While UNDP's North Korea Representative Is in a NY Hotel, Dervis Is Cut Off and the Fund Details Protected

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, February 8 -- In continued inquiry into the function and dysfunction of the UN Development Program, in the run-up to the "urgent" audit for which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called, a more detailed picture is emerging.

   Just as UNDP rebuffed requests from even its funders to see the internal audits of its North Korea operations, UNDP has been less than helpful in showing how it functions.  Simple information asked for on February 1, directly from Kemal Dervis and then in writing from his spokesman, has yet to be provided: the figures of UNDP's total outflow of funds in the DPR Korea in the past five years, including on behalf of other UN entities.

            Ten days ago, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization answered Inner City Press' questions by stating that in the DPRK its "staff are paid in Euro by the UNDP on behalf of FAO. UNDP charges FAO for every transaction it carries out on behalf of the Organization."

            A week after asking UNDP for how much it paid for others in DPRK, Inner City Press sought the information from UNDP's Resident Coordinator in the country, Mr. Timo Pakkala. He is not actually resident at the moment: he is in a hotel near the United Nations. [By contrast, Mr. Dervis has been in Kenya, and Mr. Melkert in Paris, while their press team brags of putting out the scandal fire, in part by sheer stonewalling.]

        Thursday Inner City Press sent simple email questions to, among others, Mr. Pakkala, with a copy to two UNDP spokespeople. Then some hours later, Mr. Pakkala was reached by phone. He declined to answer questions, referring all inquiries back to the Communications Office, from which answers have been awaited for at least the last week, and on other questions longer. [This might be contrasted to an interview Inner City Press conducted the same evening with another figure in a UN controversy, Yuri Kondralyev, click here to view.] Certain of Inner City Press' initial and still unanswered questions were copied to Kemal Dervis, without response and without effect, the context of which will be described in the parable sketched below.

            UNDP's king of eighteen months is blind and out of touch, according to informed sources.  Kemal Dervis is cut off from most of the staff, behind a phalanx of longer-term players, most from the era of Mark Malloch Brown. There is Bruce Jenks, controller of a network of trust funds, head of the corporation-celebrating "Bureau for Resources and Strategic Partnerships." There is the gatekeeper-in-chief, Tegegnwork Gettu, who cuts off emails directed to Kemal Dervis, and only lets through what he wants. (Regardless, in the year 2007, a chief executive will be held responsible for communications directed to him.) There is Darshak Shaw, protector of the trust funds and of the General Ledger.

            What might be found in the full General Ledger? A turning point for UNDP was the adoption under Mark Malloch Brown of a so-called "cost sharing" model, in which country offices were told to be entrepreneurial and raise money or even just middleman fees from whatever donors had in mind. Click here for a Russia example, of which there are more. Governments would funnel money through UNDP to hire their own nationals, at rates higher and in ways more irregular than could be done by the government itself. Thus the group that resists audits, and the making public of audits, extends even to several well-developed nations. It's worth noting, in the most recent public audit, that the Brazil office "had yet to implement Atlas." Because of this office's fundraising, it was allowed to go its own way.

Dervis in Brazil

            Many of the secrets of UNDP are buried in its trust funds, which numbered 468 as of the last public audit. A picture has emerged in which, when Jan Mattsson left UNDP's Bureau of Management to take over UNOPS, the grouping of insiders decided on a replacement calculated to be controllable: Akiko Yuge. Never empowered or given the resources to look too deeply, the Bureau is still run by the old guard, among them Joceline Bazile-Finley, Krishan Batra and Tina Jensen.

            As simply one recent example, Inner City Press is told that Tina Jensen has this year bent the rules to hire one Sven Mads, reportedly never having been in the field and the cause now of some concern.

            UNDP has told Inner City Press it will not answer recruitment-related questions. As recounted above, for the past week UNDP has not answered any questions at all, despite Inner City Press limited new questions until the simple DPRK figures are provided. In the last communication from UNDP, one week ago, the Administrators' spokeswoman denied that Mr. Gettu was part of any old guard, stating that Mr. Dervis selected him as chief of staff after meeting him as head of the Nigeria country office. But others say there is more to the story. The current director for Africa, Gilbert Houngbo, was the previous Nigeria head for UNDP. Dervis' trip to Nigeria was closely managed. If one result was the installation of Mr. Gettu as chief of staff, it was not by mere chance. Cut a chief executive off from the flow of information and it is only a matter of time.

            And now the time draws near. To be continued.

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, Kemal Dervis' Private Briefing Excludes North Korea Answers Despite Claims of "One UN"

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

UNITED NATIONS, February 1 -- It's "One UN," announced Kemal Dervis on Thursday to a select group of journalists in New York. With Mr. Dervis were the top UN officials from six of the eight countries selected as pilots for the consolidated approach.

            It was a rare press availability with Mr. Dervis, who in the sixteen months since been named Administrator of the UN Development Program has held only two press conferences, fifteen months apart. Even as the UNDP - North Korea scandal broke last month, it was Associate Administrator Ad Melkert who appeared to take the heat, first at a meeting called by new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, then a hastily arranged press conference. (In fairness to UNDP, the explanations given are that Mr. Dervis was only recently back in New York, and was soon to leave for Paris.) The following week as the UNDP Executive Board met about the North Korea program, it was again Ad Melkert on the podium, and then taking reporters' questions in a stakeout interview.

            It is said that Ad Melkert runs UNDP while Kemal Dervis thinks and is, as a supporter of his puts it, a "visionary." Thursday in UNDP's Hank Shannon conference room, talking to five and then six journalists while accompanied by a dozen staff members, Mr. Dervis referred to think tank studies and Financial Times articles, summarizing "fifty years of experience" in development with the principle that if a country's government is not supportive, and supported, no real progress is possible.

            Perhaps this thinking explains the close relations with the Kim Jong Il government, which at least two of UNDP's main funders criticized during the Executive Board meetings last month, and UNDP's engagement with reportedly repressive regimes in for example Uzbekistan. Beyond the issue of government-provided staff in North Korea, which Ad Melkert said UNDP will move away from, Inner City Press has been told that the head of UNDP - Uzbekistan's economic unit, Bakhodur Eshonov, is a government plant who reports to the Karimov regime, which is known to torture its opponents by submersion unto death in boiling water. (We are told, in fairness, that UNDP also seeks to work with grassroots women's groups in Uzbekistan.)

            UNDP's attraction to dictators is profiled by Peter Collins in a recent article in The Economist about UNDP - Thailand. Collins writes that

"Perhaps it makes sense for the new government to obscure its predecessor's achievements while stealing its best clothes. The question is why the UNDP thinks it should provide cover for this whitewash by puffing the sufficiency economy as a miracle-cure for the developing world's woes. The answer is that the UNDP is a sucker for this sort of new-age waffle, especially if it has royal patronage. It has also lauded the not entirely dissimilar 'Gross National Happiness' theory of Bhutan's King Jigme Singye Wangchuk. In publishing such an unbalanced report on a theory that is untried on a national level, the UNDP has abandoned all sense of objectivity. It is also lending legitimacy to a regime that took power by force."

            While far from boiling water, UNDP's strategy with critical independent press in its headquarters city has latent totalitarian tendencies. Focusing only on Thursday, Inner City Press can affirm that its correspondent went with another UN-accredited reporter to UNDP's 21st floor executive offices. The spokeswoman for Mr. Dervis and Mr. Melkert, referred to as the "blond woman" in Inner City Press' report from the January 25 Executive Board meeting, stood in the conference room doorway. This is by-invitation-only, she said.

            Inner City Press asked on what basis the invitations had been made, and to whom. She responded, in the conference room doorway and in a subsequently telephone interview, that UNDP hadn't thought that many reporters would be interested, that those invited were the ones covering UNDP, and that geographic balance had been sought.  But no representative was present, for example, from media from Japan, which is a major UNDP donor and one of the member states most critical of UNDP at its recent Executive Board meeting. At least three Japanese media outlets later on Thursday said they would have attended, and expressed anger at not having been invited. Some wondered, was Japan's criticism of UNDP's payment of hard currency to the Kim Jong Il regime the basis for the exclusion of Japanese media?

Kemal Dervis with Argentine flowers

            Barred from attending Mr. Dervis' event, Inner City Press' correspondent left UNDP's building. Subsequently, the spokeswoman called and said that due to a broken foot, she had not been able to catch up with the correspondent, but that he should come back, he was now invited.  The hour-long briefing was half over by then, but Inner City Press still managed to ask a few questions:

            How would this "One UN" concept apply, for example, to the UN's operations in North Korea, where internal audits show that the UN Population Fund and Food and Agriculture Organization pay their government-provided employees in Euros, through UNDP? How much money has UNDP paid, on behalf of these other UN agencies as well as on its own behalf, to the North Korean government?

            Mr. Dervis did not answer this question. Nor before 9:45 p.m. deadline did his spokeswoman, even after the question had been reiterated orally and in writing. How can it be "One UN" if the purportedly coordinating agency, which already in North Korea and elsewhere controls most of the funds, either cannot or will not disclose how much money is being spent?

            The spokeswoman, while not providing the requested dollar figure, pointed out that the "One UN" reform is just starting, and has to be given time.  But present at the briefing was the Resident Coordinator for Cape Verde, Patricia de Mowbray, who told Inner City Press that she has represented all four "Exec Comm" agencies since January 2006. A perusal of these agencies' websites may indicate the range of approaches they will take to "One UN." The World Food Program's Cape Verde site describes its programs, but mentions that it is part of a coordinated group. Additional responses have been requsted from WFP.

            The UN Children's Fund does not mention the coordinated group on its Cape Verde webpage. It has been noted that UNICEF raises by far the most money from the public, and therefore perhaps is less comfortable folding its operations -- and "brand" -- into a consolidated group. The UN Population Fund barely has a Cape Verde site, just a page listing Ms. de Mowray as contact with a unfpa.org email address and a link to a matrix of the four agencies' proposals.  In fairness to UNDP, even its slow answering of questions tops the performance to date of UNFPA. Mr. Dervis on Thursday said that the High Level Panel he served on had decided against mergers of UN agencies. There are some that say UNFPA should be merged out of existence, at least as it is currently run.

            Inner City Press asked Kemal Dervis about the proposal to merge UNDP's procurement unit IAPSO into UNOPS, a topic much discussed during the UNOPS segment of last month's Executive Board meeting. Mr. Dervis said since IAPSO is part of UNDP, that would not be a merger. He continued that "there are agencies without country presence or capacity" which uses UNDP for payroll functions, but this does not mean that UNDP takes over management of the agencies. "Fragmentation leads to inefficiency," he said, adding that "coherence can improve efficiency."

            Mr. Dervis was asked if this process will lead to job loss. In his answer, Mr. Dervis began saying the word "re-profiling," and then stopped. That re-profiling process, much denounced by employees whose jobs were taken, was begun under Mark Malloch Brown, and is closely associated with Brian Gleeson, from whom Mr. Dervis took away human resources duties on November 29, 2006.  Recently Dervis supporters have offered yet another off-the-record explanation for Mr. Gleeson's demotion: that when ordered to approve the paperwork for the irregular hiring of a Dervis ally to work directly under Brown ally Bruce Jenks, Mr. Gleeson refused, and told Team Dervis to play by the rules. He was then demoted. We will return again and again, if necessary, to this intrigue in $5 billion a year UNDP, which the agency still refuses to explain.

            UNDP on Thursday sought to invite only a select few reporters to an hour-long briefing by Kemal Dervis himself. Of those invited by UNDP, as of deadline it appeared that only AP had reported on the briefing. EFE did as well, in light of Spain's recent contribution. But elite print media, lured by the prospect of a by-invitation-only meeting, had yet, due to space constraints, to publish a word about the Dervis briefing.  This did not surprise UNDP, a person there said. Then why the invitation-only? It appears that Mr. Dervis, now increasingly derided as out of touch, wants to get to know the media, or to get known by the media. It is said that after sixteen "lost" months, surrounded by staff from his predecessor Mark Malloch Brown, now Mr. Dervis says he's finally ready to lead. But is it too late?

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

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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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