Despite Western Sanctions Against Syria, U.N. Quietly Extends Development Aid to Country

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Amid economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other Western democracies to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end his brutal eleven-year reign, theUnited Nations has quietly agreed to extend its current development partnership agreement with the Assad government, which was set to expire this year.

The decision, made “in the light of recent developments,” according to a document obtained by Fox News, “will permit the United Nations organizations to better assist the country in addressing the impact of current events and their socio-economic consequences.” The renewal apparently lasts through 2012.

The U.N. move comes despite the fact that the leading U.N. agency in the country, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), announced in April that it was “deferring” a new, five-year country program for Syria, extending from 2012 to 2017, amid the rising turbulence in that country against the Assad dictatorship.

UNDP serves as the coordinator for all joint U.N. programs in Syria, as in most other developing countries. UNDP’s top representative in Syria, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, is also the chief U.N. official in the country, known as the Resident Coordinator. In a message on the U.N. Syria website, Ahmed emphasizes that the U.N. is a “strong partner to the Syrian Government.”

News of the current U.N. program extension was tucked into a document presented to the 36-nation Executive Board that oversees operations of UNDP, the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), at a semi-annual session in early July, extending current programs in both Syria and Egypt. (The U.S. is a member of the Executive Board, and so is the Assad regime’s biggest supporter, Iran.)

While it refers in its headings only to UNFPA, the text of the Executive Board document specifically affirms that the U.N. as a whole agreed with the Assad regime on the extension to what is known as the United Nations Development Assistance Framework, or UNDAF, for Syria, even as it also observes that Syria is “facing a challenge with the wave of unrest that has spread throughout the country.”

(According to UNDP’s spokesman, the UNDAF is “the strategic program framework that describes the collective response of the U.N. system to national development priorities.” But U.N. agencies in Syria also have a strong influence on the national programs they subsequently claim to respond to. As U.N. Coordinator Ahmed noted in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last February the U.N. country team in Syria “worked closely with the Government on their 11th Five Year Plan, providing consultancy services, situation analysis and strategies, targets and support to develop policies, programs and projects.” )

Ultimately U.N. programs described in the UNDAF are usually executed by the national government under U.N. supervision and monitoring.

In other words, U.N. agencies influence both the government’s input and output.

Among other things, the UNFPA documents note that the Assad government “has introduced a comprehensive reform package” that “embraces various spheres” including youth employment, and says that the one-year extension will allow UNFPA, for one, to “create an enabling environment to empower youth and enable them to participate in decision-making and planning at central and local levels.”

Click here for the document.

That enabling environment has apparently not yet filtered down to the throngs of predominately youthful protesters who continue to brave often-savage repression at the hands of Syrian police and security squads.

As many as 1,600 protestors have reportedly been killed in Syria since the upheavals began, and some 26,000 have reportedly been arrested.

Most of UNFPA’s current programming, according to an agency spokesman, even while becoming more focused on emergency issues during the current crisis, focuses on maternity care and health, as well as contraceptive and “reproductive health care.”

Getting information on the full panoply of U.N. operations in Syria is also difficult, due both to the fragmented nature of U.N. funds, agencies and programs, and the often chaotic situation in Syria itself.

The World Food Program, for example, which operates more as an emergency relief agency, has three different programs in Syria offering assistance to just under 669,000 people.

In all cases, however, U.N. agencies work closely with Syrian government agencies, which can range from the health and education ministries to such entities as the Ministry of the Interior, which among its tasks includes control of security forces.

Asked directly by Fox News to confirm the most recent U.N. program extension in Syria, a spokesman for UNDP sidestepped the question, noting instead that “U.N. regular operations have slowed down significantly due to the situation on the ground,” as have UNDP operations.

Otherwise, he said, “U.N. agencies are providing humanitarian support in response to the crisis including providing health and child protection services, food and nutrition, hygiene kits and psychosocial support.” Additionally, “other joint activities with direct impact on the vulnerable and poor are continuing though at a much slower pace.”

Among those continuing activities are a joint UNDP and UNFPA program to “monitor the social aid fund of cash assistance to Syrians living below the poverty line,” and a six-agency effort to provide health and education services, food and jobs in six of the poorest villages in Syria.

The social aid fund in particular is not a small item. According to documents examined by Fox News, the “Social Welfare Fund” that UNDP monitored under the now-extended UNDAF was intended to dispense $192 million a year between 2008 and 2012.

And according to U.N. Coordinator Ahmed’s February report to his boss, the Secretary General, the entire UNDAF program that has now been extended had “weak monitoring and evaluation systems, which made comprehensive assessment of U.N. achievement in Syria very difficult.”

Click here for the report.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News and can be found on Twitter @GeorgeRussell.

Kenya: Whistleblower's Tale Fails to Address Bigger Question of Food Insecurity

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Nairobi — One billion people live in chronic hunger and I'm mad as hell," is the slogan that the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) uses to get people to sign a petition to governments to end hunger in the world.

But D.T. Krueger, a former employee of the UN organisation, is not just mad as hell about hunger, but about the FAO's inability to end it. Krueger has written a book called U.N. a Cosa Nostra that places the blame squarely on the mafia-like management culture at the FAO, which he says is corrupt and inefficient.

I wouldn't say it is among the best books I have read on the workings of the UN (the writing style is not very engaging and there are obvious editorial mistakes in many sections), but it definitely provides a unique insider's perspective on the inner workings of UN organisations and how money that they receive from governments is used.

According to Krueger, three-quarters of the funding received by FAO is spent on administration, staff, travel and accommodation costs, and that the little that reaches the beneficiaries is either too little or too late.

The organisation is also top-heavy: FAO apparently has 142 directors overseeing 1,100 professionals.

The author goes into painstaking detail on how money is (mis)spent at the FAO through the recruitment of incompetent or unqualified "political appointees" or politically-connected individuals (often wives, boyfriends, or mistresses of powerful people within the organisation), wasteful spending on unnecessary travel, hiring of unqualified consultants, and even outright theft.

Recruitment procedures are routinely ignored and the best candidates often do not get the job. Transparency, accountability, and efficiency are also compromised by shady recruitment processes.

For instance, says Krueger, there have been several cases of conflict of interest, such as when the spouses of auditors are employed within the same organisation.

He further claims that countries that have not benefited from FAO assistance, such as Malawi and Senegal, seem to be doing better than those who do.

"It is not unreasonable to think that FAO has in many cases actually damaged the countries it was meant to help," he writes.

He cites a case of a project in a West African country where two FAO professionals were recruited to assist 2,000 farmers.

The cost of the professionals and the consultants they hired to do their work for them was not proportionate to the task.

What is worse, the rice seeds that were purchased from a "friendly" company known to the professionals had a germination rate of below 20 per cent, as opposed to the FAO recommended standard of above 95 per cent.

This led to a very low yield of below 800 kilogrammes per hectare.

The obvious shortcoming in Krueger's book is that he fails to examine the policies and practices employed by the FAO that have increased, rather than decreased, food insecurity in poor countries.

For example, it would have been useful to know whether the FAO's advocacy and project-based work has had a positive or negative impact on agricultural policies and practices in developing countries.

He also fails to link these policies to external pressures and realities, such as WTO agreements and agricultural subsidies in the US and Europe.

By focusing exclusively on the corrupt and inefficient work culture of the FAO, the author gives the impression that if the UN organisation was more transparent and efficient, it may actually have an impact on hunger levels.

Krueger's book could have also benefited from a deeper analysis of the aid business in general. He could have, for example, looked at how food aid has created a dis-incentive among farmers to produce their own food.

He could have also done additional research on FAO's projects to give the reader a sense of what the organisation actually does on the ground.

By the end of the book, the reader gets an idea of the work culture of the FAO, but not what FAO actually does.

Nor does the author address the bigger question of why poor countries never seem to get out of the never-ending cycle of poverty, hunger and disease.

Or why organisations such as FAO continue getting funding despite not delivering what they promise. The lack of this type of analysis weakens the book somewhat and takes some of the wind out of this whistle blower's sails.

UK 'helps dictators buy Paris homes': African leaders accused of stealing millions in aid

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019890/

No opposition: Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Congo owns 16 of the most luxurious houses and flats in Paris

British taxpayers are funding the multi-million-pound Paris property portfolios of a African dictators, it has been claimed.

Scores of luxury houses and flats in the French capital are now owned by men who regularly receive vast charitable hand-outs.

It emerged yesterday that Denis Sassou Nguesso, president of the Republic of Congo, owns 16 of the most luxurious houses and flats in the French capital.

Nguesso is one of a number of African politicians said to have built vast overseas property empires using public funds – including the proceeds of European foreign aid – from their countries’ treasuries.

Ali Bongo, president of Gabon, owns at least 39 properties in Paris, while the portfolio of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, president of Equatorial Guinea, includes an entire six-storey period building on the prestigious Avenue Foch, alone worth £15million.

The details are contained in a report compiled by the anti-corruption groups Transparency International and Sherpa, and handed over to Paris prosecutors.

Nguema Mbasogo's property is used by members of his family when they are on shopping trips in France, he himself – who came to power in a bloody coup in 1979 – prefers to stay in a £2,000-a-night suite at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée, off the Champs-Élysées.

More...

• Britain moves to free up billions for Libya rebels by declaring them 'sole authority' in country
• Now France is being dragged into global financial crisis as credit rating could be cut

French prosecutors are also investigating claims that deposed ‘Arab Spring’ dictators, including Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, have numerous homes in France.

Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi, who was honoured with a state visit to Paris by President Nicolas Sarkozy as recently as 2007, is also thought to own property in France, as is Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Luxury: Ali Bongo, left, and Teodoro Obiang Nguema, right, own millions of pounds worth of property in Paris, bought from charity money, anti-corruption groups claim

The main accusation compiled in the legal dossier is that money flooding into blighted African states was immediately used to fund the extravagant lifestyles of unelected leaders.

Paris prosecutors said all of the families named in the files would be investigated for ‘acquiring real estate using misappropriated public funds’.

The inquiries are likely to take months, if not years, but judges will eventually have the power to freeze the assets before returning money to the countries from which it was stolen.

Dream road: Nguema owns a house on Avenue Foch, one of the capital's most sought-after areas

Pricey: Nguema likes to stay at the plush Plaza Athenee Hotel

The £8.1billion that Britain currently spends on foreign aid is set to increase to £11.4billion in 2014 – a 34 per cent rise.

Controversially, the Department for International Development is one of the few actually seeing its expenditure rise while most public spending is cut back to reduce Britain’s huge deficit.

Sassou Nguesso, 67, has been president of the Congo since 1997, having ruled previously from 1979 to 1992. In his first period, he ruled a single-party regime under a Marxist agenda.

Under heavy pressure, he introduced multi-party politics in 1990 and was booted out of power two years later. He returned in 1997 after leading rebel forces in a civil war, and has since won two elections without meaningful opposition.

A spokesman for the Department for International Development said last night that no direct aid is given to Gabon, Equatorial Guinea or the Republic of Congo, although it has contributed food to people hit by disaster in the Congo.

Investigation: The anti-corruption spotlight is also falling on Colonel Gaddafi, left, and Syria's Bashar Al-Assad, right

UN report accuses Eritrea of plotting to bomb AU summit

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A United Nations report accuses Eritrea of planning a car bomb attack at an African Union summit in Ethiopia.

The UN Monitoring Group report on Somalia and Eritrea says the aim was to disrupt the summit in Addis Ababa last January.

Ethiopia accused its neighbour of training rebels to carry out bombings on targets in the city, including an international hotel.

Eritrea has repeatedly denied any involvement in such a plot.

"We say this is totally a fabrication and the report is absurd. We have never been involved in any acts of terrorism," said the Eritrean ambassador to the UN, Araya Desta, in a radio interview with the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

The report states that Asmara's spies are active in Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya and Somalia, posing a threat to regional peace and security.

The UN interprets the plot as representing a shift in tactics by the Eritrean intelligence services.

"Whereas Eritrean support to foreign armed opposition groups has in the past been limited to conventional military operations, the plot to disrupt the African Union summit in Addis Ababa in January 2011, which envisaged mass casualty attacks against civilian targets and the strategic use of explosives to create a climate of fear, represents a qualitative shift in Eritrean tactics," said the report.

It outlines the details of the plan: to attack the AU headquarters with a car bomb as African leaders took breaks, to blow up Africa's largest market to "kill many people", and attack the area between the prime minister's office and the Sheraton Hotel, where most heads of state stay during AU summits.

Sex, lies, and videotape at the U.N.

click here to view this at TURTLEBAY.FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

After weeks of internal deliberations, the United Nations recently held a pair of private viewings of a controversial new film, The Whistleblower, which explores U.N. complicity in sex crimes in Bosnia over the past two decades.

Based on real events and reviewed last month by Turtle Bay, the film recounts how U.N. peacekeepers became involved in the illegal sex trade in Bosnia in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Top officials have been concerned that the film's imminent release -- it hits theaters in Los Angeles and New York on August 5 -- could harm the institution's international reputation. The U.N.'s new women's agency, headed by former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, arranged the latest screening this week in a U.N. office building in New York.

The horrific incidents depicted in the film occurred well before Secretary General Ban Ki-moonand his leadership team arrived at the United Nations. But Ban's tenure is also implicated in the story, if somewhat tangentially: One of the film's real-life heroines, Madeleine Rees, portrayed by the British actress Vanessa Redgrave, was forced out of the United Nations during his first term as Secretary General.

Rees has since filed a grievance with the U.N. internal disputes tribunal in Geneva. She cites her role in exposing U.N. involvement in sexual crimes in Bosnia, as well as the U.N.'s "collusion" in the rendition of six Algerian nationals to Guantanamo Bay, as among the reasons she may have lost her job. A decision on her case is expected any day, Rees and U.N. officials told Turtle Bay.

The U.N.'s top spokesman, Martin Nesirky, declined to comment on the case, saying it would be improper to discuss a case before the tribunal has rendered its judgment. Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, also declined to comment, citing legal constraints.

But Rees' application indicates that her superiors at the U.N. High Commissioner's Office had sanctioned Rees, who is gay, for promoting a potentially controversial conference on gay rights. "The catalyst for my removal and a stated ground by OHCHR [The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights], was the side event profiling human rights violations on grounds of sexual orientation," she wrote in her application.

Rees claimed that she had initial backing for the conference from Pillay, who "was very enthusiastic and said she would cosponsor [the event] and speak." But she said she was subsequently excoriated by Pillay's deputy, Kyung-wha Kang, after powerful U.N. members protested. Pillay and her top aides subsequently rallied behind Kang, she claimed.

Rees says she suspects she was being singled out because of the reputation she had earned for standing up for victims rights in Bosnia, where her efforts to press for a crack down on abuses by peacekeepers ran afoul of the U.N.'s political leadership.

She cites a conversation in which Kang warned that top U.N. peacekeeping officials had previously sought her removal from Bosnia. According to Rees, Kang said her history of confrontations with the top brass would make it difficult to consider her for any future field assignments. "If someone of such high rank said this -- it should be taken seriously," Rees claimed Kang told her.

Ban's spokesman, meanwhile, scolded Turtle Bay this week for its coverage of The Whistleblower, challenging our suggestion, offered somewhat tongue in cheek, that the U.N. would prefer people not see the film. He also objected to a line in the story indicating that this was not the kind of film Ban had in mind when he traveled to Hollywood last year to urge filmmakers to make movies that document the U.N.'s good works.

"You didn't ask at the time, but I can tell you now that neither assertion is true. Far from it," Nesirky said.

"We welcome the fact that the film highlights issues that are high on the agenda of the United Nations, including the fight against human trafficking and violence against women," Nesirky added in a statement prepared for Turtle Bay. "We also welcome all efforts to draw attention to such human rights violations."

In fact, the U.N. top leadership had not decided how to respond to the film when Turtle Baypublished its story on June 29. A confidential internal memo, dated July 7, from Ivan Simonovic, the U.N.'s top human rights official in New York, reveals that Ban's cabinet was divided over the wisdom of embracing the new film.

A number of U.N. officials, including Bachelet, Pillay, Catherine Bragg, the U.N. Assistant Secretary General for Emergency Relief Operations, and Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, argued in favor of confronting the film's harsh portrayal of the United Nations head on, according to the memo, which was leaked to Turtle Bay. Catherine Bragg, the assistant secretary general for emergency relief operations, recommended hosting a public screening of the film. Ban's top advisors, including Vijay Nambiar, also supported a proactive approach.

But the U.N.'s top lawyer Patricia O'Brien and the chief of the U.N. Department of Public information, Kiyotaka Akasaka, proposed ignoring the film. According to Simonovic's memo, Akasaka and O'Brien "thought that a proactive approach, and especially ASG [Assistant Secretary General] Bragg's proposal of a public screening of the movie at the U.N., to be followed by frank discussion, is counterproductive and would contribute to the film's impact. They preferred downplaying the film instead preparing answers on an if-asked basis."

Eventually, the United Nations split the difference, scheduling a discrete viewing for U.N. public relations and peacekeeping officials earlier this month. But Nesirky did not inform the press, saying he did not consider it a public "event," and refused a request from Turtle Bay to identify officials who organized or attended the screening.

"A group of officials in DPI [the Department of Public Information] and DPKO [the Department of Peacekeeping Operations] watched the film last week ahead of a possible screening at the United Nations that would include a panel discussion on the issues depicted in the film," Nesirky said. "We felt it was responsible to see first how the events and issues were portrayed. Those who watched the film were familiar with events in the movie; peacekeeping as well as efforts to stamp out misconduct by U.N. personnel, including sexual exploitation and abuse."[*see note below]

Tuesday's screening by Bachelet's agency marked another concession to the officials who were advising a proactive approach. It also happened to coincide with a screening organized by the U.N. press corps.

Follow me on Twitter @columlynch

*Nesirky announced in a press briefing before this article was published that the U.N. welcomed the U.N. press clubs' screening of the film and had decided "to organize a discussion or other events related to topics raised in the film" later this summer. However, the U.N. has not organized its own public screening. Turtle Bay regrets that in an earlier version it misspelled Ms. Kang's name and mistakenly identifed Patricia O'Brien as Catherine.