World Food Program's 'Sunshine Policy' Falls Short, U.N. Oversight Panel Says

By George Russell

Published November 11, 2010 | click here to view story on FoxNews.com

As the World Food Program grudgingly prepares to vote on opening its sensitive internal audit system to inspection by the nations that pay its bills, a key United Nations oversight committee has protested that the proposed sunshine policy doesn’t go far enough.

It also suggests that the agency should go back to the drawing board and try again.

Whether the world’s largest food aid agency will do that remains to be seen. Its 36-nation supervisory Executive Board is supposed to vote on the original, more restrictive proposal from WFP management at the end of its regular three-day session on November 11.

The issue of U.N. agencies exposing their internal audits to the nations that support them—even the ones on their executive boards—has been an explosive one for years, with North Korea as a trigger.

In 2007, a scandal involving the United Nations Development Program’s North Korean operations boiled over after confidential internal UNDP audits disclosed that the agency had funneled tens of millions in hard currency to the brutal dictatorship of Kim Jong Il, hired North Korean government employees in sensitive financial positions, and other transgressions. (The existence of the audits were revealed by U.S. diplomats during the Bush Administration.)

UNDP ended up closing its offices in North Korea from 2007 to 2009—and handing over its functions as lead U.N. agency in the country to WFP.

Two months ago, Fox News revealed that a summary of WFP audits in late 2009 had discovered “lapses,” “anomalies,” and unexplained variations in the way the relief agency reported its financial and commodity management in the same country.

Click here to read that story.

WFP refused to show the audit to Fox News, and disclosed that under its longstanding policy, even members of the Executive Board—including the U.S.-- did not receive the audits, which were deemed “management tools.” At the same time, it claimed there were only “a small number of inconsistencies in commodity accounting” involved, even though the document obtained by Fox News suggested otherwise.

That no-show policy is what is supposed to change this week—but as proposed by WFP management, it will only disclose audits in response to precise questions about the ones involved, and only to nations that sign a confidentiality pledge. Curious nations must also supply their reasons for wanting to look, and promise to keep anything they read confidential.

Just to be sure, they won’t get a copy to keep. They will instead be allowed to read one only in the office of WFP’s inspector general. No copying or note-taking is allowed during what the rules call a “consultation.”

Click here for more on this story.

The complaint about the overly-narrow policy of show-and-tell comes from a United Nations General Assembly oversight body called the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, or ACABQ—a standing oversight group composed of all U.N. members and currently headed by a U.S. diplomat, Susan McLurg. The ACABQ vets all financial proposals for the New York based U.N. Secretariat, and has the same function for WFP. Its recommendations are usually, but not always, accepted, as they carry the weight of the whole membership behind them.

In a terse, one-paragraph assessment dated October 29—WFP’s own proposal is dated September 24—the Advisory Committee calls the proposals “quite restrictive,” and “finds that the procedures lack clarity on the criteria that would be used for approval or denial of requests from Member States for access to internal audit reports.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE ACABQ REPORT

In muted fashion, it then suggests that “WFP may wish to explore ways to achieve greater transparency.” It does not specify what those ways might be.

The ACABQ document, which also deals with a number of other WFP items, was listed on the WFP website as “not available” until just before the current Executive Board session.

The ACABQ claims that its urge for greater openness is in line with a United Nations General Assembly resolution passed in 2005 about the reports of the U.N. Secretariat’s own internal auditing watchdog, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). That resolution made OIOS audit reports available to any inquiring U.N. member state. They could be withheld by the head of OIOS—but not the U.N.’s top management-- for confidentiality reasons, or if it harmed “the due process rights” of individuals under investigation for wrongdoing.

CLICK HERE FOR THE U.N. RESOLUTION

WFP’s position is apparently that, as a separate U.N. program, it isn’t bound by Secretariat rules, and has a policy more like that of the other controversial actor in the North Korean drama—UNDP.

Whether the nations that supervise WFP find that argument compelling will be better known after November 11.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News.

WFP to Allow Donor Nations to Review Confidential Audit Documents

by George Russell @ FoxNews.com

The nations that pay the bills of the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) are getting the chance for a better look into the workings of the huge food aid agency—but not a lot better.

More than a year after a WFP administrative document revealed that the agency’s internal auditors had discovered “numerous” irregularities in the way the program reported its multimillion-dollar financial and commodity management in North Korea, WFP’s 36-country supervisory Executive Board is about to allow curious nation-states—including those, like the U.S., that are its biggest donors --to look at similar confidential audit documents for the very first time.

But only if they ask precise questions and promise to behave once access is granted.

And as for any internal WFP audits from the past—including those that itemized WFP’s “lapses,” “anomalies” and inconsistencies in reporting what happened to food aid and financial management in dictatorial North Korea—they will remain secret forever, so far as the food agency is concerned.

Nonetheless, WFP itself is hailing the action as an affirmation of its “commitment to transparency and accountability in all its activities and decision-making.”

That transparency, however, is still notably lacking in the case of North Korea, a habitually belligerent country that has been under international financial and other sanctions for years in a bid to stop, or at least slow down, its illegal nuclear weapons program. Only relief supplies for the neediest of North Korea’s starving millions of people have been trickling in.

Those efforts at financial pressure have not been far successful. Even as WFP’s Executive Board prepared to approve its new and still limited disclosure policy at a four-day meeting that starts Nov. 8, press reports have indicated North Korea is preparing for a third illicit nuclear weapons test.

WFP’s circumspection about its internal audit documents has been longstanding. But it reached a crescendo of sorts in September, after Fox News revealed the highlights of an internal audit that found “inconsistent data and unreliable information systems” and “numerous anomalies” in reporting management of WFP relief supplies in the country.

WFP claimed that there were only “a small number of inconsistencies in commodity accounting that have subsequently been addressed.” But the document uncovered by Fox News strongly suggested otherwise. Click here to read more on this from Foxnews.com.

The agency regards the audits as management tools—as do many other U.N. agencies and programs. Even powerful contributors like the U.S., which traditionally provides at least 22 per cent of WFP funds, WERE barred from viewing them.

According to the guidelines WFP’s Executive Board is about to approve, curious nations must apply in writing, and name the specific report they wish to read. They must also supply their reasons for wanting to look, and promise to keep anything they read confidential. Just to be sure, they won’t get a copy. They will instead be allowed to read one only in the office of WFP’s inspector general. No copying or note-taking is allowed during what the rules call a “consultation.”

Even that scrutiny may take a long while. Before agreeing to make a copy of any report available, WFP will notify any government specifically singled out in the audit, giving them a chance to read it as well, and comment. The new disclosure period says that reaction can take a “reasonable time,” without spelling out what’s reasonable. And if the report is deemed sensitive enough, it can be redacted--or even withheld entirely.

CLICK HERE FOR THE PROPOSED POLICY

Adding to the potential complexity is that fact that some of WFP’s biggest food aid recipients are also on its Executive Board—a circumstance that any bureaucrat might consider very sensitive.

Among them: Sudan, the strife-torn area where WFP conducts a program that it says is its largest in the world; Democratic Republic of Congo, where WFP spent $259 million last year and, according to its website, wants to spend $198 million in 2010; Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest nations; and battered Haiti.

Three of those countries—Haiti, Congo and Sudan, in that order, are listed among the worst on Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index; Burkina Faso sits back in the middle of the international pack at Number 98.

George Russell is Executive Editor of Fox News