For at least five years, a UN humanitarian program responsible for providing food to refugees in western Algeria has been beset by mismanagement and corruption, according to documents obtained by the Center for Individual Freedom.
The documents -- reports prepared by the Inspectors General of the UN High Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR) and the World Food Program (WFP) -- detail allegations that Algerians working for the UN have been diverting food aid intended for refugees. Even more disturbing, the reports raise the possibility that the beneficiaries of this ongoing theft are the Algerian-backed combatants in a long-running conflict with the government of Morocco. (You can read the full reports for yourself by following the links at the bottom of the page.)
The UN first began providing food assistance to refugees in western Algeria – also known as the Western Sahara region – in 1977. The Saharan refugees were originally displaced from their homes, generally in Morocco, as a result of fighting between Moroccan government troops and Algerian-backed fighters of the Polisario Front. Fighting has continued on and off ever since.
Because the Algerians continue to support Saharans in their conflict with Morocco, they have an obvious interest in providing whatever assistance they can. And thanks to its own mismanagement, the UN has become a partner in that effort.
Here's how: according to the two Inspectors' General reports, the UN receives an estimate on the number of refugees in need of assistance from the Algerian government. Though the UN has made several attempts to independently verify the count, these requests have come to nothing in the face of Algerian inaction. This lack of an independent and reliable count, "for such a prolonged period constituted an abnormal and unique situation in UNHCR's history," one report says.
That allows the Algerians to grossly inflate the number of refugees in need of assistance. According to the IGs' reports, Algeria lately has requested aid for about 156,000 refugees. The UNHCR Inspector General estimates there are actually 91,000.
As a result, aid shipped to Algeria ostensibly to help refugees could be diverted to other, less charitable, uses. Thanks to UN mismanagement, such gaming of the system is no problem at all.
From the very first moment that the aid supplies arrive in Algerian ports, both reports describe how serious problems can allow supplies to be skimmed, stolen and diverted. The WFP IG's report includes page after page of problems with basic procedures that are contrary to standard practice and basic common sense. These range from warehouses that are so poorly managed it's impossible to determine what supplies are actually present to shipping containers being opened at ports of entry in order for load to be shifted without records of what happens to the supplies that are unloaded.
Further mismanagement makes it impossible to determine just how much is being carried away because basic records of shipments and deliveries – which are supposed to be maintained by local UN personnel – are nothing but an idyllic fantasy.
Worst of all, most of these problems were first discovered in audits conducted in 2000 and 2001. But no steps have been taken to rectify even the most basic problems.
So they continue. Agencies and organizations working for the UN that are supposed distribute food to refugees are stealing it. And the UN sits by and does nothing. As a result, Algeria is able to utilize UN-provided resources to support troops in the Western Sahara as they harass Algeria's neighbor, Morocco.
To the casual reader, this story may sound fairly insignificant. But consider the number of similar aid programs that the UN is currently running around the globe. And apply the fundamental mismanagement and corruption that infects the UN's Western Sahara program to each of those aid efforts.
The implications are staggering.
But given the UN's track record, that shouldn't surprise us at all.
To read the Report of the Inspector General's Office, UN High Commission on Human Rights, click here. (.pdf)
To read the Report of the Office of the Inspector General, World Food Programme, click here. (.pdf)
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