN's Door Revolves, While Ban Ki-moon Arrives and Moldova Spins

As Two UN Peacekeepers Are Killed, UN Says Haiti's Improving, Ban Ki-moon on Zimbabwe?

Nagorno-Karabakh President Disputes Fires and Numbers, Oil and UN, in Exclusive Interview with Inner City Press

Inside the UN, Blaming Uganda's Victims, Excusing Annan on Mugabe, and U.S. Blocked Darfur Trip

U.S. Blocked Council's Trip to Darfur Meeting, Brazzaville Envoy Explains After U.S. Casts a Veto

At the UN, Council Works Overtime To Cancel Its Trip About Darfur, While DC Muses on John Bolton

UN Panel's "Coherence" Plan Urges More Power to UNDP, Despite Its Silence on Human Rights

On Water, UNDP Talks Human Rights, While Enabling Violations in Africa and Asia, With Shell and Coca-Cola

Will UN's Revolving Door Keep Human Rights Lost, Like Bush's Call and WFP Confirmation Questions?

On Somalia, We Are All Ill-Informed, Says the UN, Same on Uganda, Lurching Toward UNDP Power Grab

On WFP, Annan and Ban Ki-Moon Hear and See No Evil, While Resume of Josette Sheeran Shiner Is Edited

Would Moon Followers Trail Josette Sheeran Shiner into WFP, As to U.S. State Dep't?

At the UN, Positions Are Up For the Grabbing, Sun's Silence on Censorship, Advisor Grabs for Gun

In WFP Race, Josette Sheeran Shiner Praises Mega Corporations from Cornfield While State Spins

At the UN, Housing Subsidy Spin, Puntland Mysteries of UNDP and the Panama Solution

In Campaign to Head UN WFP, A Race to Precedents' Depths, A Murky Lame Duck Appointment

At the UN, Gbagbo and his Gbaggage, Toxic Waste and Congolese Sanctions

WFP Brochure-Gate? John Bolton Has Not Seen Brochure of "Official" U.S. Candidate to Head World Food Program

Ivory Coast Stand-Off Shows Security Council Fault Lines: News Analysis

At the UN, It's Groundhog's Day on Western Sahara, Despite Fishing Deals and Flaunting of the Law

"Official" U.S. Candidate to Head WFP Circulates Brochure With Pulitzer Claim, UN Staff Rules Ignored

Senegal's President Claims Peace in Casamance and Habre Trial to Come, A Tale of Two Lamines

A Tale of Two Americans Vying to Head the World Food Program, Banbury and Sheeran Shiner

At the UN, the Unrepentant Blogger Pronk, a Wink on 14 North Korean Days and Silence on Somalia

At the UN, Literacy Losses in Chad, Blogless Pronk and Toothless Iran Resolution, How Our World Turns

Sudan Pans Pronk While Praising Natsios, UN Silent on Haiti and WFP, Ivorian Fingers Crossed

UN Shy on North Korea, Effusive on Bird Flu and Torture, UNDP Cyprus Runaround, Pronk is Summoned Home

At the UN, Silence from UNDP on Cyprus, from France on the Chad-Bomb, Jan Pronk's Sudan Blog

Russia's Vostok Battalion in Lebanon Despite Resolution 1701, Assembly Stays Deadlocked and UNDP Stays Missing

As Turkmenistan Cracks Down on Journalists, Hospitals and Romance, UNDP Works With the Niyazov Regime

At the UN, Darfur Discussed, Annan Eulogized and Oil For Food Confined to a Documentary Footnote

With All Eyes on Council Seat, UN is Distracted from Myanmar Absolution and Congo Conflagration

As Venezuela and Guatemala Square Off, Dominicans In Default and F.C. Barcelona De-Listed

At the UN, North Korea Sanctions Agreed On, Naval Searches and Murky Weapons Sales

At the UN, Georgia Speaks of Ethnic Cleansing While Russia Complains of Visas Denied by the U.S.

At the UN, Deference to the Congo's Kabila and Tank-Sales to North Korea, of Slippery Eels and Sun Microsystems

At the UN, Annan's Africa Advisor Welcome Chinese Investment, Dodges Zimbabwe, Nods to Darfur

At the UN, Richard Goldstone Presses Enforcement on Joseph Kony, Reflecting Back on Karadzic

UN Defers on Anti-Terror Safeguards to Member States, Even in Pakistan and Somalia

Afghanistan as Black Hole for Info and Torture Tales, Photos and Talk Mogadishu, the UN Afterhours

Amid UN's Korean Uproar, Russia Silent on Murder of Anna Politkovskaya, Chechnya Exposer

UN Envoy Makes Excuses for Gambian Strongman, Whitewashing Fraud- and Threat-Filled Election

Sudan's UN Envoy Admits Right to Intervene in Rwanda, UNICEF Response on Terrorist Groups in Pakistan

At the UN, As Next S-G is Chosen, Annan Claims Power to Make 5-Year Appointments, Quiet Filing and Ivory Coast Concessions

Chaos in UN's Somalia Policy, Working With Islamists Under Sanctions While Meeting with Private Military Contractors

U.S. Candidate for UN's World Food Program May Get Lame Duck Appointment, Despite Korean Issues

At the UN, U.S. Versus Axis of Airport, While Serge Brammertz Measures Non-Lebanese Teeth

Exclusion from Water Is Called Progress, of Straw Polls and WFP Succession

William Swing Sings Songs of Congo's Crisis, No Safeguards on Coltan Says Chairman of Intel

Warlord in the Waldorf and Other Congo Questions Dodged by the UN in the Time Between Elections

In Some New Orleans, Questions Echo from the South Bronx and South Lebanon

In New Orleans, While Bone Is Thrown in Superdome, Parishes Still In Distress

At the UN, Tales of Media Muzzled in Yemen, Penned in at the Waldorf on Darfur, While Copters Grounded

US's Frazer Accuses Al-Bashir of Sabotage, Arab League of Stinginess, Chavez of Buying Leaders - Click here for video file by Inner City Press.

Third Day of UN General Debate Gets Surreal, Canapes and Killings, Questions on Iran and Montenegro and Still Somalia

On Darfur, Hugo Chavez Asks for More Time to Study, While Planning West Africa Oil Refinery

At the UN, Ivory Coast Discussed Without Decision on Toxic Politics, the Silence of Somalia

Evo Morales Blames Strike on Mobbed-Up Parasites, Sings Praise of Coca Leaf and Jabs at Coca-Cola

Musharraf Says Unrest in Baluchistan Is Waning, While Dodging Question on Restoring Civilian Rule

At the UN, Cyprus Confirms 'Paramilitary' Investigation, Denies Connection to Def Min Resignation, CBTB Update

A Tale of Three Leaders, Liberia Comes to Praise and Iran and Sudan to Bury the UN

UN Round-up: Poland's President Says Iraq Is Ever-More Tense While Amb. Bolton Talks Burmese Drugs, Spin on Ivory Coast

As UN's Annan Now Says He Will Disclose, When and Whether It Will Be to the Public and Why It Took So Long Go Unasked

At the UN, Stonewalling Continues on Financial Disclosure and Letter(s) U.S. Mission Has, While Zimbabwe Goes Ignored

At the UN, Financial Disclosure Are Withheld While Freedom of Information Is Promised, Of Hollywood and Dictators' Gift Shops

UN's Annan Says Dig Into Toxic Dumping, While Declining to Discuss Financial Disclosure

A Still-Unnamed Senior UN Official in NY Takes Free Housing from His Government, Contrary to UN Staff Regulations

UN Admits To Errors in its Report on Destruction of Congolese Village of Kazana, Safeguards Not In Place

As UN Checks Toxins in Abidjan, the Dumper Trafigura Figured in Oil for Food Scandal, Funded by RBS and BNP Paribas

Targeting of African Americans For High Cost Mortgages Grew Worse in 2005, While Fed Downplays Its Own Findings

The UN and Nagorno-Karabakh: Flurries of Activity Leave Frozen Conflicts Unchanged; Updates on Gaza, Gavels and Gbagbo

The UN Cries Poor on Lawless Somalia, While Its Ex-Security Chief Does Business Through Ruleless Revolving Door

At the UN, Micro-States Simmer Under the Assembly's Surface, While Incoming Council President Dodges Most Questions

"Horror Struck" is How UN Officials Getting Free Housing from Governments Would Leave U.S., Referral on Burma But Not Uzbekistan

Security Council President Condemns UN Officials Getting Free Housing from Governments, While UK "Doesn't Do It Any More"

At the UN, Incomplete Reforms Allow for Gifts of Free Housing to UN Officials by Member States

Rare UN Sunshine From If Not In Chad While Blind on Somalia and Zimbabwe, UNDP With Shell in its Ear on Nigeria

Annan Family Ties With Purchaser from Compass, Embroiled in UN Scandal, Raise Unanswered Ethical Questions

At the UN, from Casamance to Transdniestria, Kosovars to Lezgines, Micro-States as Powerful's Playthings

Inquiry Into Housing Subsidies Contrary to UN Charter Goes Ignored for 8 Weeks, As Head UN Peacekeeper Does Not Respond

On the UN - Corporate Beat, Dow Chemical Luncheon Chickens Come Home to Roost

Stop Bank Branch Closings and Monopolies in the Katrina Zone, Group Says, Challenging Regions- AmSouth Merger

Ship-Breakers Missed by UN's Budget for Travel and Consultants in Bangladesh, Largest UNIFIL Troop Donor

With Somalia on the Brink of Horn-Wide War, UN Avoids Question of Ethiopian Invasion

In UN's Lebanon Frenzy, Darfur Is Ignored As Are the Disabled, "If You Crave UNIFIL, Can't You Make Do With MONUC?"

UN Decries Uzbekistan's Use of Torture, While Helping It To Tax and Rule; Updates on UNIFIL and UNMIS Off-Message

On Lebanon, Russian Gambit Focuses Franco-American Minds, Short Term Resolution Goes Blue Amid Flashes of Lightening

Africa Can Solve Its Own Problems, Ghanaian Minister Tells Inner City Press, On LRA Peace Talks and Kofi Annan's Views

At the UN, Jay-Z Floats Past Questions on Water Privatization and Sweatshops, Q'Orianka Kilcher in the Basement

In the UN Security Council, Speeches and Stasis as Haiti is Forgotten, for a Shebaa Farms Solution?

UN Knew of Child Soldier Use by Two Warlords Whose Entry into Congo Army the UN Facilitated

Impunity's in the Air, at the UN in Kinshasa and NY, for Kony and Karim and MONUC for Kazana

UN Still Silent on Somalia, Despite Reported Invasion, In Lead-Up to More Congo Spin

UN's Guehenno Says Congo Warlord Just Needs Training, and Kazana Probe Continues

With Congo Elections Approaching, UN Issues Hasty Self-Exoneration as Annan Is Distracted

In DR Congo, UN Applauds Entry into Army of Child-Soldier Commander Along with Kidnapper

Spinning the Congo, UN Admits Hostage Deal with Warlord That Put Him in Congolese Army

At the UN, Dow Chemical's Invited In, While Teaming Up With Microsoft is Defended

Kofi Annan Questioned about Congolese Colonel Who Kidnapped Seven UN Soldiers

UN Silent As Congolese Kidnapper of UN Peacekeepers Is Made An Army Colonel: News Analysis

UN's Guehenno Speaks of "Political Overstretch" Undermining Peacekeeping in Lower Profile Zones

In Gaza Power Station, the Role of Enron and the U.S. Government's OPIC Revealed by UN Sources

UN's Corporate Partnerships Will Be Reviewed, While New Teaming Up with Microsoft, and UNDP Continues

BTC Briefing, Like Pipeline, Skirts Troublespots, Azeri Revelations

Conflicts of Interest in UNHCR Program with SocGen and Pictet Reveal Reform Rifts

UN Grapples with Somalia, While UNDP Funds Mugabe's Human Rights Unit, Without Explanation

UN Gives Mugabe Time with His Friendly Mediator, Refugees Abandoned

At the UN, Friday Night's Alright for Fighting; Annan Meets Mugabe

UN Acknowledges Abuse in Uganda, But What Did Donors Know and When? Kazakh Questions

In Uganda, UNDP to Make Belated Announcement of Program Halt, But Questions Remain (and see The New Vision, offsite).

Disarmament Abuse in Uganda Leads UN Agency to Suspend Its Work and Spending

Disarmament Abuse in Uganda Blamed on UNDP, Still Silent on Finance

Alleged Abuse in Disarmament in Uganda Known by UNDP, But Dollar Figures Still Not Given: What Did UN Know and When?

Strong Arm on Small Arms: Rift Within UN About Uganda's Involuntary Disarmament of Karamojong Villages

UN's Selective Vision on Somalia and Wishful Thinking on Uighurs

UN Habitat Predicts The World Is a Ghetto, But Will Finance Be Addressed at Vancouver World Urban Forum?

UN's Annan Concerned About Use of Terror's T-Word to Repress, Wants Freedom of Information

UN  Waffles on Human Rights in Central Asia and China; ICC on Kony and a Hero from Algiers

UN & US, Transparency for Finance But Not Foreign Affairs: Somalia, Sovereignty and Senator Tom Coburn

Human Rights Forgotten in UN's War of Words, Bolton versus Mark Malloch Brown: News Analysis

In Praise of Migration, UN Misses the Net and Bangalore While Going Soft on Financial Exclusion

UN Sees Somalia Through a Glass, Darkly, While Chomsky Speaks on Corporations and Everything But Congo

Corporate Spin on AIDS, Holbrooke's Kudos to Montenegro and its Independence

The Silence of the Congo and Naomi Watts; Between Bolivia and the World Bank

Human Rights Council Has Its Own Hanging Chads; Cocky U.S. State Department Spins from SUVs

Child Labor and Cargill and Nestle; Iran, Darfur and WHO's on First with Bird Flu

Press Freedom? Editor Arrested by Congo-Brazzaville, As It Presides Over Security Council

The Place of the Cost-Cut UN in Europe's Torn-Up Heart;
Deafness to Consumers, Even by the Greens

Background Checks at the UN, But Not the Global Compact; Teaching Statistics from Turkmenbashi's Single Book

Ripped Off Worse in the Big Apple, by Citigroup and Chase: High Cost Mortgages Spread in Outer Boroughs in 2005, Study Finds

Burundi: Chaos at Camp for Congolese Refugees, Silence from UNHCR, While Reform's Debated by Forty Until 4 AM

The Chadian Mirage: Beyond French Bombs, Is Exxon In the Cast? Asylum and the Uzbeks, Shadows of Stories to Come

Through the UN's One-Way Mirror, Sustainable Development To Be Discussed by Corporations, Even Nuclear Areva

Racial Disparities Grew Worse in 2005 at Citigroup, HSBC and Other Large Banks

Mine Your Own Business: Explosive Remnants of War and the Great Powers, Amid the Paparazzi

Human Rights Are Lost in the Mail: DR Congo Got the Letter, But the Process is Still Murky

Iraq's Oil to be Metered by Shell, While Basrah Project Remains Less than Clear

Kofi, Kony, Kagame and Coltan: This Moment in the Congo and Kampala

As Operation Swarmer Begins, UN's Qazi Denies It's Civil War and Has No Answers if Iraq's Oil is Being Metered

Cash Crop: In Nepal, Bhutanese Refugees Prohibited from Income Generation Even in their Camps

The Shorted and Shorting in Humanitarian Aid: From Davos to Darfur, the Numbers Don't Add Up

UN Reform: Transparency Later, Not Now -- At Least Not for AXA - WFP Insurance Contract

In the Sudanese Crisis, Oil Revenue Goes Missing, UN Says

Empty Words on Money Laundering and Narcotics, from the UN and Georgia

What is the Sound of Eleven Uzbeks Disappearing? A Lack of Seats in Tashkent, a Turf War at UN

Kosovo: Of Collective Punishment and Electricity; Lights Out on Privatization of Ferronikeli Mines

Abkhazia: Cleansing and (Money) Laundering, Says Georgia

Post-Tsunami Human Rights Abuses, including by UNDP in the Maldives

Citigroup Dissembles at United Nations Environmental Conference

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