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By Matthew Russell Lee & sources, Exclusive

UN GATE, Oct 1 – UNESCO, like the whole UN system under Antonio Guterres was been falling apart in corruption and fraud.

  Inner City Press has been reporting on serious malfeasance by the French Audrey Azoulay administration at UNESCO in Paris, almost as bad as Antonio Guterres' corruption in and of the UN in New York. A fish rots from the head.

[On September 25, Inner City Press was blocked at the UN gate despite a confirmed invitation to an event entitled "Defense of International law." On September 29 UN MALU denied Inner City Press' July 25 application to re-enter to report, with no explanation offered. Today's UN is lawless.]

 The UNESCO corruption series is now more than 149 stories long.  Since November 2025, the Egyptian former Minister Mr Khaled El-Enany is the Director-General of the Agency. Last April 15, Inner City Press wrote the following (here) “Time is passing, and yet nothing has changed in the corridors of power." Today, all illusions are slowly but surely fading. And the recent meeting of the Executive Board’s preparatory working group represents a decisive step in that direction. Mr. El-Enany might be able to afford to ignore the advice and opinions of those concerned about UNESCO if he felt annoyed by the fact that these opinions require him to make firmer decisions and take bolder corrective measures, but he can hardly afford to ignore the external auditor’s findings presented on September 15 at the preparatory group meeting. The entire presentation as well as the questions and answers session that followed are available here .

The UNESCO HR audit clearly demonstrated that there was a serious governance problem during the tenure of Frenchwoman Audrey Azoulay. UNESCO’s External Auditor revealed a persistent and very uncomfortable problem: UNESCO often cannot demonstrate, through its records, that important personnel decisions were made consistently, objectively and in accordance with its own rules.  The weaknesses and wrongdoings recur across recruitment, appointments, temporary contracts, mobility and post reclassifications. Interview panels did not always meet the required composition; candidate assessments and rankings were not consistently documented; qualifications and references were not always independently verified; and the Appointment Review Board did not always have a clear documentary record of its deliberations.  One sensitive finding concerns cases in which the Director-General appointed candidates other than the person ranked first by the interview panel. The Auditor did also say that the reasons for overriding the panel's recommendation were not consistently recorded. The problem, therefore, is not necessarily the exercise of discretion — it is discretion without a sufficiently visible audit trail.  The same pattern appears in post reclassifications. In some cases, effective dates could not readily be reconciled with the supporting documentation. The Auditor also found isolated cases where eligibility or minimum-service requirements could not be demonstrated.  Temporary staffing raises another concern. UNESCO's rules give managers considerable flexibility for temporary appointments, but the Auditor found insufficiently defined safeguards, incomplete justification for extensions and cases where formal approvals were replaced by email exchanges.

The report also notes successive temporary appointments over extended periods — potentially signaling that temporary arrangements are being used to address longer-term staffing needs.  The common denominator of the Azoulay administration was weakness in institutional memory and accountability: decisions may have been made, but the organization cannot always reconstruct the evidence, reasoning and approvals behind them.  That matters because these are not cost-free administrative details. Recruitment, salary-setting, promotions and reclassifications determine who occupies posts, at what grade and salary, and for how long. They therefore have direct implications for UNESCO's staffing structure and recurring expenditure. It’s finally all about misuse of public funds.

 The Auditor's work is usually deliberately measured. In this case, the words used are stronger than ever: Decisions by the Azoulay administration were not recorder properly in the system, lack of transparency, hidden moves, no compliance with rules and regulations, no consistency of decisions with the HR manual, staff moral severely hit, weak governance at large, lack of accountability, nobody cared that decisions have been taken in contradiction with the HR manual, etc, etc.  The report explicitly says that its findings demonstrate systemic weaknesses in the overall HR framework. And all responses by the administration could not obscure the central finding: the rules are considerably stronger than the evidences showing that they were consistently followed by Audrey Azoulay and her senior team.  The audit's real message is therefore one of governance of UNESCO rather than isolated administrative errors. For an organization whose stated principles include merit, fairness and transparency, the ability to prove how a personnel decision was reached is not merely an administrative nicety. It is part of the accountability itself.  During Azoulay’s tenure, Inner City Press has extensively reported on the lack of accountability, corruption, and abuse of power. We therefore find it difficult to accept that it is only now that representatives of member states have decided to speak out and demand explanations. The Indian ambassador, like several others, who spoke immediately after the external auditor’s presentation, posed a direct question to the Assistant Director-General for Administration, Jennifer Linkins, asking her whether she was aware of the lacuna and gaps that led to the improper use of public funds. So what? This wake-up call comes far too late. All the evidence has been provided in our articles, but the member states have chosen to turn a blind eye. It was essential to ask these questions while Audrey Azoulay was still in office, not now that the Egyptian Director-General can do nothing more than damage control.  There are, however, two decisions he can make to draw a line under Azoulay’s legacy . Mr. El-Enany must not overlook the audit’s findings and finally dismiss Jennifer Linkins, who was directly responsible for orchestrating all violations of rules and regulations, as well as Margaux Bergeron-Dars, who relayed and implemented all decisions made by Audrey Azoulay to ensure that the “Drama Queen’s” wishes were duly fulfilled. 

If Mr. El-Enany fails to get rid of both of them prior or after the audit is presented at the next session of the Executive Board, this could be seen as tacit approval of their unlawful behavior and mistakes, and all the negative opinions regarding these two senior officials would likely reflect poorly on Mr. El-Enany himself. Instead of inheriting Azoulay’s liabilities, by getting rid of them, he will put an end to Azoulay’s legacy and focus on his own issues. According to our sources, serious reservations and criticisms are already being raised against two of the senior officials he has appointed : Ms. Åsa Charlotte Regnér, his Deputy Director-General, and Mariya Gabriel, the Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information. We will return to this topic.  The next meeting of the Executive Board (the 225th session, to be held from October 5 to 20) will provide a better understanding of Member States’ intentions in regard to the audit. This is where UNESCO stands today. We will have more on that. Watch this site.

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This is where UNESCO stands today. We will have more on that. Watch this site.

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