UNDP WATCH

SOMALIA SCANDAL: The UNDP officers in Mogadishu pay money for explosions against their building center

2012-02-08T14:01:00.003+01:00

IN ORDER TO RETURN THEIR OFFICES IN NAIROBI AND INCREASE THEIR "SECURITY SUBSIDIES" UNDP STAFF PAYS FOR FAKING EXPLOSIONS AND ATTACKS INTO THEIR COMPOUND.

Mogadishu (Sunatimes) The Somali government security officials have accused UNDP officers to manage the explosions against their center in Mogadishu which is lacked of casualty.

"The chief security of UNDP office in Mogadishu, Mr. Guled Yusufpays money for the explosions against its center, and we have known that sometimes a bottle with lubricate throw into UNDP building which cannot do Al shabab group. Second the explosions against UNDP center don’t cause any injury and death but the objective is two points only" said a Somali government security official who requested to hide his name.

While this security officer talking about the two points said "Mr. Guled wants to move UNDP from Mogadishu to Nairobi, so if this doesn’t work he likes to increase his salary in order to recruit militias from clan"

The chief security of UNDP in Mogadishu, Mr. Guled Yuusf is the cousin of Al shabab spokesman named Mr. Ali Dhere, therefore Mr. Guled was accused that he behinds the kidnap against the UNDP officials in Somalia as well as he invests the militias from Al shabab.

The UN officers in Mogadishu don’t affectionate to work inside of Somalia because of they used to enjoy in Nairobi hotels for the extra money that they take as salaries.

By Hawo Abdulle

Gaza protests against the "Landlord and Employer" - Ban Ki-moon (which understand their anger)

2012-02-02T22:35:00.000+01:00

Israel scores rare victory at UNDP - JPost - Diplomacy & Politics

2012-02-02T19:47:00.000+01:00

Israel scores rare victory at UN - JPost - Diplomacy & Politics

Israel is used to being on the defensive at the United Nations where it is often outnumbered by its foes, but on Thursday its delegation at UN headquarters in New York scored a rare diplomatic victory.

For the first time ever Israel took a seat on the executive board of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), a top UN organization with a budget of about one billion dollars.

“This is a milestone in Israel’s integration to the global agenda of the UN,” said Israel's Deputy Permanent Representative Haim Waxman. “Furthermore, this is the expression of a journey that we have taken from being a developing nation born in adversity to becoming a developed nation, a member of the OECD and now a full member of the UNDP as a representative of the West.”

The UNDP supports a myriad of projects in 177 nations working on health, welfare, women empowerment issues. Israel was voted to its executive board as a representative of the Western voting bloc which includes the US, Holland, Australia, Germany, Japan and others. Its new position on the board will lend it a voice in setting the UNDP’s agenda and deciding on its budget.

Waxman said Israel was proud to be a member of the organization and will use its technological and agricultural know-how to help developing nations. In addition, he said the Jewish state would make women empowerment one of its top agendas.

PJTV: The Working Class ("Only the elites despise earning money...")

2012-02-02T19:25:00.004+01:00

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PJTV: THE WORKING CLASS

http://www.pjtv.com/s/G43TQOA

Foreign Policy: "Are we becoming China's bitch"?

2012-02-01T22:52:00.002+01:00

CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON BLOG.FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

Posted by Isaac Stone Fish

The year 2012 will see a stream of new books in the patented Thomas Friedman "Oh My God the Chinese Are Eating Our Lunch with Environmentally Friendly Chopsticks" mold. Some will be more worthwhile than others. One book in particular, however, is sure to stand out, if only for the title: "Becoming China's Bitch: And Nine More Catastrophes We Must Avoid Right Now."

The author, Peter D. Kiernan, a former partner at Goldman Sachs, explains in the introduction that "it's not a book about China exactly. It's about how America got diverted and lost momentum, and a dragon leapt into the breach. It's also about getting our mojo back."

I spoke with him over the phone:

FP: When did you first realize we were in danger of becoming China's bitch?

PK: When it first occurred to me was in 2008, as a card-carrying member of a discredited class, everyone in Wall Street had to re-think everything. We had gone through a 30 plus year bull market. We now had to wrestle with the idea of who was going to fund the 42 percent of our government that has to be borrowed. Whenever you depend on one major source of finance, if it's too heavy in one area, it deserves a re-thinking.

We haven't really thought clearly about this as a nation. It was a part of this re-thinking everything. We have a much greater co-dependency on China than we'd like to acknowledge. The book is not solely about China, but Becoming China's Bitch is about the cost to our dithering.

FP: How is the 1 percent different from the 99 percent in their fear of becoming China's bitch?

PK: I don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about the one percent in the book or in my life. What I do spend the vast majority of my time focusing on is the 99 percent. We have developed a dependency, and that dependency allows us to be poor savers, roughly 5 percent saving rate in America, compared to 30 percent in China.

I literally believe that we have been opiated as a nation. I believe we've been diverted about issues. The debt ceiling has been raised 100 times since you started working here-it's no big deal. These are not problem solving conversations. These are skin rashes that have nothing to do with the problems. Occupy Wall Street is not the problem, but the symptom. Among them, we have worked ourselves into a co-dependency.

FP: What can we do to prevent becoming China's bitch? How do we make China our bitch?

PK: The title is deliberately provocative, I understand. It's meant to push people outside their comfort zone. We're inert. How do we snap people out of it? We helped create an export monster. We helped them because we developed an appetite for their goods. So we've kind of gotten in this dynamic of exports for finance-we will buy your cheap goods so we can stock our Wal-Mart shelves. They're moving up the value chain. And in exchange for that, we'll look for you to be our number one lender, and that, in pop psychology, you call a co-dependency-exports for finance. They're stuck with us, we're stuck with them. Stalemates, or co-dependencies like this, don't last forever.

The U.N. fix-it kit, zombie cartoon edition

2012-02-01T22:49:00.001+01:00

CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON TURTLEBAY.FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

There's something kind of mesmerizing about this video, and I can't help but play it over and over again. The animation is gorgeous, even as it portrays a bombed-out generic village, overrun by ghoulish combatants, broken buildings, and a child playing with a blue ball in a field of bright red landmines. "Civil administration is destroyed and everywhere, insecurity reigns," a sympathetic voice-over intones as a U.N. personnel carrier patrols the street, the first stage in a U.N. effort to put this place right again.

The video outlines the key stages of U.N. post-conflict rebuilding: de-mining, disarming of combatants, and the reintegration of fighters into society as teachers, mechanics, farmers and small-business owners. Next come the courts, the police stations and the prisons. The ghoulish combatants go through one side of a makeshift U.N. building -- which resembles the U.N.'s temporary headquarters building at the Manhattan compound -- and come out the other looking like fresh-faced members of a new national police force. A better life, certainly, but there's something about the image of the well-ordered future it portrays that gives me the creeps.

Follow me on Twitter @columlynch

CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON TURTLEBAY.FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

Is it OK for a U.N. bureaucrat to accept a holiday bottle of booze?

2012-02-01T22:43:00.003+01:00

CLICK TO VIEW THE FULL ARTICLE AT TURTLEBAY.FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

By Colum Lynch

"To receive or not to receive."

That is the choice the U.N. ethics office put before U.N. staff members as the organization confronts another holiday season, and the awkward question of whether to accept a gift from a U.N. diplomat or contractor doing business with the world body. Like most things at the United Nations, there is no easy answer.

"The holiday season and the New Year are around the corner!" the ethics office counseled in a message posted on the U.N.'s intranet. "It is that time of the year when exchanging gifts and showing hospitality is the order of the day for many cultures and customs. As we revel in holiday cheer, let us take a moment to reflect on our shared values and status as international civil servants."

"As UN staff members, we may be offered gifts from governmental and non-governmental sources alike," the note added. "While the values of the gifts can vary, and the intentions behind them pure, we should be mindful that giving or receiving gifts and hospitality can give rise to potential conflicts of interest. Accepting or giving a gift can create on-going obligations which could undermine our independence and impartiality."

The Guardian: - Who is going to pay for the MDGs?

2012-02-01T22:41:00.001+01:00

CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE ON GUARDIAN.CO.UK

Aid alone is not enough, but transparency and accountability are essential

if tax revenues are to be used to plug the financing gap

School children receive food in the Makoko slum in Lagos, Nigeria. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP

When the millennium development goals (MDGs) were developed, estimates of their cost were used to argue that rich countries should give more aid. The estimates varied – in 2001, the UN suggested that achieving the goals would cost an extra $61bn. In 2002, the World Bank's chief economist for Africa, Shantayanan Devarajan, argued for $63-$72bn. In 2005, the Millennium Project pushed the figure up again, to between $82 and $152bn.

Yet economists recognised that all these estimates came with serious caveats. Jan Vandemoortele, one of the chief architects of the MDGs, suggested the only correct answer to questions about the cost of the MDGs is "more".

Last month, the OECD Development Centre published a report entitledRevisiting MDG Cost Estimates, in which it estimates that achieving the first six MDGs globally will require $120bn more to be spent every year on health, education and poverty reduction. It also argues that such a price tag is "unaffordable" if it is to be met from aid alone, at a time when donor countries' public finances are in trouble.

A Dutch in Belarus uses beautiful tits to make a valid point

2012-02-01T05:00:00.005+01:00

How does UNDP's Resident Representative in Belarus, Mr. Antonius Bernardus BROEK (a Dutch) makes a point when it comes to Breast Cancer ?

BEAUTIFUL BELARUS BREAST

We are told that Helen Clark has ordered a copy for each leader that will be attending G20 later this month.

UNDP promotes campaign against breast cancer - with pictures of BELARUS HOTEST TITS

2012-02-01T04:37:00.004+01:00

22% of US TAX-Payers money goes for UNDP-calendar with Women tits !!!

Belarusians Opened their Breast a Little for UN Calendar - Photos

CLICK HERE FOR THIS ON TELEGRAF.BY

Famous Belarusian women took part in a photo session for the calendar 2012, opening the UNDP information campaign against breast cancer "Regards any." The calendar makes particular emphasis on the information block, providing answers to frequently asked questions about the female body.

According to the project manager, Olga Lukashkova, the calendar "Regards any" is the first step in a massive information campaign on the prevention of breast cancer. "A number of other events are scheduled for 2012. They are expected to attract public attention to the growing problem of breast cancer," she said, reported "Belarusian News."

The role models:

January: Assol Slivets - master of sports of international class in freestyle

February: Kseniya Volkova - participant of the reality show "Survivor"

March: Luciya Lushchik - TV presenter

April: Anna Bondarchuk - TV presenter

May: Olga Barabanschikova - singer, TV presenter

June: Larissa Gribaleva - singer

July: Valeria Arlanova - theater and film actress

August: Kate Samsonova - radio broadcaster

September: Tatiana Baranchik - singer, actress, model

October: Veronica Kruglova - singer, actress

November: Irina Hanunik-Rombalskaya - TV presenter, model

December: Natalia Nemogai - TV presenter

Furthermore, as Telegraf previously reported, Belarusian Irina Hanunik-Rombalskaya (November) won the title of "Supermodel" at the contest "Mrs. Universe 2011," taken place in Bulgaria. 30 other competitors from around the world participated in the show.

UNDP climate film showing at US State Department gets sceptic attention ! RTCC

2012-02-01T04:29:00.002+01:00

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ON WWW.RTCC.ORG

By RTCC Staff

A climate sceptic website has offered $500 to anyone who can ‘debunk’ a UN film on glacier melt in the Himalayas.

The film, ‘Himayalan Meltdown’ is a joint project between the UNDP, Arrowhead Films, and Discovery Channel Asia.

It will be given a special screening at the US State Department today (Monday) ahead of a panel event to discuss the impacts of glacier melt in the Himalayas.

However, the event has received attention from the website junkscience.com.

It is offering $500 to anyone who will attend the event and ask a question on camera “that aims to debunk the notion that global warming is causing the Himalayan glaciers to disappear’.

Glacier melt in the Himalayas has remained a controversial issue

since 2007 when the region found itself at the heart of what was called ‘glaciergate’.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had predicted glaciers would

disappear by 2035. In 2010 IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri admitted the report was flawed,

but said glaciers were melting at a faster pace than previous studies indicated.

This position was backed up last month by new research published by the International

Centre for Integrated Mountain Development – the body that tracks glacier retreat across the region.

The research release coincided with Mountain Day at the UN Climate Summit in Durban

last month and found widespread glacial retreat in all areas of the Himalayas.

The UNDP film examines how the shrinking Himalayan glaciers and rising sea levels

are affecting people in China, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.

Speaking at the film’s premiere last June, Helen Clarke, head of the UNDP said:

“We will see the impact on the Asian river valleys flowing from the Himalayas –

the mudslides from the shifting monsoon rains, the changing mountain terrain, and

new areas of drought – all posing considerable risk to human life and to the well-being

of more than a billion people.

VIDEO: The 45-minute film was first released in June 2011, at the Asia Society in

Washington and New York, and will be shown to the US State Department audience

for the first time today.

Angola's Government deplores UNDP report

2012-02-01T04:13:00.001+01:00

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ON PORTALANGOP.CO.AO

Luanda – The Angolan Planning Ministry learned with indignation of the 2011 Human Development Report drafted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that used statistic data of 2001 on Angola, Angop learned Friday in Luanda.

According to a source, the Planning Ministry considers inacceptable that an organisation of prestige like the UNDP fails to abide by rigour and objectivity in drafting a document of such a great responsibility, for its impact on the assessment of the performance of the Angolan executive and in the perception of the image of the country, mainly abroad.

For this reason, the Planning Ministry as a department organ of the Angolan Executive refuses to recognise any value to the said report and appeals to the UNDP to adopt scientific rigour and respect for the truth of facts in conducting future studies.

The Angolan authorities say that in drafting its reports on Angola, the UNDP insists in using outdated data, disregarding elements contained in the recent Population’s Wellbeing Enquiry (IBEP) compiled with UNICEF and World Bank support, this resulting in the country remaining with the same Human Development Index.

In view of this, and as a protest against the information contained in the Report, the Planning Ministry declines the invitation and support for the official release of the said report in national territory.

UNDP get's in the business of promoting Chinese Fluorescent Bulbs to "save energy"

2012-02-01T04:06:00.002+01:00

UNDP Advocates Use Of Fluorecent Bulbs To Save Energy

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ON LEADERSHIP.NG

The UNDP Global Environmental Facility (GEF) says Nigeria’s energy consumption can be reduced drastically if households use energy efficient fluorescent bulbs.

This was contained in the 2011 GEF Project Report signed by Etiosa Uyigue, the National Coordinator, and made available to journalists on Wednesday in Abuja.

The report said households could save about 67 per cent of the energy they use if the use of fluorescent bulbs could be encouraged.

It said that globally, about 60 per cent carbon dioxide emission came from energy generation ``which contributes significantly to global warming leading to climate change’’.

GEF said that energy efficiency policy should be put in place to gradually phase out incandescent or yellow bulbs.

“Government policies can be directed to encourage the importation and local production of energy efficiency light bulbs and to reduce the cost of these bulbs.

“Awareness creation is also needed to change the attitude of Nigerians on the need to save energy by using the right technology,’’ it said.

The GEF report observed that many Nigerians do not put out their outdoor lighting during the day.

“This is very common in commercial and residential areas in many major towns, public institutions and government ministries.

“To influence behaviour in this direction, the government can come up with laws to penalise any defaulter or make policy and legislation to place tax on energy consumption.’’

It said that this would discourage energy wastage in public and private buildings.

The report said that the inability of the Nigerian government to provide potable drinking water for its citizens had encouraged the use of privately-owned water boreholes.

It noted that the machines used in pumping water from boreholes “is an energy intensive machine” and could consume up to 2,000w of electricity.

“These machines exert much pressure on the PHCN facilities, which are vulnerable to system failure,’’ the report said.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ON LEADERSHIP.NG

A story of corruption and deception at UNDP leads to the NR#2 Rebeca Grynspan

2012-01-31T22:29:00.004+01:00

Four years ago, on 1st April 2008, UNDP WATCH published this story:

Bernard Kliksberg El Padrino de PNUD en America Latina

Today, the Governance Accountability Office, thanks a whistleblower inside the IDB and UNDP has published this:

Conflict of Interest in Management of Spanish Trust Fund at the IDB

by Bea Edwards on January 31, 2012 ( The Whistleblogger )

Inter-American Development Bank

Anonymous whistleblowers report that the management of theFramework General Fund for Spanish Cooperation (FGE) at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is weakened by a conflict of interest. The whistleblowers produced evidence, some of which was published in the Spanish press four months ago, that Carmen Albertos, the IDB staff member who administers the fund, also serves on the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Spain (PSOE) in Washington.

The IDB Code of Ethics is clear on this point:

[T]o preserve the independence and impartiality of their status as international civil servants and to avoid interference and conflict with their duties, they {IDB staff members] may not participate in partisan political activities that imply candidacy, acceptance of or appointment to public office or to a political party position. Accordingly, they must resign their position in the Bank prior to participating in such activities or accepting such offices, or becoming candidates for such positions (III.B.2).

Despite the fact that the details of the conflict of interest appeared in the newspaper ABC on October 2, 2011, IDB management has not addressed the issue. Moreover, the sweeping authority granted to Ms. Albertos, as trust fund manager, aggravates the problem: she alone can approve technical cooperation projects valued at up to €100,000.

Oversight of the fund is also compromised by the fact that the Spanish Ministry official responsible for supervising the Trust Fund lacks independence: she reports to the manager of the trust fund herself. Internal controls, therefore, are very weak. Finally, the whistleblowers show that the annual reports for2008 and 2009 for the FGE lack any assessment of the effectiveness and impact of the projects financed. After 2009, FGE stopped releasing the reports, even internally at the IDB, and this lapse raises additional questions.

In separate letters to IDB President Luís Moreno and Executive Board member for Spain María Pérez-Ribes, GAP requested the release of the 2010 Annual Report for the Fund, but the request has not been acknowledged.

Over the course of the four months since ABC first reported the ethics problems associated with FGE, documents have surfaced showing that the Fund Manager has in fact approved two technical cooperation projects (RG T1712; ATN/FG 11046-CH) managed by another IDB staff member who serves with her on the Executive Committee of the PSOE: Juan José Llisterri. So the conflict of interest is not only apparent; it is real.

The conflict of interest is a matter that IDB management and the Government of Spain ought to take more seriously than they have done thus far. Non-reimbursable technical assistance funds of this kind are scarce, and must be monitored with strict controls. The Government of Spain has become, in fact, a veryimportant donor of these funds, contributing more than twice as much than any other single IDB donor.

Apparently, the Spanish Government is somewhat careless when it comes to the management of the funds it establishes with inter-governmental organizations. The Spanish Trust Fund at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is now managed by Bernardo Kliksberg, who grossly mismanagedthe IDB’s Inter-American Initiative of Ethics and Social Capital funded by the Government of Norway. Kliksberg’s business conduct was improper and irregular to such a degree that the IDB repaid the Norwegian Trust Fund for the amount he misdirected.

If trust funds at inter-governmental organizations funded by governments for earmarked initiatives are to be effective conduits of development financing, the management of them should be de-politicized and subjected to rigorous ethical standards. Otherwise these funds can easily be converted to slush funds, used by unscrupulous actors with privileged access to public money.

Bea Edwards is Executive Director and International Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.

FoxNews: Internal study shows UN's payroll system adds to dysfunction that defines Ban Ki-Moon tenure

2012-01-30T21:01:00.001+01:00

By George Russell

Published January 30, 2012

| FoxNews.com

Add another morass to the administrative swamps at the United Nations: its vast, disorganized and dysfunctional payroll system, which handles much of the money that passes through the nearly $18 billion New York-based Secretariat, and much more besides.

According to a confidential study by the U.N.’s own internal watchdogs, known as the Office of Internal Oversight Services, how the U.N. Secretariat keeps track of its employees and its payroll is a chaotic exception to the normal world of accounting, where books balance, who works where is known, and big, inexplicable variations in payroll records get fast attention -- or else.

But not, apparently, at the U.N., where, among other things, the watchdogs’ report:

U.N. personnel records include thousands of employees who are listed at the New York Secretariat but are paid elsewhere;
About 1,000 employees from other U.N. organizations are on the Secretariat payroll even though they do not appear in the Secretariat system as personnel. The discrepancy in the accounts is papered over as a monthly “receivable”;
Consequently, the report relates, “It was not possible to match” the number of U.N. workers on the organizations staffing rolls with the number being paid on a roster that tallied earnings and deductions, and no attempt has been made to do it -- partially, the report implies, because neither the payroll nor human resources departments had been specifically made responsible for doing it;
When the watchdogs themselves tried to perform that matching function they turned up differences worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single month, or nearly $5 million on an annualized basis;
new employees who work on the antiquated personnel system have not been given training at their positions for at least the past five years, while a spate of retirements has gnawed away at the number of veterans who actually know how the system works, meaning a growing risk that the staff will be less able to avoid errors or spot them when they occur;
Help desk procedures in the personnel department have not been updated since 1996 -- several lifetimes ago in computer software terms. An executive summary attached to the report, and presumably intended to be the main thing read by top managers, amended that date to 2002;
Even though many payroll reports available to top management were no longer used in the payroll processing system, they were still going to top U.N. managers where, the watchdogs delicately put it, “users in the Executive Offices could make incorrect assumptions on the basis of this information."

One possible implication: budget projections and other reports to the nations that pay the U.N.’s bills and oversee its operations could potentially be off-base.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL OIOS REPORT, PRECEDED BY THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

All in all, said a forensic accounting expert asked by Fox News to examine the OIOS report, "all of the things identified point to a situation ripe for error and potentially for fraud. How do you get any assurance that your calculations are correct?"

"You would not think a multibillion-dollar organization would have this level of discrepancy" in its bookkeeping, he added.

According to the U.N. itself, however, the issues raised in the watchdog report no longer exist.

Queried by Fox News about the report's diplomatically phrased recommendations that the Secretariat "update its help desk procedures" and "ensure that all personnel assigned to payroll-related activities receive adequate training," Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman, Martin Nesirky, declared on behalf of the U.N.’s Department of Management that the concerns had been taken care of.

"The project to update help desk procedures was actually finished by Dec. 31, 2011," he declared. Likewise, he said, "the reports used to assess the accuracy of the payroll results were found to be accurate by OIOS. The minor variances identified during the audit process were related to minor bugs in a very limited number of accounting reports."

"The fixing of those bugs," he added, "will be done no later than the second semester of 2012." In other words, five months from now.

In fact, the management response contained in the audit report itself says something different. Due to budget constraints, that section of the report says, only one human resources professional and two administrative helpers had been assigned the training task, and were working only on the areas where the most mistakes were made. They had only been given funding for six months to complete the assignment (which was only slated to begin on Dec. 31, the report says.)

"Additional updates to desk procedures and further training would not be feasible unless the project is extended or more resources are made available," the report says.

The outside accounting expert who examined the OIOS report at Fox News’ request found the management rejoinder "very lackadaisical." Simply put, he said, "they are not going to invest in people doing it right."

The OIOS report notes that the five-year neglect of payroll training came about because the U.N.’s staffing managers expected their old and wheezing payroll system to be replaced by something new: a sophisticated, computer and software platform known as Umoja, and consequently decided they didn't have to spend money on keeping people updated on how to run the old system.

The problem is that it didn't work out that way.

Umoja was supposed to "renew completely the way the United Nations manages human, financial and material resources, bringing the Organization up to accepted common standards commensurate with the size and nature of its operations,” Secretary General Ban declared in a 2009 report. It was supposed to be completed by the end of this year, at a cost of $312 million.

Instead, Umoja has become a high-tech symbol of Ban’s inability to sweep aside the U.N.’s bureaucratic sclerosis during his first, five-year term. Umoja is now slated for completion in 2015, three years behind its original schedule, and its $312 million price tag is based on some questionable assumptions, notably a lack of provision for unforeseen contingencies.

Ban himself was slammed by a U.N. oversight committee last month for his slack management of the Umoja project, failure to act decisively in the face of the growing fiasco, and overall bad planning for the entire exercise.

Moreover, it is not yet clear that the U.N. can hire enough highly trained technicians to complete the project even on its new schedule.

And even when the revolutionary new "enterprise planning" system is completed, it will still be connected to at least 300 old systems that Ban himself has characterized in a report as “at the breaking point, and woefully inadequate for carrying out the increasingly complex, far-reaching operations of the Organization.”

Ban’s dramatic characterization of the mess raises another important question. If the technology at the U.N.’s disposal is in such dire shape -- including, it now appears, the high-tech solution to all the previous problems of age and neglect -- how can anyone be sure that the payroll chaos outlined in the U.N.’s latest watchdog report has been cleaned up anywhere near as well as the U.N.’s top managers now claim?

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News and can be found at Twitter @GeorgeRussell

Click here for more stories by George Russell.

USUN's Joe (Torsella) want help on Twitter to identify solutions & savings at the UN

2012-01-27T05:15:00.006+01:00

Believe or not even an Ambassador of the country who pays 22.7% of U.N. bills (as in Billions) wants to find solutions for UN - not by asking Ban Ki-moon or his political-reform guru Bob Orr (an American) - but by going on Twitter...

USJoe_UN Joe Torsella

Can we find ways for top #UN managers to incentivize crowd-sourcing solutions & savings at the UN from the UN's rank-and-file?#UNReform

4 hours ago

UK Mission to the U.N. claims to have a position on #UNreform

2012-01-27T05:03:00.002+01:00

@undpwatchundpwatch

@UKUN_NewYork when will you guys even care about reforming@UN ? Is ur #PermRep fit 4 #USGjob? What's his stand on #UNreform ?

8 hours ago via web

CLICK HERE TO READ THE UNITED KINGDOM'S TAKE ON U.N. REFORM

Management reform and finance

General Assembly Approves $5.16 Billion UN Budget, 24 December 2009

The 5th (Administrative and Budgetary) Committee of the General Assembly deals with the management and budgets of the UN. Details of the major issues are set out below.

UN regular budget for the 2010-11 biennium

The UN's Regular Budget is set every two calendar years. It funds UN core activities, including staffing costs, in eight headquarter locations. These headquarters are in New York (USA), Geneva (Switzerland), Vienna (Austria), and Nairobi (Kenya), as well as the HQs of the Regional Economic Commissions for Africa (in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), for Europe (also in Geneva), for Western Asia (in Beirut, Lebanon), for Asia and the Pacific (in Bangkok, Thailand) and for Latin America (in Santiago, Chile). UN activities financed by the Regular Budget include holding conferences, economic development activity, UN public information work and human rights promotion. The UN Regular Budget also pays for special UN missions in countries such as Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq.

In December '09 the Fifth Committee agreed upon a Regular Budget of US$5.156 billion for 2010-11, up from US$4.865 billion in 2008-09.

The Scale of Assessments

The Scale of Assessments is the system which sets out what percentage share of the UN’s budgets are charged to each Member State. The present system is based on a complex formula which takes into account the population of the country and its Gross National Income (GNI). The share of the budget that each Member State is charged is known as its assessed contribution. The Regular Budget scale is negotiated every 3 years; the Peacekeeping scale, however, had not been negotiated since 2000: both were on the agenda of the Fifth Committee in the autumn of 2009. The methodology for the next three years was agreed on 23 December 2009 with the understanding that it needs to be carefully reviewed and updated to reflect changing economic circumstances. The UK is the fourth largest contributor to the Regular budget with a contribution of 6.604%. Because the five Permanent Members of the Security Council (UK, US, France, Russia, China) pay a premium on peacekeeping activity on top of their regular assessments, the UK is the third largest contributor to the UN Peacekeeping budget with an annual contribution of 8.15%.

Top 10 Contributors to the Regular Budget Scale of Assessments 2010-12

UN management reform

The last few years have seen some important steps taken to modernise the management of the United Nations: the establishment of an Ethics Office, establishment of an Independent Audit Advisory Committee, strengthening of Peacekeeping and preventive diplomacy capacity, modernisation of Information and Communications Technology, agreement to adopt International Public Sector Accounting Standards, and the achievement of major Human Resources reforms relating to streamlining contracts as well as an internal justice system. Much remains to be done. There is still insufficient flexibility for the Secretariat to respond to the greater demands and responsibilities placed on the UN. Despite having some limited autonomy to do so, the Secretariat is unable to shift staff and financial resources within the organisation to ensure priorities are delivered. There are also gaps in the level of controls and the degree to which Member States are genuinely able to hold the Secretariat accountable for the delivery of priorities. The priorities for the sixty-fourth session of the UN General Assembly are:

• Improving the Budget process and enhancing the Secretary-General's ability to deploy resources in line with priorities;
• Ongoing reforms of Human Resource Management to ensure the establishment of a motivated, mobile, cadre of staff with the right contracts and conditions of service.
• Improve the management of UN Procurement and ensure an efficient and accountable system which really means best value for money from across the world.
• Continue to examine the role and functions of UN internal oversight to improve the effectiveness and accountability of the organisation;
• Modernisation of the delivery of support to Peacekeeping Missions.

Refurbishment of the UN HQ

The Capital Master Plan is the $1.9 billion project to renovate UN Headquarters complex in New York to bring it into compliance with building and fire safety codes and modern standards for security, energy efficiency, sustainability and accessibility. Building began in 2008 with the construction of temporary conferencing facilities on the North Lawn of the UN complex and the renovation is now well underway. The project is scheduled for completion in 2013. The UK will continue to work to ensure the project remains on schedule and within budget.

UNJustice.Org: - UN legal officer lists home in Flatbush

2012-01-26T20:50:00.002+01:00

@UNJusticeOrgUNJustice

Marc Porret and Stephanie Cartier, Legal Officers at the #UN, buy a house in Flatbush for $900,000goo.gl/0haEP

Click here to view this on Brooklyn.blockshopper.com

Marc Porret and Stephanie Cartier bought a house at 667 E. 18th St. in Flatbush from Owen Phillips and Eliza Phillips for $900,000 on Nov. 3.

The 1,874-square-foot house, built in 1920, is in the Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park Historic District.

Porret is a legal officer at the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate.

He holds an LL.B. and a degree in common law from McGill University.

According to BlockShopper.com, there have been 103 home sales in Flatbushduring the past 12 months, with a median sales price of $355,000.

Filed under: Lawyer

Address: 667 E. 18th Street
Buyer(s): Marc Porret and Stephanie Cartier
Seller(s): Owen Phillips, Eliza Phillips, and Eliza Gran
Sale date: Nov. 3, 2011

The Rosett Report: If You Think Federal Employees in Washington Are Overpaid…

2012-01-26T00:23:00.001+01:00

Bio

By Claudia Rosett @ PajamasMedia.com

… Check out salaries at the United Nations. According to the U.S. envoy for UN Management and Reform, Joseph Torsella, UN salaries average out to $119,000 per year, and at UN headquarters in New York they are on average30% higher than U.S. federal salaries in Washington.

The UN hasn’t figured much in the Republican debates, but surely those are numbers that would resonate with average American voters — who pay the biggest share of the bill for these average UN salaries.

FOXNEWS: Obama Warns UN: Reform or Else... (We'll keep sending you money)

2012-01-26T00:17:00.002+01:00

By George Russell

Published January 25, 2012 | FoxNews.com

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/01/25/obama-administration-launches-campaign-to-demand-un-reform-transparency/print#ixzz1kVzt1b00

With presidential elections looming, the Obama administration has launched a high-profile campaign in favor of belt-tightening at the United Nations -- but without the threat of withholding U.S. funding for the sprawling world organization.

The aim, at least in part, is to preempt even tougher action proposed by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives, which calls for selective U.S. funding cutoffs unless specific demands for U.N. reform and transparency are met.

Unlike the Republican proposals, the administration’s campaign, spearheaded by U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. for Management and Reform Joseph Torsella, explicitly rules out withholding of U.S. financial aid and counts on persuasion to propel its agenda of efficiency, transparency and openness. Whether U.N. bureaucrats and their developing world supporters will be impressed remains to be seen.

Torsella’s effort -- and even his appointment -- nonetheless represents a sea change on the part of the administration, which did not even have a full-time diplomat assigned to the reform effort until Torsella was sworn in last April. Even so, Torsella’s expertise in the area is newly minted: prior to his swearing in, he was head of the Pennsylvania State Board of Education. Prior to that, he served as founder and head of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Currently, the U.S. pays 22 percent of the U.N. Secretariat’s $5.2 billion regular biennial budget, and 27 percent of peacekeeping, as well as greater or lesser amounts of a host of other programs. Last year, the State Department said the U.S. gave U.N. funds, programs and agencies about $7.4 billion, but that may still understate U.S. largesse.

Among the main elements of the reform campaign:

-- significant future cuts in the fast-expanding, multibillion-dollar U.N. “regular” budget; and a “comprehensive reform” of the U.N.’s “broken” budget process.

-- a pay freeze for top U.N. officials, mirroring a freeze in existence for top U.S. civil servants ordained in 2010, and a staff reduction through attrition to “right-size” the bureaucracy by 2015. The U.S. first tried to get the freeze installed last September; instead, top U.N. officials in New York got a roughly 3 percent pay hike.

-- a comparative study of “seriously distorted” U.N. pay for senior officials, who now earn, according to U.S. calculations, nearly 130 percent of their U.S. equivalents, and a “new look” at U.N. benefits ranging from health care to vacations to pensions.

-- greater scope and protection for the U.N.’s internal watchdogs to look into waste, fraud and mismanagement, and publicly air the results, along with greater openness in U.N. budget proceedings.

-- a louder and more public effort to keep human rights and nuclear proliferation outlaws likeIran and North Korea out of U.N. committee chairmanships and other key positions -- roles they have recently won.

-- a coordinated effort by the relative handful of U.N. donor countries -- roughly a score pay most of the U.N.’s bills -- to force the hydra-headed U.N. bureaucracy to focus on better results and “real world outcomes,” as Torsella put it, rather than bureaucratic process.

Click here for the full U.N. reform agenda.

Just how convincing the reform campaign will be is unclear. The hidebound, bloated and inefficient U.N. is already suffering, according to internal documents obtained by Fox News, from a “crisis in confidence” in the 43,700-member organization headed by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has been assembling his own variations on a reform agenda.

Ban, however, is largely responsible for the U.N. hiring binge that the U.S. now wants to restrain.

At the same time, he has been publicly excoriated by key U.N. budget committees for a “failure of management” in the continuing fiasco of a high-tech, $315 million computer and software system that is supposed to be the key to future U.N. management reform. The project, adrift for more than a year, is now three years behind its original schedule and not slated for completion until 2015.

Deploying 21st century information technology to improve the U.N.’s performance is nonetheless another mainstay of the Obama administration’s reform offensive.

Ban was also rebuffed by U.N. member states in a bid to gain greater authority over the micromanaged U.N. budget process by increasing his ability to move unspent money around in the organization at his own discretion to meet new or unexpected needs. The U.N. General Assembly currently allows Ban to spend up to $10 million that way each year; Ban had asked for an increase to $15 million. A key U.N. budget oversight committee said Ban had not put forward “any new arguments or rationale” for his case.

For its part, Ban’s office maintains that his proposal has not been rejected and will be taken up again in April. “We therefore have to await the related discussion and the resulting outcome,” a spokesman for Ban told Fox News.

So far, the biggest victory claimed by Torsella and his U.N. reformers is a slight reduction in the U.N.’s recently passed biennial “regular” budget, to $5.15 billion for 2012-2013.

It was, Torsella told the Washington branch of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations late last week, “the first U.N. regular budget since 1998 that’s gone down in comparison to the previous budget’s actual expense.” Torsella said the cut amounted to a 5 percent U.N. budget decrease compared with the previous biennium, and at least a $260 million saving.

Torsella’s comparison, however, is slightly misleading. U.N. spending totals have always tended to grow through a process of programming creep as the budget cycle progresses. Compared to the starting, rather than the ending, point of the 2010-2011 budget cycle, the new U.N. proposal is only about $44 million, or 0.8 percent, lower than at the same point in the previous cycle. All the remaining savings are still speculative.

The administration is “taking baby steps forward” on the U.N. reform agenda, says Brett Schaefer, an expert on U.N. financing at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “It’s still not nearly what we need to see.” U.S. claims that it has successfully held the line on U.N. spending in the current budget, he adds, are “jumping the gun.”

The administration’s transparency agenda has also not fared well out of the starting gate. An effort by the head of the U.N.’s watchdog Office of Internal Oversight Service (OIOS) to post all of her units audits publicly online was held up by what Torsella called “a small group of member states,” though the U.S. Mission to the U.N. claims to post most of them on its own website.

The last posted OIOS audits on the USUN website yesterday, however, dated from September 2011, and the posting was not comprehensive.

Whatever its limitations, the administration’s reform effort has been loudly backed by such pro-U.N. groups as the lobbying subsidiary of the Better World Fund, originally funded by billionaire Ted Turner to further the U.N.’s agenda, and whose board is heavily studded with current and former U.N. officials and officeholders. (Many of the same board members also sit on the board of the U.N. Foundation, which Turner also chairs, and which fund-raises and creates partnerships to support U.N. initiatives.)

All of those groups vociferously oppose any notion of using U.S. financial contributions to the U.N. as a club in the reform effort.

Exactly the opposite approach, however, is taken by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chair of the House International Affairs committee, and one of the world organization’s sharpest congressional critics, who insists that “the U.N. is fundamentally flawed and needs fundamental reform, not tactical tinkering.”

“While I appreciate Ambassador Torsella’s efforts,” she told Fox News, “from the beginning the administration’s strategy has fallen short of the fundamental reforms we need.” It “does not use our strongest leverage -- our contributions -- to demand real change. To the contrary, the administration surrenders our leverage by insisting that we pay our contributions to the U.N. in full, no matter what. As long as this continues, real reform efforts are destined to fail.”

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News and can be found at Twitter @GeorgeRussell

Click here for more stories by George Russell.

UN/UNDP spend $1.3 Million to run a single PR campaign website for Rio+20. How many poor kids would $1.3 Million save?

2012-01-24T22:38:00.005+01:00

How much does UNDP spends on PR campaigns ?

At this moment UN/UNDP/UNEP run 181 Websites which campaign for Rio+20

(make yourself a calculation...)

@undpwatchundpwatch

@UN spends $1.3Mill 2 run this website: futurewewant.org/about-the-proj… - how many poor kids would $1.3Mill save? #UNreformHow much #UN spends on PR?

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Official twitter account of United Nations. Get the latest information on the UN.

New York Salary for Assistant Secretary General level at UNDP

2012-01-24T21:59:00.005+01:00

WALL STREET CAN SUCK UNDP's .......!

Grade: ASG

Step: 1

Marital Status: Married (most are married)

Dependent: Yes

Duty Station: New York

Medical Insurance: Blue Cross (you can opt for Aetna or HIP)

Post adjustment: 65.5%

Classification: H (Hardship)

---

Salary and Allowances at dependent rate

---

Net Base Salary: $133,950.00

Post adjustment: $ 87,737.25 (@ 65.5% of month net)

Dependency Allownc: $ 5,858.00

Hardship Allowance: $ 3,150.00

Total Earnings: $230,695.25

---

United Nations Social Security deductions

---

Pension fund: $ 21,593.23

Group Life Ins: $ 936.00

Medical Insurance: $ 14,147.62

Dental Insurance: $ 1,612.53

Total Deductions: $ 38,289.38

---

Annual salary after deductions: $192,405.87

Monthly salary after deductions: $ 16,033.82

THAT'S ONLY SALARY

IT DOES NOT INCLUDE:

1. Million air miles accumulated on official trips flying exclusively Business or First Class (all miles are for personal usage);

2. At minimum 100 days of Daily Subsistence Allowances when on official trip = to an additional $30,000 per annum;

3. A Corporate Credit Card for incidentals and meals - $15,000 per annum;

and definitely does not include what you can make thru corruption, like i.e.:

1. Hiring your wife, children or gay/lesbian or extra-marrital *** friend;

2. Allow for no-bid procurement of goods and services from "special clients" who then either give you CASH or hire you at the end of your tenure;

and please not to worry - you are immune from any prosecution during the time you serve for the UN.

You also are given the option NOT TO disclose your assets or family deals - should you feel like.

Jens Wandel vis-a'-vis Darshak Shah (Who would Helen Clark select?)

2012-01-24T13:44:00.006+01:00

UNDP

Assistant Secretary General

Bureau of Management

Helen Clark is about to decide which UNDP insider to hire in order to replace the incompetent and ignorant Akiko Yuge.

The game is between :

Jens Wandel and Darshak Shah

While Jens Wandel is well known for his incredible vision and leadership, (see Jens CV on UNDP website), Darshak Shah on the other side is the dark man of UNDP. Darshak without a master degree nor a CPA certificate is the Chief Finance Officer of $7 Billion dollar UNDP.

But if anyone dares to search thru the UNDP site for Darshak Shah Chief Finance Officer and his personal CV - you will get a blant "Fuck you" reply from UNDP management.

Yes, Helen Clark doesn't want anyone to know about the history or background of her Chief Finance Officer and former comptroller of UNDP. His CV is "SECRET".

Instead if anyone wants information about Jens Wandel - its easy click here and you will find plenty on him, photos, videos, speeches and much more.

FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY AT UNDP = 0 (ZERO)

How Technological Justice Can Fight Global Poverty

2012-01-12T15:41:00.000+01:00

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON MASHABLE.COM

Simon Trace is the CEO of the international development charity Practical Action, which works to help poor people in the developing world use technology to transform their lives.

Human development has gone hand-in-hand with technical change. Technology (defined for these purposes as both knowledge and tools) enables people to achieve well-being with less effort and drudgery, or at lower cost and with fewer resources. Technical innovation is essential for people to be able to make more effective use of the resources available to them and to respond to social, economic and environmental changes.

For those of us lucky enough to live today in one of the so-called “developed nations,” modern technology is so woven into the fabric of our daily lives that we barely notice how dependent we are on it. But remove even just one simple strand and things start to unravel very quickly, as a simple thought experiment demonstrates....

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON MASHABLE.COM

Should a UNDP manager be judged by his Twitter and social networking ability?

2012-01-12T15:24:00.002+01:00

@undpwatchundpwatch

@jenswandel top dev mngr with great experience = only 10 tweets? maybe need a crash course on social networking b4 becoming next ASG BoM..

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Jens Wandel, Deputy Regional Bureau Director (Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States), United Nations Development Programme.

Deutsche Welle: - Ban Ki-Moon's second term: the bridge to where?

2012-01-10T04:59:00.002+01:00

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On January 1 Ban Ki-Moon will start his second term as UN Secretary-General. To leave a lasting mark Ban needs to go beyond his self-styled role as a 'global bridge-builder' argues Thorsten Benner.

Thorsten Benner is co-founder and associate director of the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi)in Berlin and a co-author of "The New World of UN Peace Operations: Learning to Build Peace?"(Oxford University Press 2011).

"This is the World Cup of diplomacy - it's happening fast and furious." These are the lines with which a recent UN-produced image video seeks to create excitement about the work of UN chief, Ban Ki-Moon.

Yet, there is precious little excitement to be found as the UN Secretary-General begins his second five-year term this Sunday. Not among UN member states who in a rare show of unity re-elected Ban unanimously in June not least because his unexciting style does not cause them much trouble. Not among UN staff who do not seem to be fired up by the prospect of having Ban as their boss for another half decade.

And not among the world public where Ban's hard and committed daily work as the UN's standard-bearer mostly goes unnoticed. Ban's lack of rhetorical skills tends to make him a non-entity for the global media. Virtually the only one excited seems to be Ban himself. In the promotional video he proclaims: "I start every morning as if this is the first day in my office as Secretary-General."

Presumably, part of what keeps Ban going is the pride in his record as a self-styled "harmonizer and bridge-builder - among the member states, within the United Nations system and among a rich diversity of global partners." At a time of momentous geopolitical shifts and global crises, this is no small feat. Unfortunately, this will not be enough to turn himself into an effective leader of the world's premier universal body for the years to come.

Building bridges is a fine pursuit. But at long as it remains unclear where these bridges lead and as long as the world's pivotal powers refuse to cross them in the right direction it is also a rather futile activity. Right now, at the UN the old powers of the West all too often cling to their privileges while the rising powers refuse to contribute in a meaningful way to global public goods. All the while the majority of poor countries mostly content themselves with engaging in predictably petty politics of grandstanding and patronage in the fora where they make their voices heard due to the "one country, one vote" principle.

While Ban should continue to seek for common ground among the UN's 193 member states, for the sake of "we, the peoples," he should not shy away from calling them out if they are so evidently acting in bad faith. Liberated from the need to curry anyone's favors in order to win another term, Ban might as well do just that. To this end, Ban can take a leaf from the playbook of his very courageous stance on the Arab uprisings. He called on the region's rulers to "act boldly, now, before it is too late," to make use of this "once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance freedom and democracy."

On Syria, Ban has argued that the killings "cannot go on. In the name of humanity, it is time for the international community to act." Ban was even bolder on Libya taking sides against the Gadhafi regime early on. In doing so, Ban argues that "we have carved out a new dimension for the responsibility to protect." He even took the step of defending NATO's interpretation of the Libya resolution arguing that the "military operation done by the NATO forces was strictly within (resolution) 1973." Ban might have gotten a bit ahead of himself with this rather one-eyed assessment. Ironically, in this case we might need more of Ban the bridge-builder.

As UN analysts Richard Gowan and Bruce Jones have pointed out, Ban will "need to work hard at generating better understandings between the western and emerging powers on the issues that confront the UN on human rights, responsibility to protect, and the use of force" - while continuing to speak out for universal rights and responsibilities.

But there are a host of other issues where Ban will need to speak out forcefully against conventional UN wisdom. Let us just name three: climate change, peace operations and global development. On climate change, Ban's signature topic, it becomes increasingly clear that the current multilateral negotiation process in the UN-sponsored UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - the ed.) will not be able to prevent catastrophic climate change. Rather than claiming that "at Durban, we defied the sceptics," Ban should advocate for creative ways to complement the UNFCCC process.

On peace operations, the UN's flagship activity, Ban has demonstrated rather limited interest. It is about time he spelled out a blueprint for a better political and knowledge architecture for these missions while recognizing their limits. On global development, with the UN's "Millennium Development Goals (MDG)" nearing (and likely missing) their target dates in 2015, there is an urgent need for Ban to spearhead a fundamental re-assessment of global development governance beyond the MDGs.

Ban can only be successful at all this if he also brings his own house in order and reconnects with the UN's staff. You cannot govern the multinational UN bureaucracy like the Korean foreign ministry but Ban tried exactly that. At a senior management retreat in 2009, Ban complained, "I tried to lead by example. Nobody followed," without quite understanding why he failed to change an apparatus that indeed urgently needs shaking up. It did not help that he added that "in choosing my senior advisers, I have always cared less about a person's intellectual attainments than his or her ability to work well with others."

With that attitude, one can imagine the stimulating exchanges within the UN's senior leadership team. Committing to a five-year term limit for his senior staff, Ban has vowed to "build a new team that is strong on substance and diverse in composition" for his second term. To this end, he should appoint independent-minded leaders to key positions and encourage them to challenge him. UN member states should take inspiration from Ban's policy of a five-year term limit for senior staff and in the future also apply it to the position of the UN Secretary-General.

That way, UN leaders can be bold from day one because they will not need to campaign for re-election. And member states might be more open to choosing competent, charismatic and independent personalities for the job. After all, they would only have to live with them for five years.

Editor: Rob Mudge

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Ron Paul in 1998 John Birch Society Documentary on the UN Plot to take o...

2012-01-10T04:58:00.000+01:00

U.S. Taxpayers Cover Nearly Half the Cost of U.N.’s Global Warming Panel

2012-01-10T04:49:00.002+01:00

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ARTICLE ON CNSNews.com

By Elizabeth Harrington

January 3, 2012

(CNSNews.com) – A study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined that the United States funded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations’ authority on alleged man-made global warming, with $31.1 million since 2001, nearly half of the panel’s annual budget.

The GAO also found that this funding information “was not available in budget documents or on the websites of the relevant federal agencies, and the agencies are generally not required to report this information to Congress.”

In a Nov. 17, 2011 report, “International Climate Change Assessments: Federal Agencies Should Improve Reporting and Oversight of U.S. Funding,”the GAO found that the State Department provided $19 million for administrative and other expenses, while the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) provided $12.1 million in technical support through the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), averaging an annual $3.1 million to the IPCC over 10 years -- $31.1 million so far.

The IPCC runs an annual budget of $7 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, making the United States a major benefactor for its global warming agenda.

IPCC Chairman Hairma Rajendra-Pa. (AP Photo)

An international body, the IPCC was created in 1988. Though thousands of scientists contribute to the panel, only 11 working members support the organization. Set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the IPCC is an “effort by the United Nations to provide the governments of the world with a clear scientific view of what is happening to the world’s climate,” according to its Web site.

The organization has been the subject of controversy in the last several years when thousands of e-mails from the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were stolen and released in 2009, and again in November 2011, on the eve of climate talks in Durban, South Africa.

The e-mails included those between Michael Mann, the director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University and author of the infamous “hockey stick” graph that apparently showed global temperatures reaching “unprecedented” levels, and Phil Jones, director at CRU, which brought into question the validity of the IPCC’s work, with the reported statements “hide the decline,” and “Mike’s Nature Trick.”

In explaining its reason for auditing U.S. funding of the IPCC, the GAO said, “Interest in IPCC’s activities increased after the theft of e-mails among IPCC scientists was made public, and with the discovery of several errors in its 2007 set of reports.”

Global warming activist and former Democratic vice president, Al Gore. (AP Photo)

The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), released in 2007, included several errors, including claims that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by the year 2035, which the IPCC, in a statement, later admitted was based on inconclusive data.

After facing “key challenges” in determining the amount of funding to the IPCC, the GAO now recommends that U.S. funding be reported annually to Congress with “accurate and consistent information.”

The report said documents on U.S. financing for the IPCC were “not available in budget documents or on the websites of the relevant federal agencies, and the agencies are generally not required to report this information to Congress.”

Conflicting State Department numbers also made it more difficult for the GAO to assemble the data. The GAO “reviewed documents and interviewed officials from federal agencies and IPCC” to reach its findings.

A 2005 GAO report entitled “Federal Reports on Climate Change Funding Should Be Clearer and More Complete” found that federal funding for climate change was not adequately accountable. “Congress and the public cannot consistently track federal climate change funding or spending over time,” the report concluded.

The report also found federal funding for global warming had increased by 116 percent between 1993 and 2004, to $5.1 billion.

The $3.1 million annual U.S. funding goes towards the IPCC’s “core activities”: meetings of the governing bodies, co-ordination meetings, support for the developing country co-chairs, the IPCC Web site and Secretariat. The IPCC assesses scientific information, but does not conduct any research of its own.

According to the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the United States “has made the world’s largest scientific investment in the areas of climate change and global change research” with a total of nearly $20 billion over the past 13 years.

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