Watch this new video from the Make Aid Transparent campaign. It explains why aid should be transparent and who can benefit from it.
Although Iran's attempt to develop a nuclear weapon is garnering most of the world's attention, the U.S. should not lose sight of the fact that North Korea already successfully detonated two nuclear devices on October 9, 2006, and May 25, 2009. Indeed, the U.S. believes North Korea has enough plutonium for at least half a dozen nuclear weapons[1] and has been striving to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering these weapons by testing its long-range Taepodong-2 missiles twice in recent years.[2]
North Korea's actions have violated numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions. In response to the 2006 missile and nuclear tests, the Security Council passed resolutions 1695 and 1718, which directed that North Korea "suspend all [ballistic missile] activities [and] abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs." The Security Council unanimously condemned the 2009 nuclear test in resolution 1874 and strengthened existing sanctions[3] to ban all weapons exports and imposed travel restrictions and froze the assets of government officials and businesses.[4]
To its credit, the Obama Administration has taken a firm line with North Korea. The White House has refused to indulge Pyongyang's trademark strategy: initiating provocative actions in order to secure concessions. The Administration has also rejected North Korea's demand that the U.S. enter into bilateral negotiations.[5] Considering North Korea's clear opposition to disarming[6] and reports that North Korea is evading U.N. sanctions,[7] America's tough stance is appropriate.
Yet given its otherwise firm stance toward Pyongyang, it is curious that the Obama Administration, as well as Congress, is not more wary of supporting development and humanitarian assistance to North Korea. For example, despite the poor prospects for fruitful negotiations and Pyongyang's history of misusing aid, the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) and other U.N. entities continue to provide assistance to that country. The U.S. should use its influence to curtail this assistance, which can be diverted and misused by the North Korean government, and ensure that it is subject to rigorous monitoring and verification standards.
The U.N. and North Korea
Despite condemning North Korea's violation of multiple Security Council resolutions, several U.N. organizations remain involved in North Korea, including the World Food Program (WFP),[8] UNICEF,[9] and UNDP. The linkage between humanitarian or development efforts and security concerns need not be explicit.[10] However, the tight control the North Korean government imposes on its citizens and over the in-country activities of non-governmental organizations and international organizations providing humanitarian and development assistance should raise concerns about the benefit of such assistance to the North Korean people.
Humanitarian Assistance. Many argue that the U.S. should continue to support the U.N.'s humanitarian work in North Korea regardless of Pyongyang's actions. For instance, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe recently stated, "These are human beings that need the food. It's not the political system. This shouldn't be argued in a political way."[11]
There is little doubt about the suffering of the North Korean people. However, it is the repressive policies of the North Korean government that have most directly contributed to the country's food shortage by constraining internal and external trade and inhibiting private production.[12]Moreover, although the U.N. is currently providing "nutritional supplements to as many as 1.3 million of North Korea's 24 million people,"[13] the overall U.N. effort was dramatically scaled back last year after North Korea informed WFP and the U.S. to reduce and end, respectively, provision of food assistance and ordered five non-governmental organizations involved in distributing the food aid to leave the country.[14] Considering the situation, it is hard to separate the suffering of the North Korean people from the political decisions of the government.
An additional concern is tracking and accounting for international food assistance. Pascoe has argued that "our people believe they have a very clear idea of who's using the food, where it's going, and it's really for the good of the people who need it most."[15] But a 2008 South Korea news story reported that "South Korean military authorities have known since 2003 ... that North Korea has transported rice supplied by the South for humanitarian purposes to frontline units of the North Korean Army."[16] The ability to track such assistance needs to be enhanced if donors are to be confident that humanitarian assistance benefits the people of North Korea--not the government.
Although politically difficult, it is eminently reasonable for the U.S. and other nations to deny additional food and humanitarian assistance to North Korea until the government agrees to rigorous, transparent monitoring standards and delivery verification. Such standards should, at a minimum:
UNDP. It is even more reasonable for the U.S. to demand that the UNDP executive board rescind its January 2009 decision to renew UNDP activities in North Korea. Information provided by whistleblowers to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations led the mission to investigate the UNDP program in North Korea. The information gleaned from these inquiries and subsequent media attention led the UNDP executive board to suspend its activities in North Korea in March 2007.
Subsequent reports by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate[17] and an independent audit commissioned by UNDP[18] confirmed that deficiencies in UNDP rules, procedures, and management permitted North Korea to dictate the composition of UNDP staff, access hard currency, and avoid standard monitoring procedures for projects and financial transactions.
After securing assurances from UNDP on a number of measures (ranging from ineffectual to potential improvements[19]) to prevent further mismanagement, the UNDP executive board voted in January 2009 to resume activities in North Korea.[20] UNDP returned to North Korea in September 2009,[21] and in December 2009, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark announced that UNDP will start "with a small program--around $2.5 million a year and a very small number of employees."[22] UNDP had three foreign staff and 13 North Korean staff in place as of December 2009, and the office will be fully operational in February 2010.
This decision should raise alarm bells among those concerned with pressuring Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program. As confirmed in both the Senate and independent UNDP audits, the North Korean government was able to circumvent the U.N.'s anti-proliferation sanctions under the previous UNDP program and secure "dual-use" technology (including computers, software, satellite-receiving equipment, and spectrometers) that could be used for its nuclear and military programs. The nature of the North Korean regime makes abuse a near certainty.
Any U.S. Administration interested in ending North Korea's nuclear program should demand a freeze on UNDP activities as long as North Korea remains in violation of Security Council resolutions. This is doubly the case since the seven UNDP projects,[23] unlike food aid, would not focus on relieving the suffering of those most affected by the depredations of the North Korean government: the people of North Korea.
Bringing Pressure to Bear
A recalcitrant and unrepentant North Korean regime should not be rewarded. Although under the right circumstances humanitarian assistance could alleviate the suffering in North Korea, the U.S. and other countries are justified in demanding assurances that their charity is not being misused. Suspending UNDP programs in North Korea should be even less controversial since these programs are not focused on immediate relief.
The U.S. is a major contributor to and sits on the executive boards of UNDP, WFP, and UNICEF. The Obama Administration, bolstered by financial incentives from Congress, should demand that these organizations curtail or suspend their North Korea programs until rigorous, transparent monitoring standards and delivery verification are implemented and, in the case of UNDP, suspend all activities until Pyongyang complies with Security Council resolutions and ends its nuclear program.
Brett D. Schaefer is Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation and editor of ConUNdrum: The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009).
SEOUL — Sanctions-hit North Korea on Wednesday formally launched a development bank aimed at attracting foreign funds to revive its economy, state media reported.
Directors of the State Development Bank held their first meeting to elect officers and decide on a management structure and annual budget, the Korean Central News Agency said.
The bank, set up on the orders of leader Kim Jong-Il, will have "advanced banking rules and system for transactions with international monetary organisations and commercial banks," the agency said.
It would invest in major projects and act as a commercial bank.
The bank is the latest move by the North to revive its ailing economy and rebuild crumbling infrastructure. In January it upgraded the status of Rason, a free trade zone near the border with China and Russia, to boost foreign trade.
Tougher United Nations sanctions imposed after missile and nuclear tests last year restrict access by the impoverished communist state to international credit, and ban its lucrative weapons exports.
A UN resolution instructs member states and international bodies not to make new grants or loans except for humanitarian and developmental purposes "directly addressing civilian needs."
The UN could ease or roll back the sanctions if the North decides to rejoin six-party nuclear disarmament talks and makes substantial progress towards scrapping its nuclear programmes.
The North is under diplomatic pressure to return to the nuclear dialogue which it quit last April. It says the United States should first commit to holding talks on a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-1953 Korean War.
Analysts have said the decision to found the development bank shows leader Kim is confident the six-party talks will eventually produce a settlement.
The board is made up of members of the National Defence Commission (NDC), the nation's top ruling body; the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, a state agency in charge of exchanges with South Korea; the finance ministry; the Korea Taepung International Investment Group and two independent directors.
NDC representative Jon Il-Chun was elected director-general and Pak Chol-Su, described as a Korean resident in China, as his deputy.
Hawaii congressional candidate Charles K. Djou, who aims to become his state’s second Republican ever to serve in the House, says that despite all the tough talk on Iran, the real threat to the country comes from “the nutcase in Pyongyang.”
“I’m far more concerned about a nuclear bomb landing in Honolulu [from North Korea],” a fired-up Djou said Monday night, arguing the country’s leader, Kim Jong-il, has 20 bombs capable of striking Hawaii.
While admitting an attack by Tehran “would be bad,” he said it would likely target Israel and not the United States, and thus Kim Jong-il is a greater threat to America than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Djou said all foreign aid to North Korea should be halted, and the same type of pressure put on Iran by the United States should be placed on Kim.
Djou, who has been described in the media as “the next Scott Brown,” is running in May’s special election for a seat long-held by Democrats but now within reach for Republicans following the resignation of Rep. Neil Abercrombie, who gave up the seat to run for governor.
Like Brown, Djou bills himself as opposing Obama’s health-care bill, but is more moderate than other Republicans on social issues. He supports repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and says Roe v. Wade shouldn’t be overturned.
Asked about the comparisons with newly installed Massachusetts senator, Djou pointed out other superficial similarities: Both are lawyers, both have two daughters and both have military backgrounds. But there’s one thing the Hawaiian candidate said he doesn’t have in common with Brown, who in his youth infamously posed for Cosmopolitan magazine: “no nude photos of me anywhere.”
During a meeting with several reporters at a Washington steak house, he said “nothing can make me more proud” than for a Republican to represent Obama’s home district — and that it could have broader political reverberations outside Hawaii.
“It really makes a statement that no Democratic seat in the country is safe,” he said.
He is the only Republican contender among the two other candidates: State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa and former Hawaii Rep. Ed Case, both Democrats. “They dislike me,” he said of his opponents. “But they really hate each other.”
Neither could be reached for comment.
Djou, a Honolulu city council and former state House representative, was in Washington this week to raise money and meet with national Republicans, though he was quick to say he does “not covet, and I do not seek national support.” Though he said he’s happy to get whatever help he can get, most of the money he has raised — 94 percent of it — has come from inside Hawaii.
Gautham Nagesh contributed to this report.
Sure, everyone wants to help rebuild Haiti and finally turn the country into a thriving, self-sustaining state. But after decades of effort, many of the donors themselves have concluded that it’s a Sisyphian task without end. By late January, more than $1 billion had been pledged for emergency earthquake recovery. From 1990 through 2009, donors spent nearly $5 billion on projects there, nearly all of it for naught.
The last event to prompt a spasm of foreign aid came in 2004, after Hurricane Jeanne devastated the island and left 700 people dead. The United Nations asked donor countries to provide $59 million in aid.
That effort spawned introspection because, once again, a flood of money had not changed facts on the ground at all. Haiti remained the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. Almost 30 percent of the children still were victims of stunting, meaning they did not grow, mentally or physically. Ten percent still suffered from wasting, meaning they were, essentially, starving to death.
By 2006, the National Academy of Public Administration, a nonpartisan, U.S. government-funded agency, had completed a comprehensive report titled “Why Foreign Aid to Haiti Failed.” Its preface states: “This paper explains why, after consuming billions in foreign aid over three decades and hundreds of millions specifically for democratization programs, not to mention billions for other programs, Haiti remains politically dysfunctional and impoverished.”
The report’s conclusion, put simply: Haiti has no government to speak off. The state offers “dysfunctional budgetary, financial or procurement systems making financial and aid management impossible,” the World Bank reported in 2005. The National Academy described secret, off-the-books budgeting, “sole source contracts and unadvertised bidding” as well as government spending policies that “make it virtually impossible to identify fund uses, beneficiaries or impact.” Meanwhile, “budget reductions and low salaries drove away most finance professionals.”
All of that screamed: corruption! In fact, at the time of the National Academy report, Transparency International ranked Haiti the most corrupt nation on Earth. (Since then Haiti has climbed up a few notches, bettered by two other American client states, Iraq and Afghanistan.) Why do you think Haiti’s opposition leaders are clamoring to get involved in the foreign-aid funding debate? Perhaps some of them want a voice in rebuilding the nation. More likely, they want direct access to the cash. Rene Preval, the Haitian president, is not letting them in the door. He may be ineffectual, but he’s not stupid.
Even without the corruption problem, how can an aid group do anything useful — build a school, set up a health clinic — without involving the government in deciding where the school, or clinic, should go and who the teachers, or doctors, will be? How will the school get textbooks, where will the clinic get its medications and supplies? In 1998, the U.S. Agency for International Development concluded that “Haiti’s public institutions were too weak and ineffective to provide the level of partnership needed with USAID or other donors to promote development.” Almost 10 years later, the World Bank found “a total mismatch between levels of foreign aid and government capacity to absorb it.”
The U.S. State Department classifies Haiti as one of the world’s two least functional nations. The other is Somalia, which also has next to no government. So when the donors meet at the United Nations later this month, what should they do? Give up on good governance projects, a favorite of NGOs. Decades of effort have accomplished practically nothing. As the World Bank put it, “projects in Haiti have unusually low outcome ratings, along with very limited institutional-development impact.”
What the world should do is what it has been doing since the earthquake on Jan
Former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who were asked to serve as the chief fundraisers for Haiti, argued in a New York Times op-ed article that it was time the West gave enough money “to help the Haitian people realize their dream for a stronger, more secure nation.” That’s fine. But learn from the recent past. Don’t throw money at programs that have been proved to produce no useful results.
Joel Brinkley
LONDON - The United Nations Ethics Committee has upheld complaints by a former employee of the UN Development Program who said he suffered retaliation from the UNDP for alleging that its Somalia program was corrupt.
The man, Ismail Ahmed, was transferred to another office without proper visa support, and the UNDP Somalia office later told a potential employer not to hire him because of his "silly non-proven accusations", Ethics Committee Chairman Robert Benson found in a report seen by Reuters.
Ahmed has identified one of the main authors of the retaliation as Eric Overvest, a Dutch national who is now in charge of the UNDP office in earthquake-stricken Haiti.
Ahmed's case has been supported by the U.S.-based Government Accountability Project (GAP), a non-profit organization which backs whistleblowers in exposing corruption.
"A retaliator in Dr. Ahmed's case was promoted and transferred to Haiti, where he was the Country Director for UNDP at the time of the devastating earthquake there," GAP said in a statement issued to Reuters.
"The move is a cause for concern as the ability of UNDP to monitor the disbursement of aid in Haiti has been severely compromised by the chaotic aftermath of the disaster."
UNDP spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that following the Ethics Committee ruling, "the matter of individual accountability" for the retaliation against Ahmed had been referred to the UNDP's Office of Audit and Investigations.
"As that aspect is currently pending, UNDP is not in a position to comment further," he said.
He described Overvest as talented, dedicated and skilled in dealing with countries in crisis.
"We are extremely pleased with his critical work in Haiti, where he has been UNDP's Country Director since 2009. Our investigation found no involvement on his part in any of the alleged corrupt activities," Dujarric said.
Overvest did not respond to emailed questions from Reuters on Tuesday. Dujarric said he would not be available for comment.
"SILLY ACCUSATIONS"
Ahmed says it was Overvest, then a deputy country director in the UNDP Somalia program, who flew to Dubai in November 2007 and told the Somali Money Transmitters Association not to take him on as a consultant.
The UN Ethics Committee chairman's report did not mention Overvest by name, but upheld Ahmed's complaint of damage to his professional reputation.
"It is therefore concluded that the UNDP Somalia Country Office as a retaliatory act communicated quite openly in relation to the consultancy contract that 'UNDP cannot accept Ahmed, who is making all these silly non-proven accusations, to work on a project UNDP was funding'," it said.
Ahmed, a British national, worked for the UNDP from 2005-7 on a program to prevent Somalia's money transfer system from being abused for money laundering and terrorist finance.
The Ethics Committee report upheld three of his complaints of retaliation but rejected four others, including allegations relating to the withholding of payments and non-renewal of his contract. Ahmed was awarded undisclosed compensation last month.
In his whistleblowing dossiers, first reported in May 2008 by Reuters, he alleged the existence of fraudulent payments and bogus contracts in the UNDP Somalia program and said it had supported a company with suspected links to Islamist militants.
The company, Dalsan, collapsed in May 2006 and depositors lost more than $30 million, a blow to the Somali economy which depends heavily on remittances from nationals living abroad. The country faces an Islamist insurgency and has become a haven for pirates who extort huge ransoms by hijacking ships.
UNDP spokesman Dujarric said the agency had given "due consideration" to the corruption allegations and engaged an independent international forensic company to investigate them.
"The results of the investigation were that no corruption had occurred," Dujarric said, declining to name the investigating company or release the report.
Ahmed described the finding as "incredible", adding: "The fact they have refused to share any information clearly shows they have something to hide."
GAP International Program Officer Shelley Walden said it was unclear how widely or narrowly the UNDP was defining corruption.
"To a certain extent, this is a semantic trick bag as, strictly speaking, no UN agency finds that corruption has occurred. UN investigators are not agents of law enforcement . . . Legally, UNDP neither clears nor arraigns anyone," she said. GAP urged the UNDP to make its report public.
"In the absence of the investigative report, GAP cannot determine if there was a good faith effort to investigate Mr. Ahmed's disclosures," Walden told Reuters. "Indeed, a failure to disclose it suggests that UNDP is trying to hide something or inappropriately protect a malefactor."
