For
UNFPA Top Job Four Names, From
Costa Rica, Panama, Senegal
& Belgian in Kenya
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS,
September 9 –
The UN system is moving to
find a successor at the UN
Population Fund for Babatunde
Osotimehin, who died suddenly
earlier this year. Inner City
Press is exclusively informed
by sources that the goal is to
name a successor before the
upcoming UN General Assembly
high level week - for which
the UN is both UNprepared and
UNfair - and that the
finalists range from Costa
Rica and Panama to Senegal and
a Belgian in Kenya.
Specifically: Costa Rica
second vice president
Ana Helena Chacón Echeverría,
Acting Executive Director
Natalia Kanem, Belgian in
Kenya Marleen Timmerman, and
Senegal's Awa Marie Coll-Seck
of Roll Back Malaria is
short-listed. But when would
the winner actually begin?
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres doesn't even have a
head of the Department of
Public Information in place in
the run-up to GA high level
week: emails about press
access disparities to the
official Guterres chose,
Alison Smale, have not even
been acknowledged. And a more
junior DPI staff member
fielded the questions on
September 8. We'll have more
on this, and on UNFPA. The UN
is both unprepared and unfair
in the run-up to the 72nd
General Assembly high level
week, which the UN brags will
include 90 heads of state,
five vice presidents, 36 heads
of government, 3 deputy prime
ministers and 55 ministers. At
a background briefing on
September 8, a UN Department
of Public Information official
told Inner City Press that the
current nearly-useless wifi
Internet “should” be fixed in
time, and that “there will be
a secondary pass for RC to go
to basement area, 1B, limited
to resident correspondents” -
a group of less than 200 of
the several thousand
journalist the UN says are
coming. Inner City Press
asked, Why are these passes
limited in that way? The UN
official said, “That's the
arrangement with Security and
with the UNCA [UN
Correspondents Association]
because we have to find some
distinction.” So the UN let a
group of at most 200 insiders
limit the access of thousands
of other journalists, with no
transparency. This Department
of Public Information has been
headless since April 1; New
York Times journalist Alison
Smale was named by Secretary
General Antonio Guterres as
replacement but has apparently
not arrived: she has not
answered e-mailed questions
about these elitist
“distinctions.” Actually, the
200 UNCA insiders include
numerous rarely seen state
media, for example Akhbar al
Yom from Sisi's Egypt, making
the “distinction” all the more
telling. Similarly, when Inner
City Press was for assurance
that at least the UN Press
Briefing Room would be open to
all journalists, the UN
official said while missions
are told that, there is no
guarantee, the Media
Accreditation office does not
make the bookings. Those are
done by the UN Spokesman,
Stephane Dujarric, who has a
history as noted by the Free
UN Coalition for Access
of "lending" the UN Press
Briefing Room to the president
of his native France, and to
UNCA, evicting the Press which
tried to cover the event with
Periscope. The UN is closing
in on itself, while bragging
about all the important people
coming to see it. The reformed
needed at the UN go well
beyond those alluded to in the
pre-signed outcome document of
the September 18 event. That
reform event, tellingly, is
not even mentioned on the UN's
list so far of UNGA72 events:
12 September: Opening of the
72nd Session of the General
Assembly (Preliminary list of
items in the provisional
agenda); 18 September:
High-Level Meeting on the
Prevention of Sexual
Exploitation and Abuse; 19-25
September: General Debate of
the General Assembly 72nd
Session; 20 September: Signing
Ceremony of the Treaty for the
Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons; 20 September:
Security Council High Level
Meeting: Reform of UN
peacekeeping, implementation
and follow-up; 26 September:
High-level plenary meeting to
promote and commemorate the
International Day for the
Total Elimination of Nuclear
Weapons; 27-28 September: High
-level meeting of the General
Assembly on the appraisal of
the United Nations Global Plan
of Action to Combat
Trafficking in Persons
(resolution 71/287). Watch
this site.
***
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