British MPs publish report on Department for International Development accounts

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ON UK PARLIAMENT PAGE

03 February 2011

MPs from the Commons International Development Committee examining the Department for International Development's (DFID) annual accounts have said that the Government’s commitment to channel more UK aid toward fragile and war-torn states will make it difficult to ensure that every pound is well spent and that less aid money is likely to reach some poor countries where it may be able to achieve more.

• The International Development Committee
• International Development Committee report: Department for International Development Annual Report and Resource Accounts 2009–10 (PDF)

The cross-party International Development Select Committee publishes its report on the work of DFID in 2009–2010 today. The Chair of the Committee, Malcolm Bruce MP, said:

"We support the Government’s bid to focus more aid on fragile states.

Of the 34 countries furthest from reaching the Millennium Development Goals, 22 are in or emerging from conflict.

But there is no getting away from it, this is going to pose severe difficulties when it comes to make sure every pound is well spent.

War-torn or fragile states are inevitably more vulnerable to corruption and maladministration."

How does Papal visit count as aid?

When scrutinising DFID’s accounts the MPs were also surprised to discover that the Pope’s visit was paid for in part by money supposed to be for overseas development aid (ODA).

The Committee is demanding a response from the Government as to what the £1.85 million, transferred to the Foreign Office for the papal visit, was spent on and an explanation as to how this was ODA compliant.

Malcolm Bruce MP added:

"Many people will be as surprised as we were to discover that UK aid money was used to fund the Pope’s visit last year.

Ministers need to explain exactly what this was spent on and how it tallies with our commitments on overseas aid."

Back office budget cuts

The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) announced reductions in DFID’s running costs to 2% of the total budget. If achieved, this would make DFID the most cost-efficient development organisation in the world.

This is to be achieved by a large reduction in back office administration costs (which excludes front-line staff) of £34 million over the CSR period. The International Development Committee supports the proposals to make savings in back office staff, but the MPs are warning that Ministers must ensure that reduced administration budgets do not affect the ability to deliver aid programmes on the ground.

Mr Bruce said:

"In the last few years DFID has already made some big savings in administration costs - for example shedding over a third of its HR staff.

The savings set out in the spending review should make it one of the most efficient development organisations in the world - with fewer back office and more frontline staff - provided they do not undermine DFID’s ability to do its work effectively."

Savings being made at DFID

While declining as a share of total costs, running costs will increase in real terms over the next four years because the total budget will rise so much.

The increase in running costs, together with the reduction in administration costs, will allow DFID to recruit 300 to 400 more frontline staff.

The report urges the department to ensure it recruits staff with the right skills to work in fragile states and with multinational organisations.

There has already been a reduction in staff working on the Department’s corporate functions. Staff working on communications have been reduced from about 100 to about 60 this year and there has been a significant reduction in the number of Human Resources (HR) staff from 150 in 2005 to 89 in 2010.

The number of senior staff, including Director Generals has fallen from four to three and the number of Directors from 14 to 12. This reduction will continue the downward trajectory of corporate costs which have already been reduced from £57m. in 2006–07 to £38m. this year.

On Egypt, Ban plays the waiting game

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ON FOREIGN POLICY

Posted By Colum Lynch Wednesday, February 2, 2011 - 7:33 PM

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned today's attacks by pro-government mobs on peaceful Egyptian protesters as "unacceptable," called on security forces and demonstrators to show restraint and warned that the world should "not underestimate the danger of instability across the Middle East."

Ban's remarks, made to reporters following a meeting in London with British Prime Minister David Cameron, came one day after the U.N.'s high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, urged the Egyptians authorities to "avoid excessive use of force" against "peaceful" demonstrators. The Geneva-based rights advocate also called for investigations into the police's handling of the crisis, and criticized Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government for demonstrating through 30 years of iron-fisted rule that "human rights have not been one of its prime concerns."

The combined remarks of the top U.N. officials marked an escalation in the organization's criticism of President Mubarak's handling of the current crisis, and offered moral support for the protesters who came under attack by Mubarak's loyalists. While Ban and Pillay stopped short of calling on Mubarak to step down, their remarks constituted an extraordinary public rebuke of the leader of a country that wields enormous political influence and power in the United Nations.

But the tough talk masked an essentially tentative substantive approach by the U.N. leadership to the popular uprisings sweeping across Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and the broader Arab world. After six weeks of near-daily protests in the region, Ban has still not yet convened his top advisors for a major strategy session on the crisis.

U.N. policy advisors, unlike their counterparts in Washington, have not met with Middle East experts to discuss the crisis. Only on Tuesday did the U.N.'s top communications officials meet with the organization's senior political advisors for the first time.

In the meantime, Ban's chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, and other top U.N. political advisors have counseled a cautious approach to the crisis, arguing in closed door meetings that it would not be appropriate for the United Nations to initiate bold ideas or proposals in an effort to shape the outcome of events or to be seen taking sides in a fluid political crisis whose outcome remains unclear. These officials maintain that the U.N. can only maintain its relevance over the medium- and long-term if it scrupulously avoids taking sides in the region. The most that Ban and other select officials should be doing, according to these officials, is offer broad public statements that endorse basic human rights.

Nambiar's approach has frustrated other U.N. officials, particularly within the communications division, who have been pressing for a tougher response to Mubarak's rule, and counseling the U.N. leadership to more closely align itself with the protesters. The U.N., they argue, needs to be positioned on what they see as the right side of history if or when Mubarak and other Arab autocrats fall.

Critics within the organization say that the U.N. leadership's caution is fueled by a fear of undertaking a politically risky initiative in a year when Ban is seeking reelection for a second term. They also note that the U.N. is concerned about upsetting other Middle East governments, including Saudi Arabia, which staunchly support Mubarak.

A deeper problem, they note, is that the U.N. lacks the intellectual expertise. None of the senior advisors in Ban's office are Arabic speaking, and none of the five top key policy makers in the Department of Political Affairs, which is taking the lead in fashioning the U.N. response, speak Arabic.

"These guys want to wait and see how this shakes out. They are not willing to stick their necks out because they don't know where this will end up, and they don't want to piss anybody off, particularly in an election year," one U.N. official said of Ban's top advisors. "If we were serious we would at least be briefing senior staff members on the crisis, hosting a panel of wise men, or bringing in experts from DC or from New York's foreign policy community. We're not doing that."

Ban's defenders say that the perception of U.N. inaction has been driven more by the fact that Ban has been traveling abroad, where he has been closely monitoring events in the Middle East and consulting with top regional representatives and advisors accompanying him on the trip. They say many of his critics in New York are not privy to those discussions.

U.N. officials also say that, even in the absence of a broadly coordinated strategy, there have been a number of individual initiatives from the organization in response to the crisis, including an offer to provide electoral assistance to Tunisia.

Follow me on Twitter @columlynch

Germany to investigate UNDP and GFATM, while Helen Clark stonewalling the investigation

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ON

GERMAN FEDERAL MINISTRY OF ECONOMIC

COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT

31.01.2011
Meeting with the Secretariat of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at the BMZ

Today intensive discussions were held with the Global Fund Secretariat at the invitation of the BMZ. Given the allegations of corruption and misuse of funds that have been directed towards the Fund, the German government called on the Secretariat to clarify the situation regarding the possible extent to which funds have been misused by widening the circle of cooperation countries already being reviewed to include the remaining 112 countries receiving support from the Fund. Moreover, the German government asked the Fund to quickly take steps that would ensure that everything possible was done to prevent corruption and misuse of funds.

"We will support these efforts by the Fund by arranging for an independent external review to determine the nature and the extent of the misuse of funds based on a representative sample of countries," said German Development Minister Dirk Niebel. "This sample will focus above all on countries that are particularly affected by corruption. Also to be examined is the degree to which the implementing and financing modalities used by the Fund – which often include the direct transfer of funds to recipient countries – may favour corruption and the misuse of funds. The focus will be particularly on areas that have been shown to be especially susceptible to corruption, for example expenditures on training measures, per diem allowances, the reimbursement of travel costs or the procurement of medicines. I also want us to find ways of boosting the Fund’s results orientation."

The German government is seeking to find ways of including other concerned donors in the review, involving the Bundesrechnungshof(Federal Audit Office) and also German and European institutes specialising in development policy. It invites the Global Fund Secretariat and its Board of Directors to make suggestions regarding the concept and scope of the review.

"The German government will make a decision about its contributions to the Global Fund for 2011 based on the findings from the special review, which will be available by the summer, and on the measures that the Fund has taken by then to address the susceptibility of its activities to corruption," said Dirk Niebel. "The Fund has given an assurance that the ongoing treatment of sick people will not be compromised at any point by the enquiries."

Given the wide-reaching allegations of corruption and misuse of funds directed towards the Global Fund, German Development Minister Dirk Niebel had announced on 25 January 2011 that all German payments to the Fund were to be suspended and a special review undertaken.

EXCLUSIVE: Global Fund Backed by Bill Gates to Launch Probe in the Wake of Fraud

Click here to view this on

By George Russell

Published February 02, 2011

| FoxNews.com

An independent probe into fraud allegations at the $28 billion global health fund supported byMicrosoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda will be announced later this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday, Fox News has learned.

The investigation was originally demanded by the government of Germany, which last week announced the suspension of more than $250 million in new contributions to the fund. Its imminent announcement was officially confirmed to Fox News by Jon Liden, a spokesman for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), who added that “an independent, trusted individual” will be named as head of the probe, which the fund prefers to call a “review.”

Negotiations about the scope of the probe were still under way Tuesday, and were slated to include a major international conference call among donors on Wednesday. According to Liden, “all donor countries” to the fund would be invited to participate in the review.

Some 54 countries have contributed or pledged more than $28 billion to the fund since 2001, according to the Global Fund. The United States is far and away its biggest supporter, with donations and pledges of more than $9.5 billion from 2001 through 2013; the U.S. has paid up more than $5.1 billion of that total.

The GFATM has also received backing from a number of high-profile private-sector institutions, including Product (RED), which has the backing of rock star Bono; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and the Fox Television show "American Idol."

So far, only Germany and Sweden ($85 million) have suspended upcoming donations to the fund.German Development Minister Dirk Niebel, who initially sparked the funding freeze, has said that the funding freeze will stay in place until the investigation finishes its work, which he anticipates will be this summer.

According to Germany’s Niebel, the fund has “given an assurance that the ongoing treatment of sick people will not be compromised at any point by the investigations.” But according to the fund’s spokesman, “any withholding of a German contribution for 2011 will affect our ability to sign grants approved for funding in December 2010.”

The controversy over the misuse of Global Fund health money erupted two weeks ago, after an Associated Press story, citing a report from the fund’s inspector-general, charged that “as much as two-thirds” of some Global Fund health grants to developing countries had been “eaten up by corruption.” The story specifically named projects in Djibouti, Mali, Mauritania and Zambia, and cited forged or non-existent receipts for “training events,” phony travel and housing claims and outright theft, along with shoddy bookkeeping

In response, the Global Fund noted that all of the wrongdoing had been uncovered by the fund itself the previous year; that programs in the offending countries had been suspended and criminal charges laid; and that the fund was demanding the return of $34 million. The total amount involved, according to the Global Fund, was only a pittance compared to some $13 billion in spending so far. It quoted the inspector general, John Parsons, as declaring that “The distinguishing feature of the Global Fund is that it is very open when it uncovers corruption.”

On the other hand, only a fraction of the total Global Fund disbursements had been examined.
Further complicating the issue was the fact that the fund does not manage the health programs it finances in afflicted countries, but delegates that to various “implementing agencies” or governments themselves -- or parts of the United Nations.

In the case of Mauritania, half the fund’s money was managed directly by the government, but some projects were managed by the sprawling United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the U.N.’s flagship anti-poverty agency. According to a UNDP spokesman, the agency’s own auditors identified “more than $1 million in fraud” involving fund money among UNDP’s government partners, and blew the whistle itself.

Worldwide, UNDP is among the largest managers for Global Fund projects, handling 63 grants in 27 countries, worth about $1.1 billion, and providing “capacity development support” to “a wide variety” of other fund partners, according to a UNDP spokesman.

The main reason for the fund’s reliance on UNDP, according to knowledgeable sources, is the U.N. agency’s array of offices in 166 countries, including a large number where the fund can’t find other project managers.

Just how sure the Global Fund can be that UNDP is doing its job well, however, is a matter of contention. According to a source familiar with the situation, it is a longstanding sore point between the Global Fund and UNDP that the U.N. agency does not provide copies to non-government donors of internal audits it carries out on Global Fund projects. Instead, the fund gets overall summaries.

“This is a big weakness,” says one informed source, who added that there has been a “long dialogue” between the two institutions over the lack of auditing information and that the fund’s campaign to get full auditing details from the agency is continuing. Fox News has learned that the fund’s inspector general, John Parsons, met with UNDP officials Tuesday on the issue.

“You can’t manage billions of dollars in spending volume just by handing over summaries of audits,” the source added.

On its own website, UNDP says that “Global Fund grants managed by UNDP are subject to intensive audit scrutiny,” before acknowledging that under “current policy” it can’t provide the audit details. But, UNDP says, it “does, as a standing practice, inform the Global Fund about key audit findings and recommendations resulting from internal audits of Global Fund grants managed by UNDP.”

In addition, a UNDP spokesman said, “we have on several occasions exchanged with the Global Fund’s Office of the Inspector General, on a confidential basis, information relevant to investigations.”

The spokesman added that UNDP is “currently working out procedures” with its 36-nation supervisory executive board “to share complete audits with the Global Fund and other institutional donors.”(The U.S. is an executive board member, and also has a representative on the Global Fund’s International Board.)

UNDP’s Executive Board is currently meeting in New York City, but a UNDP spokesman said it hoped the new arrangement would be in place “in September, if not sooner.” The Global Fund, according to a knowledgeable source, “thinks it can be done faster.”

The issue of UNDP’s disclosure of internal audits, even to executive board members, has long been a point of controversy. They remained a UNDP internal secret (in UNDP terms, a “management tool”) until 2007, after a prolonged battle with the Bush administration over programs in North Korea, and even now are not given to countries that ask for them, but simply are presented for reading -- along with a non-disclosure agreement. Even then, they can be redacted or kept confidential if the country where the audit takes place raises significant objections.

Nor will further audit disclosure on UNDP’s part necessarily bring full transparency to the way the U.N. agency is handling the Global Fund’s money in some of the world’s toughest and most sensitive places. According to UNDP documents, the agency itself can farm out to other contractors some of the responsibilities for spending and accounting for Global Fund money -- as, for example, in the case of Northern Sudan.

CLICK HERE FOR THE UNDP HELP-WANTED OFFER FOR NORTHERN SUDAN

The issues of shared audits, sub-contracted programs and financial controls and other safeguards over all the money supposedly flooding in to help millions of the world’s ailing people will no doubt be among many things examined by the independent investigation, once it has been announced and organized.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News

Egypt: Please, Not ElBaradei

Click here to go to PajamasMedia.Com Website for this story

by Claudia Rosett

Freedom, justice, and prosperity for Egypt are devoutly to be wished. As is abundantly clear by now, the big question for the genuine democrats among the demonstrators, and a big question for the U.S., Israel, and other democracies, is how Egyptians might thread this needle without ending up with something even worse than Hosni Mubarak — the ossified dictator they’ve had for almost 30 years. On that score, as Iran’s regime and the Muslim Brotherhood applaud the protests, it is not at all reassuring to see former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei emerging as a potential leader of the opposition. Reuters carries one of the latest reports, dateline Cairo, on the Muslim Brotherhood backing ElBaradei as the man to negotiate with Egypt’s government on behalf of the demonstrators.

At a fast glance, ElBaradei might seem like an ideal candidate for the job. He’s Egyptian, cosmopolitan, with credentials that include years as the head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, and the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. Since he retired from the IAEA in 2009, there have been reports that he might be interested in an Egyptian presidential run. The Mubarak government has just further burnished ElBaradei’s credentials by putting him under house arrest.

Beware. ElBaradei is no Aung San Suu Kyi. As head of the IAEA, ElBaradei often looked like a shill for Iran — repeatedly glossing over obvious signs of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, obfuscating the realities, and delaying action. In the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick gives a good rundown of how, in the U.S. effort to corral Iran’s nuclear program, ElBaradei was not part of the answer, but part of the problem. Glick also describes ElBaradei’s cozy relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood — progenitor of al-Qaeda and Hamas — quoting him as giving a recent interview to Der Spiegel in which he claimed the Muslim Brotherhood has “not committed any acts of violence in five decades.”

In 2009, as I reported at the time here on Pajamas Media, ElBaradei most inappropriately used his platform as erstwhile “neutral” head of the IAEA to bully the BBC for dropping plans to broadcast a fund-raiser for terrorist-controlled Gaza. As for his 2005 Nobel prize, bestowed despite a tenure that spanned Pakistan’s breakout nuclear test, North Korea’s nuclear buildup to its 2006 first nuclear test, and Iran’s lively pursuit of the bomb, this was one of those Norwegian choices that had nothing to do with peace, and plenty to do with political machinations. Coming in 2005, at the height of the Oil-for-Food scandal, ElBaradei’s Nobel looked more like a sop to shore up a UN sinking in its own sleaze than an award that should inspire respect.

Egypt desperately needs honest, genuinely democratic leaders to emerge from the current inferno. ElBaradei may look smooth and convenient, with his UN past, his Nobel, and his longtime skills at self-promotion. But please, not El Baradei.

Overthrowing of last Pharaoh in Egypt sends chilling message to U.N. Corrupt leaders

Ban Ki Moon and other U.N. Corrupt leaders scared

of recent popular unrest in Arab Countries.

Their prospects to stay in office and abuse public funds

get slimmer by the day.

UN's Counter-surveillance Unit assessment of Jordan says the "kingdom is in its last days"

The UN's Department of Security Services - Counter-Surveillance Unit (Geneva) has conducted an assessment of current situation in Jordan and has concluded that based on the detailed information from UN sources in the ground, the Jordan Kingdom might be in its last days.

The secret briefing report for "top UN officials" seem to indicate that the UN should immediately prepare an ad-hoc plan to deal with the humanitarian and refugee crisis if the situation would precipitate like in Egypt. They also call that UN should get ready to immediately assist at least the large number of Palestinian refugees whom are located in Jordan refugee camps. The report says that these portion of population might face real hardship.

Secret minutes of UN Security Team in Jordan indicate potential unrest as "imminent"

In a recent secret minutes of UN Security Team in Jordan, the UN leaders, Heads of Agencies and Security Officers shared what they called "indications of an imminent unrest" in Jordan. In the meeting the participants sought immediate guidance from UNDSS and Headquarters about the situation and how to deal with it in case of mass unrests. Another meeting will be taking place on Tuesday 1st of February.

Based on the minutes and the atmosphere inside the meeting one can say that a potential unrest and implication of palestinian refugees who live in deep poverty with a popular discontent towards the king could become a deadly situation for Jordan.

UN leadership in Jordan is told to "keep all options open" including a potential withdrawals of personnel, mainly from UNRWA HQs and UN development agencies. Tomorrows meeting would decide on potential alternative routes of escape for UN personnel, if airport and other mass transportation means are blocked.