UN Officials For $10 Tell How to Get UN Jobs, UNA-USA Asked of $1.6 Billion

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, April 2 -- How much is getting a job at the UN worth? The question is raised tonight by an event at the UN Association of New York, in which $10 admission is being charged to hear to UN officials speak. The flier says, "Are you intrigued by how to get a job at the United Nations... Join for a $25 introductory membership and attend for free." Otherwise, admission is $10.

  Inner City Press has written to both the UN Association of New York and to the larger UN Association of the USA (UNA-USA) of which it is a part, asking on deadline how thisdoes not violate General Assembly Resolution 92(I), which provides that

"Members of the United Nations should take such legislative or other appropriate measures as are necessary to prevent the use, without authorization by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and in particular for commercial purposes by means of trademarks or commercial labels, of the emblem, the official seal and the name of the United Nations, and of abbreviations of that name through the use of its initial letters"

  To charge admission to hear UN officials tell how to get UN jobs clearly seems to a commercial purpose. 

UN's Ban at UNA-USA, authorization of $10 cover charge for jobs not shown

  The two UN officials, Nelly Keita and John Ericson, are part of the Office of Human Resources Management, which in turn is part of the Department of Management, headed by Angela Kane. Ms. Kane has previously said that she does not have time to answer such questions, to ask them at the UN's noon briefing.

   At a recent noon briefing, UN spokesperson Michele Montas was asked the basis for the use by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his officials of a figure of $1.6 billion as how much the U.S. owes to the UN. Ms. Montas told the reporter that she had the information upstairs, then from there said to ask UNA-USA.

   So Inner City Press, along with the request on deadline to explain the $10 (or $25) charge to hear UN officials, has asked for support for and details about the $1.6 billion figure. It was used as Ban called the U.S. the "biggest deadbeat"while reading from talking points prepared, Inner City Press has been told, by the UN Information Center in Washington.

  When answers are provided, they will be published on this site.