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UN Performance Problems UN Management Accountability Struggles Where is the Rule of Law? Inadequate UN Oversight Recent Developments
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On See "Strengthening emergency
relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and prevention in the aftermath of
the This subsection is one of
only two topics under Other Major Problems with a title
that ends with a question mark, because it is presently only an emerging
UN major operation (the other, Manager/investigators? , concerns
a submerged programme.)
Like the UN-administered oil-for-food programme in
The tsunami disaster came
at a very difficult, but propitious, time for the UN, as nicely summarized
by a January 2005 article. "The [December 2004 tsunami
disaster] is proving to have many unintended political consequences, not
least its impact on the United Nations. Isolated diplomatically over
Last month, Kofi Annan, the
beleaguered secretary general, hosted a secret meeting of his supporters
with the aim 'to save Kofi and rescue the UN.'
[After] the end of the Cold War
the UN
idea of being a world policeman
fell apart once again.
That should have left the
autonomous UN agencies -- tasked with everything from feeding refugees to
protecting world heritage sites -- to get on with their unglamorous but
invaluable role.
The best solution [to the UN's
current problems] is a new secretary general
perhaps a former prime
minister or president
It might also be more efficient, in the light of the tsunami
experience, to hive off the UN's overlapping civil emergency organizations
[and merge them] into a single international rescue agency
" George Kerevan, "Has impotent UN
finally outlived its usefulness?", The Scotsman, UN officials and
supporters quickly seized on this opportunity, as indicated by the
following quotes. "Talk about a busy week. As head of the United Nations
Development Program, 51-year-old Mark Malloch Brown has spent the past few
days hopping from one disaster-struck region in [Question:] Is this a chance for
the United Nations to show that it is truly a viable organization
? [Answer:] This is one of the things that
even the United Nations' critics usually acknowledge it's good at --
humanitarian intervention. We
had disaster teams on the ground within a day. We have very strong country
offices in all the [affected] countries
already at work. We have a network of disaster
partners from around the world who were quickly mobilized by this. We do this well. We couldn't do it without
the logistics backbone of the "These were poor people: The Last
Word: Mark Malloch Brown", Newsweek International, "
Former 'No
one has questioned the commitment or the integrity or the impact of the
United Nations humanitarian efforts', he said in response to a question on
the Oil-for-Food allegations.
'That has not even been a matter in dispute.' The
White House website, he pointed out, has UNICEF and the overall UN relief
effort on its list of charities that are reliable. 'So there is absolutely no dispute
about that as far as I know
across the political spectrum in
"UN undertaking
management review in response to early findings in Oil-for-Food probe",
UN News Service, [Note: This sweeping
public statement is of course contradicted by all the material cited in
this subsection, in the title of the UN's own article above which
contained Mr. Clinton's assertions, and especially in the subsection of
this archive on the In addition, Mr. Annan
then appointed Mr. Clinton in early February to be his special envoy for
tsunami aid and perhaps some peacekeeping work in the tsunami area. This action revived past talk of
Mr. Clinton as the next UN Secretary-General, although most feel this is
very, very unlikely to occur since he comes from a [the?] major (with a
veto) UN member state. See Mark Turner, "Annan appoints
"Two very different scenes have
been unfolding dramatically on separate floors at the United Nations
headquarters in Elsewhere in the building, the
team co-ordinating the international response to the Indian Ocean tsunami
catastrophe is establishing a web-based financial tracking system that
will enable anyone, including the public, to trace where relief dollars
are coming from and how they are being spent. It is also setting up a squad to
investigate credible allegations of fraud and waste. PricewaterhouseCoopers is helping
to build the system, which will be overseen by an external advisory board.
I witnessed [this contrast]
throughout my own tenure at the UN.
Whereas traditionalists treat
opaqueness as a strategic asset, for modernists transparency is the key to
institutional success.
[Kofi] Annan is by instinct a
modernist
As [he] goes about rebuilding his senior management team, he
would be well advised to add to each job description: only modernists need
apply." John Ruggie, "Modernists must take
over the United Nations, Financial Times
( [Note: Mr. Ruggie served under Mr.
Annan as a UN assistant secretary-general from 1997-2001. His optimism for
the UN tsunami coordination team seems excessive on several counts. PricewaterhouseCoopers are the experts in financial tracking
systems and oversight (see the quote of In fact, IO Watch has
found that the UN has developed a consistently poor record over the years
in attempting to provide effective humanitarian relief coordination, a
pattern which may well still continue at present. The most incisive book
ever written about UN operations, by Rosemary Righter in 1995, summarized
these efforts very well. She began by citing a book by
" Rosemary Righter,
Utopia lost: The United Nations and world order, Twentieth Century
Fund, [Note: The book referred to is
Randolph C. Kent, Anatomy of disaster relief: The international network
in action, Frances Pinter, In fact, Ms. Righter
observed, in most humanitarian crises people give most of their money not
to the UN but to the Red Cross, to charities, or to their own governments.
In 1971, however, the General Assembly established the most long-lived
(and most feckless) coordination unit, the Office of the UN Disaster
Relief Coordinator (UNDRO).
It was intended to "mobilize, direct and coordinate relief" in
response to requests from a "stricken" country. But Ms. Righter found
that, "In practice, UNDRO rarely managed to act even as traffic policeman,
let alone the focus for action."
She cited a severe report by the UN Joint Inspection Unit in 1980
(after nine years of UNDRO existence) which found
that: "[UNDRO]
had no authority as a
coordinator, had developed no strategy for disaster relief operations, was
almost useless as an information center, and had done little or nothing
'to reduce waste and inefficiency in relief administration.' The inspectors' final report,
acknowledging the view of many officials that UNDRO should be abolished,
recommended halving its staff, [and] restricting its brief to 'sudden
natural disasters
'" Rosemary Righter,
Utopia lost: The United Nations and world order, Twentieth Century
Fund, The JIU report was
"Evaluation of the Office of the United Nations Disaster Relief
Coordinator", JIU/REP/80/11, The General Assembly
persistently ignored this performance failure. In 1982, it reaffirmed UNDRO as
the "focal point" for UN coordination and agreed euphemistically to
"strengthen" it. After the UN
failed to alert the world to the Ethiopian famine in 1984, Ms. Righter
cited a small new unit that was set up as the Office for Emergency
Operations in Africa (OEOA).
It established a strong team and computerized disaster resource
allocations, and gained the enthusiastic support of the major donors and
voluntary organizations. But after less than two years it was disbanded,
having displeased other UN organizations. The General Assembly once again
solemnly reaffirmed the importance of strengthening UNDRO. Ms. Righter noted that in
1989 the General Assembly did draw up an "International Framework for the
International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction" (Assembly resolution
44/236) and called for "strengthening further" the UN capacity to organize
humanitarian assistance. In 1991, however, the Kurdish refugee crisis in
northern "It is time some lessons were
learned. If the UN cannot
provide the framework that the voluntary agencies and the governments that
provide relief agree is needed, alternatives should be considered. [The
1971 report establishing UNDRO]
stated bluntly that 'the principal
organs equipped for international emergency relief are and will continue
to be the League of Red Cross Societies, other voluntary organizations and
church groups, and Governments
the United Nations System is not geared
for action of this kind, nor is it realistic to suppose that, given its
structure, it could become so.'
Where the UN could help was in
promoting national disaster
prevention and control measures
assembling computerized data on
conditions in disaster-prone countries
and on possible sources of
assistance
and negotiating with recipients as well as countries through
which supplies would have to pass." Rosemary Righter,
Utopia lost: The United Nations and world order, Twentieth Century
Fund, Ms. Righter concluded
that this modest role was more appropriate. In peaceful countries disaster aid
was usually government-to-government, and in obstructive disaster
situations the UN is often hampered by protocol (80 percent of aid to
war-torn Rosemary Righter, Utopia lost:
The United Nations and world order, Twentieth Century Fund,
In their concurrent and
excellent report in 1994 on renewing the UN system, Erskine Childers and
Brian Urquhart concluded that in the area of humanitarian emergency
machinery: "
governments have for many
years been trying to improve the operations of a number of separately
established bodies that provide humanitarian emergency assistance. A major resolution in the right
general direction was adopted by the General Assembly in 1991, but has
manifestly been insufficient to overcome the separatism, competitiveness,
and lack of coordination which governments have built up in this area
It
is time to end the tinkering.
After many unsuccessful rounds
of reform Member-States should recognize that the continued scattering of
humanitarian emergency response capacities among separate funds does not
and cannot enable the coordination that they have agreed is needed.
"
Erskine Childers,
with Brian Urquhart, "Renewing the United Nations System", Development
Dialogue, 1994:1, Dag Hammarskjφld Foundation,
It is not clear whether
the past decade has changed this rather discouraging picture in any
substantive way, but the challenge of the enormous relief, rehabilitation
and reconstruction efforts required in the In 1998 the Department
was transformed into the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs and reduced somewhat in size. Conveniently for the current tsunami
challenge, it issued a report in November 2004 as requested by the General
Assembly, on its evolution, current functions, ambitions, and desire for
more "secure funding" to enhance its coordination work. The Assembly too
has increased its pronouncements on humanitarian disaster work and
strategy, as shown by no less than four resolutions in late 2004 and early
2005. The Secretariat report
is: "Defining the administrative
functions of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:
Report of the Secretary-General", UN document A/59/562 of The recent General
Assembly resolutions are: "International cooperation on
humanitarian assistance in the field of natural disasters, from relief to
development", 59/212 of "International strategy for
disaster reduction", 59/231 of "Natural disasters and
vulnerability", 59/233 of "Strengthening emergency relief,
rehabilitation, reconstruction and prevention in the aftermath of the
Just as there is a "fog
of war", there is also a "fog of disaster relief" (and of disaster funding
and use). To identify some of the key entrenched elements before moving on
to actual tsunami relief efforts in 2005, IO Watch wishes to provide a
dozen or so quotes which illustrate the Secretariat's past experiences and
struggles in this field. "In
international humanitarian efforts, United Nations relief
undertakings -- greatly expanded in the
nineteen-seventies, as the victims of prolonged conflicts and natural
disasters multiplied --- were gratuitously obstructed by
the U.N. pattern of subservience to governmental pressures, of
administrative havoc, and of feuds nurtured within U.N. agencies
themselves. While the public
was encouraged to regard
[a UN relief mission] as a concerted endeavor by
the organization, devoted workers in the field were repeatedly frustrated
in essential tasks by the confusion and politicization of a top-heavy
headquarters bureaucracy.
Nothing in the United Nations' attitudes and structure had prepared
the system to respond with coordinated intelligence to an unprecedented
volume of calamities -- which
were associated, in Shirley
Hazzard, "Breaking Faith: II", The New Yorker, Note: Ms. Hazzard worked
at the UN for ten years, resigning in 1962 to become a very successful
full-time writer.]
"
[The UN programs which eat] up the great bulk of U.N. resources
the
economic, social and humanitarian programs aimed at development, emergency
relief and 'better standards of life' around the world
[get little
scrutiny.]
Clearly,
the United Nations employs many hard-working and idealistic people. [But]
parts of the system are
overstaffed and lethargic, while others, particularly field offices in
unpleasant places, are overstaffed and overworked.
Local
employees tend to bear the brunt of disciplinary action
when fraud or
abuse are discovered
while erring international professional staffers
often survive and even advance in the organization. At the same time, U.N. employees
who complain about irregularities [lose promotions or must transfer
elsewhere.] It
is a system that tends to cover up its abuses and discourage
whistle-blowers.
A
European U.N. official, who recently left his agency in frustration,
[said] 'A certain enabling environment
allows {fraud} to happen. The question is not whether you do
it or not, but whether you're stupid enough to be
caught." "Basically,
there's a lack of determination to combat the sleaze factor' he said. 'In an environment where
mediocrity has a strong self-protective interest, these things
flourish.'" William Branigin, "The
U.N. empire: polished image, tarnished reality", "As U.N. expands, so do
its problems: Critics cite mismanagement, waste", Washington Post,
"[Concerning
allegations of corruption at UNHCR in articles in the Washington Post in
September 1992] with respect to discipline in UNHCR, a courageous staff
member in In
the more complicated Lukika case in
Arthur E. Dewey, "No
laxity", UN Special ( [emphasis added] [Note: Mr. Dewey was
deputy high commissioner of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees from 1986-1990.]
"The
United Nations is losing an estimated £270 m. each year because of
corruption, waste and mismanagement, an investigation by the Sunday
Times Insight team has discovered. The
new evidence of widespread financial abuse
comes [from]
'Operation Irma", the
trouble-ridden evacuation of wounded refugees from
The
disclosures will fuel growing international criticism of the U.N. and its
controversial refugee agency [the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees], accused of incompetence and red tape.
An
estimated £1 m. has been
raised in one week in public donations, but aid agencies are bitter and
angry that hundreds of times that amount of cash has been squandered by
the U.N. so far this year. Jeffrey
Clark, deputy director of the Refugee Policy Group, an international
agency helping refugees in Bosnia, said: 'At the very moment when the U.N.
needs to persuade people and governments to spend more on expanded
operations its credibility is undermined by waste, mismanagement,
ineptitude, and pure stupidity.'" Nick Rufford, Ian
Burrell and David Leppard, "Scandal of U.N. 'lost' millions", The
Sunday Times, [The above are only a
few of the comments on UNHCR among those excerpted in the UN
Special (Geneva),
October, 1993, pp. 20, 22, 27.]
"On
the very day the Sunday Times published [the above] report, I received the
news of the killing of one more UNHCR colleague, Boris Zeravcic, in
The
Staff Council in UNHCR agrees with the thrust of the criticisms. The staff wants to weed out
corruption, mismanagement, nepotism, double-dippers, desk-warmers, and all
other irregularities
Staff
representatives have been tirelessly pointing out unsavory management
tendencies and reported to the governing body of UNHCR
on how to
strengthen the organization and to ensure the effective use of its human
resources. The question is:
what do these government representatives do with these reports when they
return to their capitals
UNHCR
staff on the gound work with dedication and have twice won the Nobel
Peace Prize, but they are demoralized when subjected to unjustified
criticism. UNHCR staff needs
the help of the media to further strengthen its humanitarian commitment to
work for refugees." Nasr Ishak, "HCR staff
replies", UN Special ( [Note: a
reply letter to the Sunday
Times, by the Chairman of the Staff Council, UNHCR].
"
the bulk [of financial abuses] usually occurs
in emergency operations
where cash or supplies are being moved
[urgently], or where contracts
must be issued under great pressure.
Given the appalling under-staffing of peacekeeping operations and
the disorganized state of humanitarian emergency assistance the surprise
if any is that there is not more fraud and waste in these operations.
A
further ironic consequence of zero-growth demands has been the severe
under-staffing of the Internal Audit Division [IAD.]
neither Secretaries-General nor
member states have paid enough attention
[thus there have been only some
30 fully qualified auditors and 6 [professional evaluation staff] to cover
the entire [UN} work programme in thousands of expenditure lines, carried
out at New York, Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi, five Regional Commissions,
over a hundred country offices, huge world conferences and in addition
over a dozen complex peacekeeping operations.
" Erskine Childers, with Brian Urquhart, "Renewing the United Nations system", Development Dialogue, 1994:1, Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden, 1994, p. 146.
"As
the leaders of every nation on earth mark the 50th anniversary of the
United Nations this week,
. they must do more than fill the General
Assembly hall with platitudes
.
Without significant changes in organization and behavior, the UN
will lose its remaining effectiveness and public support.
. On
financial management, there has been significant progress in the last two
years. The main problem now
is the continued insistence of member countries on imposing expensive and
unsuitable patronage appointees on the Secretariat and UN agencies. No political body is free of
patronage, but profligate waste at headquarters while the UN and its
agencies run out of funds to meet emergency human needs in the field is
intolerable." "A hard look", The
Washington Post, in the International Herald Tribune,
"
.
The
United Nations refugee relief agency is weakly managed and needs more
oversight -- in part because member nations use
it as a patronage pit -- and its dependence on host
countries to provide services is another breeding ground for
corruption. But the agency is
dealing with a dangerous and difficult mission: 24 members of its staff,
and 23 workers for the World Food Program, have been killed since
1992. The reluctance of
donors has also crippled the agency, which finds it easier to raise money
for emergency appeals than to alleviate the chronic miseries of most
African refugees." "Refugee crisis in
"A
former [senior official of the UN Commission for Human Rights, Alan
Parra], told The Observer
that the UN has 'an absurd and unaccountable system of abuse, embezzlement
and ineptitude.' [He
said] 'It's very difficult to dig out and punish abuse in an organization
where it is the norm. Of each
dollar spent by the United Nations only an infinitesimal amount gets
anywhere near the project on the ground' .
Last
week Parra described a series of cases that included: assistants to a
senior official based in another country not realizing for more than a
year that their superior had died; an official report on the human rights
situation in Czechoslovakia, written by an overworked official by 'cutting
and pasting' a report from Columbia. 'It
told us all about guerillas and narco-traffickers. The words
' He
also criticized 'an addiction to perks and luxury.' When one UN official in
Jason
Burke, et. al., "UN rocked by flood of fraud cases: Officials were
'addicted to luxury," The Observer International
( Note:
any such interviews with OIOS staff and dynamic results with criminal
cases (see following item) seem to have come to an abrupt end since the
2000 report, as OIOS information on its investigation work became very
low-key and vague.]
"There
are several United Nations.
There is the international body of nations which does so many tasks
-- from vaccinating children to distributing food -- with considerable success.
Another
United Nations, perhaps the most intractable, was made up of the vast and
largely autonomous baronies constituted by the various agencies which
carry out the UN's development and relief work.
Undoubtedly they contained time
servers, like the central secretariat itself
because of the quotas
insisted upon by governments.
Moreover, the agencies guarded their sovereignty as fiercely as any
member state and fought any attempts to diminish their autonomy through
coordination. Directors would
not hesitate to call upon their own national governments to fight any
attempt by the secretary-general to dismiss incompetent senior staff or to
rationalize their cost.
" William
Shawcross, Deliver us from evil: Peacekeepers, warlords, and a world of
endless conflict,
"Non-governmental
organizations will become more numerous, prominent and powerful in 2001
than ever before. Now 30,000
international ones exist; 50
years ago, there were just a handful.
. In
poor countries they will multiply especially fast. An NGO is an efficient tool with
which to harvest donor money.
Rich governments have lost their appetite for handing over checks
to poor, corrupt, and dictatorial regimes. So they hand them to NGOs
instead. And not only money
passes hands. In 2001 large
numbers of expatriate (usually white) workers will be dispensing the aid
and giving assistance.
. aid groups will get more money
for their work: between 1994 and 1997 the European Union's aid spending
via NGOs rose from 47% to 67% of the relief budget. Far
harder to measure is their power. On some issues
they will set the terms
for public debate. One
sign of clout is how much annoyance they will cause.
. Globally
the bigger ones are already more influential than some smaller
governments. They have large
budgets and highly skilled staff. They
will also get a greater say in the UN
." Adam Roberts,
"International: NGOs: New gods overseas", The world in 2001, The
Economist, 2000, pp. 73-74.
"The
present United Nations programming and budgeting system is complex and
labour-intensive. It involves
three separate committees, voluminous documentation and hundreds of
meetings. Changes proposed
include a medium-term plan covering only two years (rather than four)
The
budget document itself would be less detailed and more strategic, and
would give the Secretary-General some flexibility to move resources
according to needs. Also
intergovernmental review should henceforth be conducted exclusively in the
Fifth Committee of the General Assembly [rather than shared with the CPC]
[and] measures will be taken to streamline peacekeeping budgets,
and to improve the management of the large number of trust funds through
which Member States provide voluntary contributions to supplement the
regular budget." "Strengthening of the
United Nations: An agenda for further change: Report of the
Secretary-General," UN document A/57/387 of "The
Secretariat's administrative environment is not fully leveraging the
advantages of technology, nor is it applying modern process management
practices adopted by other organizations. Many of the administrative
processes are still manual, cumbersome, timea-consuming, inefficient and
costly to administer. In some
cases, layers of control slow down the process without providing any real
value." "Review of duplication,
complexity, and bureaucracy in United Nations administrative processes and
procedures," UN document A/58/211 of "In
the world of international relief agencies, it's known as 'the fog of
disaster.' Brought on
by
calamities,
getting the necessary donations to buy the right
supplies and get them to rescuers on the scene can be a bureaucratic
nightmare. But [the Red Cross
(IFRC)] has instituted a new
web-based technology designed to cut through the confusion and paperwork
of a crisis. [It]
. Can track donations of money and supplies in real time
[and] allows
aid groups to make an instant and accurate accounting for every dollar a
donor gives. The
software couldn't come at a better time. According to the World Disaster
Report, 226 million people were hit by disasters in 2002. A study by the IFRC shows that the
software [can]
speed up the relief process by 20 to 30
percent." "Technology: Online
relief," Newsweek International,
"
The only way to raise money, the
UN reckons, is to lump
[the countries concerned] together
The
UN complains that donors ,,, tend to have
[their favorites]. True enough.
The UN's own list shows a hint of bias, too: it asks for $305m for the
Palestinians, but only $187m for
Since
the UN never gets all the money it wants for disaster relief, some of its
officials hint that donations should be compulsory. In a press release this week, for
example, it mused that 'many
humanitarians would like to see aid evolve from a free-floating act of
kindness to an arrangement based on law.' It is not obvious that
this is a good idea.
[Money should go] where donors
want it to, not where unselected bureaucrats choose." "A United Nations
appeal: Forgotten disasters", The Economist, "Five
years ago
the Roll Back Malaria initiative (RBM) [was founded to] combat
resurgent malaria in many [countries]
Almost every major aid agency
promised new funds. [Financing rose]
from $64 million in 1998 to a
promised $750 million by the end of 2000. However,
in 2002
international funding had reached only $130
million.
[A
recent journal article grapples]
with the disconnect between cost
estimates, ambitious donation pronouncements, and the actual sums spent on
malaria-related programs. [Its] conclusions are simple and
depressing: Pledged donations
are far lower than what most experts believe is needed; many pledges are
not dispersed in full; and current program-management and accounting
systems are so poor that no one can learn precisely what is being spent by
whom, where, and on what.
[The
authors conclude that] many donors remain unrepentant about their lax
financial reporting habits.
Sadly,
these findings are not surprising.
In many domains
collaboration
often peaks at the pledging
stage.
Malaria
is more closely linked to global poverty than any other disease.
The
failure to track well-publicized RBM pledges is particularly
reprehensible. Malaria and
poverty will persist as donor commitments recede." Phyllis Freeman and
Anthony Robbins, "Disease deadbeats", Foreign Policy,
September/October 2003, pp. 79-80. The article itself
is Vasant Narasimhan and
Amir Attaran, "Roll back malaria? The scarcity of international aid for
malaria", Malaria Journal 2003, 2:8, published
"In
2002, the
[OIOS] found that program managers and department and office
heads were not complying with U.N. regulations.
nearly half of program
managers were not regularly monitoring and evaluating program
performance. In addition,
program managers were not held accountable for meeting program objectives
because U.N. regulations prevent linking program effectiveness and impact
with program managers' performance. U.N. officials told us that a more
mature program monitoring and evaluation system is needed before program
managers can be held responsible for program
performance. We
found that there were a variety of problems
Most programs do not have
comprehensive monitoring and evaluation plans
managers
did not
directly review
[evaluation results] in [more than half of the]
programmes surveyed in 2001
overall, evaluation findings were not used
The
Secretary-General tasked the
OIOS to develop a strategy to
systematically evaluate and monitor programme results and to introduce
information systems needed
and expects to have a complete system by
2006." "The
halo that appears to float over non-profit institutions -
providing them with an aura of altruism - distracts attention from the
basic fact that non-profits are, first and foremost, economic institutions
[An
expert observes that to improve non-profits' management one must] view
them as economic institutions with
charitable missions
Managers
of non-profit institutions understand that the organizations' survival
depends on the managers' ability to secure a generous constituency.
The
perception that non-profit organizations are small, fragile and
non-threatening enterprises
conceals their actual size, power, and
competitive determination.
[Their mythology and self-portrayal as solely altruistic]
misinform the public and allow them
to ensure a continued flow of
salary and benefits for their managers and the preservation of the
managers' power and status.
[People need]
to realize that
the rule of caveat emptor applies
even more importantly to transactions with non-profits than with
marketplace transactions.
Typically, [in the]
marketplace, one receives something in return
[but, with non-profits]
individuals conduct transactions
based
entirely on faith. Such
transactions are lamentable when one party is talking altruism but seeking
self-interest. Who will
protect generous - and gullible - donors?" Barry D. Friedman, "How
non-profit organizations fight off competition: Who will protect
non-profit donors?", PA Times
( [Note: IO Watch believes
that the UN should also most definitely be recognized by everyone as an
economic (fund-raising, self-preserving) organization in this sense. Its leadership -- both in the
Secretariat and among
The
UN's efforts to play a leading role in tsunami disaster relief and
subsequent stages, despite its own field operations problems and
entrenched bureaucratic culture, are presented in the following quotes
from late December 2004 onward. The resulting narrative is indeed a
tangled one, but it provides many useful insights and reflections on "this
time, let's get it right."
Eventually, this record will provide important benchmarks to
determine if and how well the UN performed its crucial coordination
role. "We
are constantly reminded that we live in the era of globalisation. Never
have people, information and money traveled so far and so fast. The [ The
numbers of foreign holidaymakers caught in the tsunami
ensured the rest
of the world paid attention to a disaster that, according to the United
Nations, was unique in encompassing such a large area and so many
countries. The brunt has been
born by tens of thousands of nameless poor fishermen, their families and
children. Whole communities
have been wiped out. Time
is now of the essence for the UN, governments, aid agencies and
individuals to prevent the catastrophe worsening as the death toll rises,
the sea disgorges the dead, and fears grow that polluted drinking water
and putrefying bodies will lead to disease. The UN says that hundreds of
relief aircraft carrying emergency goods from about two dozen countries
will arrive in the next 48 hours.
Rescue teams, however, have only begun to reach remote
areas." "Asian disaster is a
test for the world: Governments must respond rapidly and generously",
Financial Times
( "Officials
in charge of the existing international tsunami warning system,
which covers only the Pacific Ocean, have taken an initial step to
broaden the network to the
Indian Ocean and other possible trouble spots, agreeing to distribute
their bulletins on earthquakes and possible waves 'to anyone who wants to
receive the messages.' Until
now the messages had gone only to about 300 agencies and individual
scientists tracking conditions mainly in the Pacific, which historically
experienced 90 percent of the world's underwater earthquakes and tsunamis.
The International
Coordination Group for the Tsunami Warning System in
the Pacific
[has] 26 member nations [including]
Some
tsunami experts had been pressing The
monitoring group created a team last year to assess
Andrew C. Revkin, "Alert
network expands", International Herald Tribune, "[The
The world has already seen a sharp
increase in such 'natural' disasters -- from about 100 per year in the
early 1960s to as many as 500 per year by the early 2000's.
[But] what has changed is where people live
and how they live there, say many experts
As
new technology allows, or as poverty demands, rich and poor alike have
pushed into soggy flood plains or drought-ridden deserts, built on
impossibly steep slopes, and created vast, fragile cities along fault
lines. In
that sense, catastrophes are as much the result of human choices as they
are of geology or hydrology.
Tear-fund, a Christian relief agency based in
[ Andrew C. Revkin,
"Disasters ahead may be worse: Preventive measures are often not taken",
International Herald Tribune, "With
aid now piling up in warehouses and on tarmacs around the
All
too often, a surplus of good intentions leads to
'the anarchy of
altruism' that produces waste, duplication, and
frustration. Allison
des Forges of
Human Rights Watch
said: 'The problem is mostly how to
scramble and deliver aid in a very short time when you have lots of
independent agencies, each of which has its own agenda as well as the
larger common agenda involved.'
Relief
officials are closely watching the [the Bush administration's attempt to
develop a]
coalition of donor governments
to coordinate help
[An
Oxfam adviser said]
'We are happy to see [efforts at]
long-term donor
and logistical support for this operation
But it's critical that this]
[be] integrated into what the
United Nations is doing and not operating as a special, separate
coordinating effort.'
Des
Forges said,
'I think its fair to say that [the UN's] OCHA has grown in
its sophistication and knowledge of how to manage complex
emergencies." Stephanie Strom, "Relief
officials work to coordinate an overwhelming response", International Herald
Tribune, "The
greatest outpouring of disaster relief on record has been promised for the
victims of the worst natural disaster of our time, a stupendous display of
good will and empathy
The
foremost challenge now is to ensure that the money pledged in the glow of
the media spotlight gets to the people who need it. That is the job of the United
Nations, which has a chance to redeem itself after the oil-for-food
scandal. It must make sure
that the money is not diverted into the hands of corrupt government
officials or used as a political weapon by armies waging
counter-insurgency campaigns in some of the most stricken areas.
Complaints have already arisen about [Indonesian] soldiers siphoning off
supplies for their relatives and friends. But Indonesian government
officials bear some blame
[Further,]
the aid to the tsunami victims must not come out of the same pot used for
development aid. It's clear
that in the yearly lottery of disaster aid, the tsunami survivors will get
the most. But that doesn't
mean that the eight million people who die every year from preventable
diseases like malaria should end up like losers -- again."
"Delivering needed aid,
today and tomorrow, International Herald Tribune, "The
basic dilemma for aid agencies after the tsunami is how to help without
undermining local governments and charities
Lack
of co-ordination is the most immediate challenge. The only institution that has the
capacity and political status to organize such an international effort is
the United Nations.
It
will be an uphill struggle.
OCHA
is desperately short of money and trained personnel. It is currently undergoing a
review, ordered by Jan Egeland, its Norwegian head, to identify what is
wrong with its speed and effectiveness, particularly in the light of the
world's disorganized response to the Yet
perhaps the greatest dilemma for aid agencies is how to help
without
undermining the local government and indigenous charities that will always
be the first line of defence.
If
the local institutions are not encouraged and reinforced, there will be no
one to take over when the aid workers leave. All
of the Asian countries hit by the tsunamis have well-established
institutions.
They do not
want to be invaded by an army of aid workers. They just need help to help
themselves." Quentin Peel, "Help
should have a light touch", Financial Times
( "Secretary-General
Kofi Annan
made an urgent plea to world leaders gathered [in
A total of more than $3 billion has
been pledged by countries around the world
Annan
called the tsunami 'an unprecedented global catastrophe,' the largest natural disaster the United
Nations has faced in the 60 years of its existence.
The
very scale of the money pledged
has raised questions about how it will be
managed and spent. We
don't need a donors' conference -- we need a logistics conference,' a
European ambassador said. 'Everyone
agrees with that,' a senior American official said. He added that
Corruption
has been endemic in The
hope is that 95 cents of each donated dollar gets out to the people, [the
American official said.] An
Asian diplomat with long experience in
Scott Shane and Raymond
Bonner, "Annan tells donors to make good on pledges", International
Herald Tribune, "
Humanitarian agencies are learning lessons from business in bringing
essential supplies to regions hit by the tsunami
Hitting
the spot: delivering the right aid to where it is needed makes managing a
commercial supply chain look easy
'The
old idea that disaster preparedness meant filling up your warehouse is
disappearing.' HOW
TO COMBAT THE DIFFICULTIES OF DISTRIBUTING AID: ·
Demand
for supplies is unstable, from unknown locations at unpredictable times
[use flexibility]
outsourcing arrangements
[and] local
suppliers. ·
Unsolicited
donations clog up [everything]
encourage donors to give money, not
goods. [Information technology] systems help to manage donated goods,
allowing relief workers to prioritise distribution
·
Supplies
arrive [with]
non-standard labeling
Use .. colour-coding systems
[and, if possible] uniform labeling of supplies. ·
Lack
of coordination
leads to duplication and confusion at the 'last mile'
Initiatives have emerged, such as [information management and pooling
expensive assets by the UN] Joint Logistics Centre
·
Logistics software provides an electronic trail
[to] capitalize on past
experience
However
more
agencies [need] to treat logistics as a strategic function at the heart of
their operations." Sarah Murray, "Supply
chain logistics" How to deliver on the promises", Financial Times
( "Kofi
Annan lands in
Banda Aceh today amid growing [aid agency criticism]
over what they say is the UN's inability to coordinate
dozens of aid
groups in and around Banda Aceh more than a week and a half after the
tsunami hit the region. "If
we wait for the UN
we wouldn't do anything' [said a Malaysian
official.] '
There are
people who are hungry and angry.
So we just do it.'
Much of [the largest relief operation in history] has been focused on Aceh
province, where at least 85,000 people have died and hundreds of thousands
made homeless.
[Many]
representatives of aid groups
drew attention to the fact that the UN has
no staff at Banda Aceh airport, which is the focal point for the relief
response. Michael
Elmquist, head of the [UN OCHA in
[He
attributed them to] the sheer destruction and number of people killed
;
lack of telecommunications in the early days; a lack of truck drivers and
fuel; the obliteration of the local government; and Aceh's troubled
history [because of its long-running separatist Islamic
insurgency.]" David Ibison and Jake
Lloyd Smith in Banda Aceh, "UN 'failing to co-ordinate relief efforts'",
The Financial Times ( "The
world's response to the horrors wrought by the A
sort of contest has broken out among governments, as they pledge ever more
aid
To
some extent, the unusually generous response
may reflect a widespread,
and largely justified, belief in rich countries that their money is more
likely to be spent well on relieving natural disasters than on man-made
humanitarian crises
or, for that matter, on general development aid to
the world's poorest countries.
Yet
although the relief effort seems to be going reasonably well
some
legitimate concerns have been raised about whether the global system for
responding to humanitarian aid is as efficient as it could be. In particular, the somewhat
ponderous initial response has reinforced the case for an emergency
rapid-response capability, consisting of soldiers, equipment, medical
staff and others in a number of countries all over the world, doing their
normal jobs but earmarked for dispatch when a disaster occurs. Moreover, the UN's difficulty last
week in offering speedy co-ordination showed that that issue too needs
attention." "Helping the survivors:
Relief is getting through, mostly.
Longer-term reconstruction will be more difficult", The
Economist, "
Aid given after a natural disaster is pure, an affirmation of the best of
the human spirit, uncontaminated by politics. That's what used to be said
[but
it deserves] reexamination after
The first politicization
was governments using [tsunami aid] to win
votes at home.
Then
came the use of aid to score old points.
[Then]
the aid issue was being used to peddle some pet schemes.
Meanwhile
umpteen aid agencies have joined the cause.
But
who was in charge? No
one. At the summit in
If good is to come of the disaster
it will come of wider lessons learned.
The UN
has more experience
but it is a sprawling group of agencies with no resources worth speaking
of other than those of its member countries. Somehow power and experience must
be married and, with the help of the
[ "More generous than
thou: Emergency aid is proving just as politically charged as any other
kind", The Economist, " As
the death toll from the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami reached 160,000,
the largest United Nations relief effort ever mounted for a natural
disaster moved into overdrive today
as the crisis entered its third
week.
Earlier
today the UN opened a Joint Disaster Management Centre (DMC) set up with
the Indonesian Government in Jakarta, the capital, calling it 'crucial for
earmarking available resources' and for ensuring that the Government and
the UN 'are working with the same baseline data on the affected people --
who they are and what their needs are.' Meanwhile,
Secretary-General Kofi Annan continued his tour of the region [and appeals
for funds]
'I
think the first test will come on the 11th (tomorrow) in
[A
senior OCHA official]
said the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers
had offered its services to the UN free of charge to help improve tracking
the aid and assist in any credible allegations of fraud, waste or abuse
that might arise." "As tsunami relief
effort moves into third week, UN operation gathers momentum", UN News
Service, "
All too often when disaster strikes -- in
'Maybe
this tsunami crisis could be used as a vehicle to educate ourselves about
the importance of staying the course,' [said an expert, Eric Schwarz.]
Abby
Stoddard, a research assistant at the Center on International Cooperation
said, 'In general, relief funds
are disbursed quicker than recovery funds, which are needed after the cameras go away
there
is no mechanism for holding governments accountable for living up to their
pledges.' That
pattern was apparent in The
authorities there promised to have the ancient city rebuilt by now.
Iranian
officials reported that they had received only $17 million of the $1
billion pledged by the international community to help rebuild
"
Ginger Thompson and
Nazila Fahti in "The United Nations assured
international donors today that it would do everything possible to ensure
accountability of the huge tsunami relief operation and pledged immediate
investigation of any allegations of mishandling of funds.
The UN is keen to avoid any repetition of the alleged mishandling of funds
... in the oil-for-food programme for
'We
want to be held accountable as agencies working on the
ground,
and we also want donors to be accountable for what they promised and
actually delivered,' [OCHA head Jan] Egeland said. About
$300 [million] of the more than $5 [billion] pledged has been released to
the UN so far.
[He]
compared the international response to the tsunami appeal with the
shortfall in funding for other 'forgotten'
emergencies. A
$1.7 [billion] UN appeal launched in December to help 26m people caught up
in 14 crises around the world, including In
2004, only 60 percent of a similar UN appeal was
funded." Frances Williams, "UN
vows openness on handling of tsunami donations", Financial Times
( [Note: And so, "the die
has been cast." How will all
this look in retrospect in, say, 2007?] "In
December 2004] President George W. Bush
[announced] a 'core group'
comprising the [An Oxfam official said,] 'All our
experience is that where the UN has the leadership in place, and has the
respect and authority
we get a very well co-ordinated and
effective
humanitarian response
[Where
not, it usually ends up as a mess.] This
time, diplomats and aid groups say, the UN responded swiftly and
effectively
and [OCHA head Jan Egeland is]
firmly in charge
. The
UN's backers also argue that it alone has the expertise and legitimacy to
oversee the
[half a dozen UN agencies, all the Red Cross groups,
hundreds of international NGOs and thousands of local ones, and host
governments and donors.] Mr.
Egeland said that
in addition to the UN's internal accounting and
auditing system, he has asked experts from PwC, the accounting and
consultancy firm, to devise a system for the internet that would enable
the broader public to track the flow of money 'from pledge to
project."
Frances Williams, "UN
tsunami response 'proves a point': Supporters argue the organization alone
has expertise to oversee response to disasters", Financial Times
( "As
world governments prepare to channel hundreds of millions of aid dollars
to the tsunami-ravaged regions of Aceh province,
The
A
day-long seminar Wednesday on corruption here, a joint effort by the
[UN, the Indonesian government,
and several NGOs]
was
welcomed
The
corruption here starts at the top.
It is taken for granted that no one
does business in Even
before the tsunami,
He
is not placing
any trust in his government agencies. Rather, he has turned to a non-governmental agency,
Indonesia Corruption Watch, for help, asking it to set up a program for
monitoring the aid to Aceh
. The
problems will not surface immediately in the emergency relief phase, [the Watch organization's head said]
The
opportunities for serious theft will come in the rehabilitation and
reconstruction phase
" Raymond Bonner,
" [Note: Here, unlike the
"A
plan to build a tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean began to
take shape yesterday as the United Nations [said]
it was the only body
that could coordinate such a complex multilateral effort [at a conference
on natural disasters in Kobe, Japan.] UN
experts said they could have a basic system working in the
Unesco's
intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
and the World Meteorological
Organization would lead the technical process
Other
agencies and donor countries would contribute, including training
staff
Although
donors, including A
blueprint had existed for a decade, said a [UN official], but had never
been implemented because of the perceived low risk. [Red
Cross officials]
said the 'There
is still time for a positive outcome, but there is a very real danger that
all we will get is rhetoric', it said.
" David Pilling, "UN takes
the lead in tsunami warning system", Financial Times
( [Note: In the larger
context of corruption-fighting, and the leading role to be given the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) in this process, IO Watch must note that
three weeks later an article revealed a criminal investigation underway of
a bizarre, multi-year, multi-million dollar theft by a financial officer
of WMO training funds. A
harried UN spokesman in
"A
month after the Asian tsunami disaster took the lives of more than 200,000
people
the relief effort [in]
Indonesia's Aceh province remains
'chaotic', according to a new report
[by an inter-agency team led by the
WHO, which] points to co-ordination problems that have hampered the
delivery of medical help and food to survivors.
The
frank assessment, the first serious report
since the December 26
disaster
[says that] food distribution
occurred without any special
effort to target vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly.
.
Sanitation problems remained a big concern, particularly in [crowded]
camps without latrines and other basic facilities. The
delivery of medical aid has also been hampered by poor co-ordination
[and] the absence of a master list for medical supplies resulted in [both
gluts and shortages]
Improved
co-ordination and UN leadership were essential, the report concluded, with
a more robust presence needed from UN agencies in areas with big
concentrations of survivors
[and to] 'better prioritise' the delivery of
aid. The
report comes at a critical time as Shawn Donnan, "Aceh
relief efforts 'chaotic', says UN", Financial Times
(
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