Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
| ||||||||||||
Nepotism and Excess Found Rampant at UNESCO - UN Finance - Global Policy Forum Nepotism and Excess Found
Rampant at UNESCOBy Steven Edwards
Toronto National Post
October 2, 2000Canadian government auditors have completed a scathing performance report on UNESCO, revealing nepotism and inefficiency have rebounded at the United Nations agency, which is supposed to promote ideas and ideals around the world. Overspending in the agency's field offices -- already high in 1996-97, more than doubled in 1998-99, while overall value for money spent on salaries fell, says the report, which UNESCO's 188 member states will receive next month.
One of the most profligate field offices is in Quebec City, where budgetary overruns increased more than six-fold. Travel budget overspending for the agency's 2,000 staff was also up by 50%. Meanwhile, management ignored hiring rules in 75% of appointments and failed to follow internationally approved guidelines in 44% of promotions. This will add to UNESCO's reputation that top jobs are easy to get with a little political pull.
Managers also manipulated a project budget that grew by 20% over the two years from its original level. In part, they avoided close scrutiny for some of the spending by saying it was needed for emergencies, which they failed to detail, the report says. More than 120 pages long, the report will come as a shock to UNESCO members, who had been hoping to see significant improvements in the agency's behaviour to attract the United States back as a member. Washington quit the organization in 1984 to protest waste as well as plans to launch an "international information order." (This plan, which opponents saw as a left-leaning scheme to muzzle the world's press, was later abandoned.)
Britain followed suit, though it later rejoined, while Canada remained a member throughout, saying it could do more to encourage change at UNESCO from within. The only ray of hope in the report comes in praise for efforts by UNESCO's new chief, Koichiro Matsuura, to rein in the organization's free-spending ways. The 62-year-old Japanese foreign ministry bureaucrat, who was elected last fall, ran on a platform of adherence to the rules and economic rigour. But reformers anxious to curb the selfish traits of the Paris-based agency -- formally known as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization -- have come and gone in the past with little lasting effect.
The report is the third issued by Canada's Office of the Auditor-General, elected last November as UNESCO's external auditor for six more years after winning the post in 1994. The field office in La Paz, Bolivia, topped the overspending table with an overrun of more than $400,000. Quebec came in 11th, spending almost $60,000 more than authorized. Overspending by all 70 field offices totalled $2 million. Part of the problem is that the head office does not hear about overruns until "six months to a year" after the money has been spent, the auditor's report says.
Travel budgets overshot by $3.2 million and other "personnel services" -- mainly temporary hires -- cost $9.5 million more than planned. "Strong financial management would have prevented these situations from happening," says the report. On abuses of hiring procedures, "the situation had deteriorated even further" than in the previous two years, it said. "The licence to make exceptions to the rules was used so liberally that the exception became the rule."
Rules were also bent or ignored in spending almost of a third of the $27 million slated for "projects," which include grants for study, conferences or training. For example, no single "national" project can receive more than $26,000. So when UNESCO officials wanted to fund one idea to the tune of $45,000, they simply divided the project into two. They also gave the money to a non-governmental organization UNESCO had not officially recognized.
Many projects funded by UNESCO have nebulous goals deemed good for the world. Hence, an athlete on a personal "crusade for peace" received $6,000. But he came from a country that was not eligible for contributions because it had failed to account for previous moneys received, the report says. UNESCO's 2000-01 budget amounts to $544 million, but the Canadian auditors say extra budgetary resources are expected to exceed $260 million.
More Information on UN Programmes, Funds and Specialized Agencies
