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Archive Introduction


UN Performance Problems

UN Management Accountability Struggles


Where is the Rule of Law?
Inadequate UN Oversight
Recent Developments

 
  

 

 


Top Related Sources and Websites  

                                                                                                          

 

 

 

                    

IO Watch has found more than 70 websites or other media sources (most of them only in English) that provide useful information on UN (and other international organization) management accountability, reform, and performance issues. They are presented briefly and informally below, in very rough descending order of relevance and usefulness.

  

 

1.       The International Herald Tribune, at www.iht.com, published daily and available in many cities around the world, is the most up-to-date and comprehensive source on UN issues.  In addition to news stories, its "Views" pages (Editorials & Commentary, and Opinions & Letters) do an excellent job of providing "an international forum for provocative debate" on current and emerging international issues.  The IHT is also available on-line and has an archive and search process.  Many of the IHT articles originated in the New York Times, which became a joint owner in 1967 and sole owner of the IHT in 2002.

2.       The Economist, published weekly, is found at www.economist.com. It has provided the most steady chronicle of the UN's performance over the last several decades. It also systematically covers international affairs issues and developments at the country, regional and international level, and provides regular in-depth special reports which often address UN-related topics.  The Economist is also available on-line and has an extensive archive and search process for its print edition.

3.       The Financial Times (UK), at www.ft.com/home/europe, also has a surprisingly steady flow of excellent specific articles and expert commentary on UN issues, operations, and problems, as well as relevant news and special reports on such things as governance issues. It has as well excellent search tools to allow its subscribers full access to a five-year archive and a World Press Monitor & Archive that provides over 60,000 new articles every week.

4.       The heart of this archive, for the 1945-2000 period, is articles from UN staff journals such as the UN Staff Report in New York and the UN Special in Geneva.  The Internet now provides vast new flows of insider information and investigative websites and articles on the UN (see in particular items 5-18 below) which have made UN operations and problems much, much more transparent than in the past.  But it was the staff journals that, over the decades, provided the bulk of the candid and informed assessments and critiques of UN performance issues and reform needs, at a time when the UN Secretariat kept almost all performance information and issues tightly bottled up.

5.       Claudia Rosett has more than 20 years of experience as an award-winning journalist on international affairs.  She was instrumental in drawing out information on the UN Iraq Oil-for-food programme scandals, and IO Watch believes that she has become the most astute and knowledgeable observer of the UN’s dysfunctional management culture and its continuing scandals.  Her work can be found via Google Search for “Claudia Rosett UN” (some 150,000 sources), or in “The Rosett Report” at www.pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett, which now includes an archive of her articles going back to August 2006.



6.       As the UN’s recent scandals drag along and many new ones emerge, Matthew Russell Lee has become, literally, the “go-to guy” for UN staff disgruntled with the Secretariat’s feeble corruption-fighting and whistle-blowing policies and inaction. Mr. Lee is a lawyer and veteran muckraker, and some 90,000 distinct visitors a month view his reports at Inner City Press on UN mismanagement and malfeasance.  He has also recently been elected to the executive committee of the UN Correspondents Association. His (usually daily) articles for the most recent months can be found at www.innercitypress.com, and many more through a Google search for “Matthew Russell Lee”, then “more results from … [inner city]”, totaling some 400  of his articles.)

7.       Eye on the UN, a project of the Hudson Institute and the Touro Law Center, is found at www.eyeontheun.org. Its purpose is to make transparent the UN's record on its fundamental promises on human rights actions and responses to international peace and security threats.  Its information base includes not only daily articles but extensive archived articles on "serious shortfalls exposed in the UN record", under such categories as Corruption and Mismanagement, Management Issues, Oil-For-Food Scandal, Sexual Harassment, U.N. Peacekeepers, and U.N. Expansion.


8.       UNDP Watch, found at www.undpwatch.blogspot.com, began in June 2007, and its content has expanded rapidly.  It is dedicated to, and open to, all UNDP staff to submit documents, analyses, and opinions on its mismanagement, non-transparency, and non-accountability (which became widespread in 2007, see UNDP,rogueagency?, 2007, UNDP, corruption, 1998-2002, and UN, whistleblowers, 2007 in the IO Watch dark sides feature.)  UNDP Watch exposure has already had some success in getting dubious UNDP management decisions reversed.  It would be excellent if such Internet blogs could be established at other agencies – in particular in the UN Secretariat.


9.       The Center for UN Reform Education, found at www.centerforunreform.org, is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research group founded in 1978 to participate in reforms and restructuring the UN through its publications, fora and conferences. It concentrates on the history of, and ongoing developments in, UN management reform.  The Center is associated with the UN Department of Public Information (DPI), and does not take positions regarding specific proposals. Of particular value are its UN Reform Watches,, which began in June 2005.

10.   The UNforum is an open and independent forum on UN news and issues, not connected with the UN.  It is found at www.unforum.com, where it provides a very incisive, well-informed, and ongoing analysis of behind-the-scenes activities inside the UN Secretariat. It reporting stands in marked contrast to the concurrent flood of official UN "public information" materials. The UN Forum is particularly useful for its "Insider" and "Agenda" archives, which extend back to the year 2000.


11.   Reform the UN Now! believes the UN is systematically corrupt due to the immunity some 5000 of its senior officials enjoy  from international law, which they often abuse with impunity, and that the only hope for real UN reform is to eliminate this immunity, urgently!  This new website, located at www.unreform-now.org, seeks to raise awareness of the incompetence and misfeasance of the UN and other international organizations, to provide a resource for international staff caught in the UN’s so-called internal justice system, to present news on recent and emerging UN scandals, and to propose countervailing actions.


12.   Fox News reported extensively on the UN Iraq oil-for-food program scandals from the very beginning, and has continued with investigative reporting of mismanagement and corruption issues in the UN and, increasingly, in other international organizations.  Its website, at www.foxnews.com, lists recent stories under “World”, then “United Nations”, while a “search” on the FoxNews.com site identifies some 4,000 total stories on UN developments, scandals, and operations.


13.   The New York Sun has an increasing number of articles on UN operational problems and performance issues, particularly by Benny Avni.  Among other things, the Sun periodically runs a United Nations’ rogues’ gallery chart in which the alleged bribers, schemers, and other wrongdoers at “Turtle Bay” are named and shamed.  A recent “search” at www.nysun.com under “United Nations” yielded more than 500 of Mr. Avni’s articles.


14.   The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been issuing independent, external reporting to the US Congress for more than three decades on UN management issues, including major reports in 2000 and 2004 and half-a-dozen new ones on UN oversight, internal control, procurement, and audit independence in mid-2006 alone, which are available at www.gao.gov.  As the largest and most professional national oversight office, the GAO also pursues best practices and a leadership role for accountability and performance audit issues, strategic planning and risk assessment, and anti-fraud work (through its FraudNET).

15.    The Government Accountability Project (GAP), found at www.whistleblower.org, is a nonprofit public interest group and the leading US whistleblower protection organization.  GAP's mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability through litigating whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms. Its International Reform program focuses on the multilateral development banks and on the United Nations, which it recently advised on its new whistleblower policy.

16.   The United Nations Transparency and Accountability Initiative (UNTAI) was established in late 2007 in the US Mission to the UN, in light of revelations of abuses in UN funds and programmes.  Found at www.usunnewyork.usmission.gov/Issues/reform_untai.html, UNTAI focuses, inter alia, on public availability of oversight and operations reports and documentation; whistleblower protection, financial disclosure, ethics, accounting standards, and other related reforms, and tracks their status on a continuing basis.  Material available includes UN oversight and transparency reports, to ensure that the billions of dollars the UN spends are delivered efficiently and effectively.


17.   ReformtheUN.org, found at www.reformtheun.org, provides very up-to-date information and resources on UN reform.  It covers many UN reform topics, by category and by issues, with an overall emphasis on tracking developments and ensuring transparency and accountability.  Its also provides very recent UN documents and an email newsletter.  ReformtheUN.org is a project of the World Federalist Movement - Institute for Global Policy (WFM-IGP), a global membership organization seeking a strengthened and more democratized United Nations.



18.   Newsweek magazine often has useful articles and information on UN operations and issues in its Periscope or Opinion features, as well as in some very topical special reports.  The site is at www.newsweek.com. It also has an extensive archive of more than 1500 articles under a search for “United Nations.”


19.   The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is found at www.unodc.org.  Among other things, it supports a Judicial Integrity Group to strengthen judicial integrity and capacity worldwide (use “search” for  “Judicial integrity” on the site), and has extensive Justice and Prison Reform and anti-corruption activities. [Most unfortunately, however, UNODC has never connected these important global principles and standards to the UN Secretariat’s own (acknowledged and) very defective internal justice and accountability processes, as discussed in this Archive's subsections on UN war crimes judge …, UN officials … outside the law, External experts justice reform review, and A real UN fraud prevention programme.]

20.   The Humanitarian Accountability Partnership – International is dedicated to “making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries” and opening accounts and control systems to public auditors’ reports. Found at www.hapinternational.org, the HAP has created a very welcome and ground-breaking framework for achieving accountability and transparency in all kinds of international humanitarian groups worldwide, and providing training, standards, and certificates (valid for 3 years) for organizations which qualify. Applying this guidance firmly to the biggest such organizations – the UN’s humanitarian and peacekeeping programs -- would, of course, be a very big step forward.


21.   James Bone, the New York correspondent of the Times of London, has reported “in minute detail” on goings-on at the UN ever since 1988. Nevertheless, in late 2005 Kofi Annan labeled him “cheeky”, “an overgrown schoolboy”, and suggested he was not a “serious journalist” for persistent questioning (with no answers provided) at UN news conferences about a troublesome Mercedes purchased for his son Kojo.  A recent “search” at www.timesonline.co.uk under  ”James Bone United Nations” found some 360 of his UN articles going back to 2002.

22.   The Heritage Foundation is a "think tank", found at www.heritage.org, which generates and promotes conservative public policies and solutions to contemporary problems to provide, inter alia, a safer, more prosperous, freer world.  Its work on United Nations and International Organizations, under “Research,” “Foreign Issues,”  has provided many ongoing WebMemos and Backgrounders, in considerable depth, on UN operations and problems, with an archive going back to 1977.

23.   UN Watch is a non-governmental organization formed in 1993 to monitor the performance of the UN by the yardstick of its own Charter.  UN Watch areas of interest include: UN management reform, the UN and civil society, equality within the UN, and the equal treatment of member states, and it follows UN human rights work and deliberations closely.  Its website, at www.unwatch.org, provides relevant news, comments, and essential documents; a blog from Geneva; some 160 UN Watch briefings stretching back to 1998; and a series of reports.

24.     Betsy Pisik of The Washington Times (USA) has been writing useful and incisive analyses of UN operational problems and developments for many years.  Her articles on the UN for the past few years are found at www.washingtontimes.com, via a search for her name and then under the subsection “News”, “World.”



25.   IPS - Inter Press Service was set up in 1964 as a non-profit international cooperative of journalists.  It has since become a public-benefit organization, as an independent voice from the South and for development, delving into globalisation for the stories underneath. Found at http://ipsnews.net, the IPS covers many global topics as an independent global news agency.  In particular, its Global Affairs section has useful, ongoing articles, especially by Thalif Deen, on UN operations and problems.

26.   The Development Gateway Foundation, through its Development Gateway portal, puts the Internet to work for developing countries, by providing innovative solutions for effective aid and e-government, and to increase knowledge-sharing, improve public sector transparency, and build local capacity to empower communities.  Among its 25 dgCommunities, which are found at