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At UNDP, Dervis' Desires, Scandals and Silence
Recalled As He Departs
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
January 8 -- Kemal
Dervis, the UN
Development Program's Administrator, announced Thursday he will leave
the post
on March 1, ostensibly for personal and family reasons. His tenure was marked
by a series of scandals
in UNDP, from funding violent
disarmament in Uganda and
diamond
mining in Zimbabwe to procurement
fraud cover-ups and financial irregularities in its North Korea
program. Through it all, Dervis largely avoided the media, repeatedly
telling
Inner City Press that he refused to
answer questions in the hallway of the
UN,
as even the Secretary General and his top officials do. He presided
over
retaliation, and then fought to keep UNDP
exempt from the UN system's Ethics
Office.
Why is
Dervis leaving? There are a number of theories. One has it that he had
his eye,
in the UN system, on the Deputy Secretary General post. Many close
observers
had been predicted that Asha Rose Migiro would leave in February. But
recently
word came down that she is staying. And soon thereafter, Dervis
announced he is
leaving the system. Others less plausible tie his sudden announcement
to the
North Korea scandal, and Ban Ki-moon's recent trip to Washington.
What will
Dervis do next? There's high brow chat
of a university post, lower brow talk of filthy lucre or Turkish
politics.
Perhaps he'll write a book like the one
his predecessor commissioned,
"UNDP: A Better Way?"
Dervis at UN, refusal to answer question, and
blue-sky mornings, not shown
All that
said, Inner City Press has a single semi-positive memory. On his way
into the
Secretariat building one blue-skied day, Dervis stopped and mused that,
you
only have so many mornings like this in your life, you have to enjoy
them. We
hope he does -- and that the next UNDP Administrator does a better job.
At
Thursday's UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson
if he
will at least commit to what his predecessor did, releasing a short
list of
candidates for the post. I don't know yet, the Spokesperson said. We
will
follow this one.
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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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[at] innercitypress.com
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