For
UNFPA Top Job, Guterres Without
Transparency Taps Kanem Over
Senegal, Others
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive Sept 9
on
UNITED NATIONS,
October 3 –
The UN system has with little
transparency named Natalia
Kanem as the successor at the
UN Population Fund for
Babatunde Osotimehin, who died
suddenly earlier this year.
Inner City Press was
exclusively informed by
sources in early September
that the finalists ranges from
Kanem's Panama to Costa Rica
to Senegal and a Belgian in
Kenya. Specifically, beyond Acting
Executive
Director
Natalia Kanem,
Costa
Rica second vice president Ana
Helena Chacón Echeverría, ,
Belgian in Kenya Marleen
Timmerman, and Senegal's Awa
Marie Coll-Seck of Roll Back
Malaria were short-listed.
Then more were added, but the
UN when Inner City Press asked
refused to confirm anything.
Less and less transparent. 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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