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Archive Introduction


UN Performance Problems

UN Management Accountability Struggles


Where is the Rule of Law?

Inadequate UN Oversight

Recent Developments

 
  

 

 


UN coordination of tsunami aid?    

                                                                                                             

 

     On December 26, 2004, an unprecedented tsunami disaster struck the Indian Ocean region. Victims, families, governments and peoples of those States suffered huge losses of life and socio-economic and environmental damage. Yet the scope, drama, and devastation of this disaster prompted what became an equally unprecedented multi-billion dollar response and outpouring of contributions and aid -- from the "international community", governments, civil society, and the private sector and individuals. These resources had then to be organized by the UN and others to address the relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts needs of the communities severely affected in Indonesia, the Maldives, Myanmar, the Seychelles, Somalia, and Sri Lanka.

See "Strengthening emergency relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and prevention in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster", General Assembly resolution 59/279 of 19 January 2005.                                                                                            

 

 

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 Iraq, the tsunami relief and reconstruction process will involve billions of dollars, and will run its course for several years before one can tell whether the UN has coordinated it successfully or produced another major failure.

 

 

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 Iraq, beset with financial and sexual scandals and manifestly failing to halt genocide in Sudan, the UN must prove its mettle in dealing with the humanitarian crisis in South-east Asia or face a threat to its very existence. …

… 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, 5 January 2005.                                                                                           

 

 

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 Asia to the next.  Meanwhile, he is also preparing for his new role as … Kofi Annan's chief of staff … charged with seeing the United Nations through one of the most trying periods in its 59-year history.  Plagued by allegations of corruption, inefficiency and even irrelevance, the world body will need urgent attention …

[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 United States and others, but there's recognition that it's a more internationally acceptable way to do it."

"These were poor people: The Last Word: Mark Malloch Brown", Newsweek International, January 17, 2005.                                                                

 

 

 

" … Former US President Bill Clinton, in New York today to launch a [new tsunami aid fund with UNICEF], voiced confidence in the world body's ability to lead the relief effort.

'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 America,' he said.'

"UN undertaking management review in response to early findings in Oil-for-Food probe", UN News Service, 10 January 2005.

[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 Iraq oil-for-food programme and indeed the entire subsection on UN, Alone and UNaccountable . 

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 Clinton as envoy for tsunami aid", Financial Times (UK), February 2, 2005. ]   
                                               

 

 

"Two very different scenes have been unfolding dramatically on separate floors at the United Nations headquarters in New York in the past week.  In one suite, officials are digging out from under a mountain of critical internal audits of the $64 billion [€ 49bm] Iraqi oil-for-food programme … [as part of the Volcker] inquiry into charges of mismanagement and corruption. …

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 (UK), January 24, 2005.                                        

[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 January 12, 2005 later in this subsection) rather than just "helping" the UN, which has had little success in both areas. Further, the oil-for-food scandal report of January February 2005 emphasized the inadequate UN audit and investigation staffing for (and commitment and priority given to) to such major oversight efforts, raising valid doubts that the Secretariat can now, suddenly, field a full "squad" to cover all aspects of the tsunami relief programme. In addition, while Mr. Annan may be a modernist by "instinct", in practice he has presided for eight years over a very traditionalist team, programme, and multiplying set of scandals of non-accountability and non-transparency, especially as detailed in this archive's subsection on Late 2004: A "tipping point" for the UN? ]

                                                                         
                                      

 

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 Randolph Kent in 1987:

 

"Randolph Kent's study of international disaster relief is a considered, compassionate, and pessimistic assessment of the whole sorry history of ad hoc expedients and what he politely calls 'institutional insecurities.'  He points out that it took the Nigerian civil war (which claimed, without  UN intervention as peacekeeper, perhaps a million casualties …), the Peruvian earthquake, and the combination of war with natural disaster in Bangladesh -- all of which occurred between 1967 and 1971 -- 'to bring the simmering issues of the United Nations' role in emergency operations to the boil.'  Unproductively on the boil it has remained.  Since 1971, no fewer than ten UN disaster units have been created, each exerting its claim to be treated as contact point, fund-raiser, coordinator, and assessor, each with a mandate in excess of its capacities.  Alongside these are at least a dozen national disaster units, and an increasingly sophisticated, relatively well coordinated and flexibly managed assortment of voluntary organizations."

Rosemary Righter, Utopia lost: The United Nations and world order, Twentieth Century Fund, New York, 1995, p. 290.         [emphasis added.]

[Note: The book referred to is Randolph C. Kent, Anatomy of disaster relief: The international network in action, Frances Pinter, London, 1987.

 

 

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, New York, 1995, pp. 289-291, [291].               

The JIU report was "Evaluation of the Office of the United Nations Disaster Relief Coordinator", JIU/REP/80/11, Geneva, October 1980.                      

 

 

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 Iraq impelled world leaders at the annual "Group of 7" summit to the extraordinary step of pressing the Secretary-General to designate a high-level official to coordinate future international emergency operations. Unfortunately, he had to rely largely on UNDRO resources, and the new effort became a mere fallback facility.  Ms. Righter observed in 1995 that:

 

"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, New York, 1995, pp. 291-293, [293].                                               

 

 

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 Ethiopia and Eritrea came from voluntary organizations.)  All relief agencies using voluntary funds receive considerable pressure from their donors to use it well, and the developed countries, which provide the bulk of relief funds, resources, and expertise, could surely coordinate resources needed and their use, perhaps through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Rosemary Righter, Utopia lost: The United Nations and world order, Twentieth Century Fund, New York, 1995, pp. 293-294.           .                              

 

 

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, Uppsala, Sweden, 1994, p. 203.                                                                                                

                                   

 

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 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster will certainly put the UN coordination processes to the test. In 1992 UNDRO was finally absorbed in a new Department of Humanitarian Affairs, which grew larger with some regular budget, but mostly voluntary, funding.

 

 

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 10 November 2004.

The recent General Assembly resolutions are:

"International cooperation on humanitarian assistance in the field of natural disasters, from relief to development", 59/212 of 20 December 2004,

"International strategy for disaster reduction", 59/231 of 22 December 2004,

"Natural disasters and vulnerability", 59/233 of 22 December 2004, and

"Strengthening emergency relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and prevention in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster", 59/279 of 19 January 2005.

                                                                               

 

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 Asia, with the dispersal of entire peoples and societies.  Nor were correctives rationally applied…"

Shirley Hazzard, "Breaking Faith: II", The New Yorker, October 2, 1989, pp. 74-96, [76-77].

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, September 20, 1992, pp. 3-4.

                                                                                               

 

 

"[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 Angola immediately brought the Boubakar wrongdoing to my attention.  The case was airtight, and U.N. headquarters found it impossible to avoid our recommendation for dismissal.

In the more complicated Lukika case in Uganda, UNHCR's recommendation for dismissal was equally strong.  The Secretary-General's office rejected it (on grounds that the United Nations lacks precedents in firing for incompetence) and forced UNHCR to take Lukika back.  Threats and intimidation in no way dampened our efforts in UNHCR to deal with corruption and incompetence. ….  The Secretary-General at the time just did not support us.  Ensuing troubles with Lukika after headquarters directed that he stay in UNHCR should surprise no one."

Arthur E. Dewey, "No laxity", UN Special (Geneva), November, 1992, p. 31.

[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 Bosnia.

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, 15 August 1993, p. 1.

[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 Bosnia. ….  The report failed to mention the sacrifices that the vast majority of the United Nations staff make, particularly the loss of life, while working in conflict situations.   ….

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 (Geneva), October 1993, p. 20.

[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, October 24, 1995.                                                                                            

  

 

" …. Africa has more than 3 million refugees and some 15 million internally displaced, a much higher number than 10 years ago.  These outcasts strain the resources of host communities, and the goodwill of donors, yet there is no end to the stream of people fleeing for their lives. ….

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 Africa", The New York Times, in the International Herald Tribune, June 17, 2000.                                                                               

 

 

 

"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 'Czech Republic' had just been pasted in,' Parra said.

He also criticized 'an addiction to perks and luxury.'  When one UN official in Rwanda had wanted to interview the Canadian general in charge of peacekeeping forces there he had been told to arrange an itinerary with stays on the way out and back in Brussels, Paris and Geneva, Parra claimed."

Jason Burke, et. al., "UN rocked by flood of fraud cases: Officials were 'addicted to luxury," The Observer International (UK), September 3, 2000.

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, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000, p. 227.

                                                                                   

 

 

"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 9 September 2002, "Summary, section V."             [emphasis added.]