Thursday, June 20, 2013

Truth is.....There is no money ! So uncle Helen Clark is forced by donors to change and cut through out - she hires Stephen Browne to present it "nicely" to staff !

UNDP: Reviving a Practical Human
Development Organization
Craig N. Murphy and Stephen Browne


Constant reform has characterized the UN Development Programme (UNDP) throughout its existence, say the authors of two recent books on the UNDP. Change bespeaks an organization ready to adapt but also fundamentally uncertain about its proper role. It teeters between two sets of tensions. The first tension is between being both coordinator and competitor in the UN development system; the second tension is between exerting priorities from the center while being flexible in program countries. These tensions should be resolved, and enable UNDP to be the UN’s human development organization.

USAID funds UNDP's project on: "legal and social challenges facing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) in Viet Nam"

LGTB dialogueHa Noi, 5 June 2013 – A first-ever national dialogue on the legal and social challenges facing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in Viet Nam kicked off today with representatives  of LGBT people throughout the country; civil society organizations working on LGBT issues; United Nations agencies and other development partners.

The National LGBT Community Dialogue was supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Participants discussed progress of the LGBT movement in Viet Nam and examined difficulties facing the community in such areas as education, health, employment, family affairs, the media, community and politics.

Click here to read this in full at UNDP Viet Nam: http://www.un.org.vn/en/undp-agencypresscenter1-99/2638-usaid,-undp-support-lgbt-dialogue-for-more-inclusive-development-in-viet-nam.html

Japan and UNDP Highlight Need to Build On Adaptation Achievements in Africa

Japan and UNDP Highlight Need to Build On Adaptation Achievements in Africa
AllAfrica.com
In their opening addresses at the event, Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré, Japan's Parliamentary Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Masaji Matsuyama and UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said they would like to see progress made under the ...

Somaliland: UN Recruiting Private Army

Somaliland: UN Recruiting Private Army
Somaliland Sun
The United Nations Development Programme in Somalia (UNDP Somalia) Office invites professionally reputable firms to express their interest in being pre-qualified for UNDP Somalia's solicitation process for Provision of Security Services in Somaliland.

UNDP-funded study on Parliament committees 'inaccurate', says Teixeira

UNDP-funded study on Parliament committees 'inaccurate', says Teixeira
Stabroek News
Presidential Advisor on Governance Gail Teixeira called “inaccurate” a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) funded study done by two consultants on the committees system of the National Assembly, which found that Parliament lacks ...

A UNDP Bummer: Climate Change Comes In Dead Last In UN Sponsored Vote

Bummer: Action On Climate Change Comes In Dead Last In UN Sponsored Vote
Stop the ACLU
Back in March of this year, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) announced an “innovative initiative” in which participants from around the world are invited to vote on what the priorities should be in a post-2015 world. When I first stumbled ...

China launches its first carbon trading scheme: Report

China launches its first carbon trading scheme: Report
Economic Times
Because of its reliance on coal and heavy industry, China has emerged as the top producer of climate-changing carbon emissions, ahead of the United States, though its per capita emissions remain far below the US. China has no targets to reduce absolute ...

15 killed after gun-battle inside UNDP office in Somalia following al-Shabaab attack

15 killed after gun-battle inside UN office in Somalia following al-Shabaab attack
The Independent
A car bomb exploded outside the gate of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) base and attackers then ran inside and opened fire on security guards, UN sources said. The al-Qa'ida-linked Islamist group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility.

Mystery organization with UN ties issues diplomatic IDs -- except they aren’t

EXCLUSIVE: A controversial organization with tenuous ties to the United Nations -- and which counts Kenyan relatives of Barack Obama among its good-will ambassadors -- is supplying its officials and advisers with  travel documents designed to look much like U.N.-affiliated diplomatic passports. The problem is, they aren’t.

The documents, known in diplomatic parlance as “laissez passers,”  or LPs, ask national authorities to grant privileges and immunities to their holders on official business for the grandly named International Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition (IIMSAM), which claims that it will solve the world’s hunger problems through the cultivation of algae as food.

Photocopies of IIMSAM documents examined by Fox News show that bearers have titles such as “special adviser,” and “special envoy,” as well as good-will ambassador, and that the documents have been issued to people born in a variety of countries, including Iran, Jordan, India and Germany, as well as Hong Kong, which is a special administrative region of China.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

SCANDAL: UNDP pays its staff 30% more than American market (Amb. Joe Torsella earns less than a UNDP Programme Officer - P5)

U.S. Government Accountability Office fails to obtain access to UN/UNDP's way of calculating staff remuneration. 

The nonpartisan watchdog arm of Congress estimates that U.N. salaries, which are theoretically supposed to rise roughly in tandem with U.S. federal civil servants, are as much as 30 percent higher than their U.S. equivalents, depending on the assumptions used to calculate the ratio. That is without a variety of allowances, extra vacation time and other perks that U.N. civil servants enjoy -- not to mention that their salaries, unlike their U.S. counterparts, are tax free.

Read full story here on Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/06/13/us-tries-but-fails-to-discover-how-un-calculates-its-expensive-salaries/#ixzz2WIOemJ4N

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

SCANDAL: - US Lawmakers ask Chairman Whitfield to endorse and implement UNDP's recomendations on energy in US

A group of US lawmakers in a letter to Congressman Ed Whitfield, Chairman Subcommittee on Energy and Power and Committee on Energy and Commerce has said CBO’s conclusions about the costly impacts of climate change are consistent with recent reports released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Economic Forum.

Click here to read more on this @:  http://www.firstpost.com/world/us-needs-to-work-with-india-china-on-climate-change-report-826801.html

UNDP continues its pilots in China: - while preparing global scale transfer of Chinese knowledge and best practices

 

UNDP pilot steps up a level to nationwide coverage

Initiative to reduce DDT usage in China scaled-up after creating significant environmental and economic impact
Beijing, 27 May — The Ministry of Agriculture launched today in Beijing a new national plan to promote an eco-friendly alternative technology to replace the agricultural use of the harmful pesticide Dicofol across China by 2015, based on a pilot project run by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Since 2009, UNDP has been working with partners to encourage Chinese farmers to stop using Dicofol – a DDT-based harmful pesticide – and use safer alternative methods, known as the Integrated Pest Management (IPM), that employ green techniques to ward off agricultural pests.
“This inspiring project is an outstanding example of work for sustainable development, as it contributes to China’s efforts in both poverty reduction and environmental protection,” said Christophe Bahuet, UNDP China Country Director at the launch event.
Farmers who took part in the pilot found that their crops not only could survive without being coated in Dicofol, but actually flourished. Before, apples from one pilot site in Luochuan County, Shaanxi Province were selling for 2 RMB per kilogramme; now they fetch three times that amount. 100,000 farmers at Luochan and two other pilot sites in Hubei and Shandong have already been trained to use environmentally-friendly IPM techniques such as planting grass at the base of trees to provide alternative habitats for pests. Many of these farmers have now become trainers, passing on their knowledge to others. This was one of the project’s key features – once the knowledge has been imparted to a community, it spreads itself.
In addition to boosting incomes, the project has also strived to shut down Dicofol production lines which led to DDT production in China being cut by 2,800 tons, DDT-related emissions falling by 350 tons and DDT-contaminated waste reduced by 1,350 tons. As well as having a positive impact on the environment, these reductions also mean that China was able to meet its obligations under the Stockholm Convention, which governs the use of DDT and sets strict health and safety standards globally.
Based on the successful experiences collected from the three piloting sites, the National Promotion Plan launched today maps out concrete steps to roll out IPM techniques in China’s main plantation areas of oranges, apples and cotton across the country through a series of activities including training, demonstration, communication and incentive-making. This 3-year nationwide plan aims to completely phase out Dicofol use in China by end of 2015.
 “In launching this new plan, the whole of China is planting a seed for a chemical free future,” said Bahuet.
This project is one of many initiatives being implemented in China by UNDP and its partners, as part of a cohesive programme of assistance to the government of China in meeting its targets under various international environmental conventions for chemical control and the Millennium Development Goal to ensure humanity’s environmental sustainability.

Daily Nation: "UNDP’s shortcomings a reflection of a wider failure within the UN system"

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE IN FULL @ DAILY NATION


by Rasna Warah  

Those who have been reading this column will know that I have for some time been advocating for a more thorough and independent evaluation of the United Nations and its various programmes and projects.
The reason I believe this is necessary is because few UN agencies have actively been monitoring or evaluating the work they do and its impact, with the result that millions of taxpayer dollars are simply unaccounted for, pilfered or wasted.
Corruption and mismanagement are often worst in the poorest and neediest countries, particularly those experiencing civil strife. In many countries, including Iraq, Rwanda, the DRC and Haiti, UN failures have had disastrous – and often fatal – results.
Meanwhile, no one is questioning why the UN Security Council, the “peacemaking” organ of the UN, comprises countries that are the leading suppliers of arms to the world.
It is, therefore, heartening to see that the United Nations Development Programme, the UN’s flagship anti-poverty agency that has offices in 177 countries and territories around the world, has not only conducted an evaluation of its projects and activities, but has made the findings public.
The decision to go public is particularly praiseworthy, considering that the report’s findings do not paint a pretty picture of its efforts to reduce poverty around the globe.
This could be due to the fact that apart from UNDP’s own Office of Evaluation, the team that prepared the report comprised external consultants and an advisory panel of experts.
The use of external experts is in itself quite unusual, as the UN is prone to evaluating itself using its own staff, a practice that has seen the worst cases of mismanagement and fraud conveniently swept under the carpet.
Key donors make assessments about which agencies to fund based on claims made in these internal evaluations, which are likely to be flawed.
According to the evaluation report which was ordered in 2009 by UNDP’s executive board and released to the public last month, only about half of UNDP’s projects have had significant outcomes and many have “only remote connections with poverty”.
After spending more than $8.5 billion on anti-poverty activities between 2004 and 2011, the organisation has only “limited ability. . . to demonstrate whether its poverty reduction activities have contributed to any significant change in the lives of the people it is trying to help”.
The report notes that some UNDP national offices are pursuing too many dispersed and small-scale projects that not only have little impact but add to unnecessary costs.
Moreover, many projects are not sustainable as sustainability is “rarely considered in detail as part of the selection and design process”. These problems are not unique to UNDP; they reflect a wider failure within the entire UN system.
Whether a UN agency, or aid agencies in general, actually reduce poverty, is, of course, debatable. Countless studies have shown that aid has little impact on poverty reduction, and in many cases, actually impoverishes people further.
In many African countries, aid substitutes efforts to improve domestic revenue collection or to grow and improve local industries.
In Somalia, aid became part and parcel of the war economy. It is no coincidence that the most aid-dependant countries are also the poorest.
Aid creates crippling dependency. It saps local initiative. It often encourages corruption, as governments and ministries pilfer aid at the expense of their own people. The impact of aid, as the UNDP report shows, is often not assessed, either by the donors or the implementing agencies. This leaves a lot of room for corruption.
Fortunately, an increasing number of donors are demanding more accountability in the way their aid is disbursed. This is partly prompted by a shrinking European economy where citizens are having to bear the burden of harsh austerity measures and are calling for a halt to overseas assistance.

Donor countries are under pressure from their own populations to prove that the aid they have allocated to poor countries is worth it.
The UNDP findings will, hopefully, make donors more selective in choosing the agencies they wish to continue supporting.

UNDP Executive Board - Status of regular resources funding commitments to UNDP and its funds and programmes for 2013 and onwards

UNDP Executive Board - Draft strategic plan, 2014-2017

UNDP Executive Board - Provisional agenda, annotations, list of documents and workplan