UNICEF
Veneman's $5.8 Million E-Mail Switch
Denounced by Whistleblowers, Defended
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, August 24 -- The jewel of the UN system, its children's
agency UNICEF, now not only refuses to
provide simple budget
information such as how much it spent flying country representatives
to New York for a photo op with director Ann Veneman -- it defends
without putting a dollar value on an initiative to switch all of
UNICEF from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook.
Whistleblowers within
UNICEF say the switch was entirely Ms.Veneman's idea, that she worked
on Microsoft as George W. Bush's Secretary of Agriculture and
proposes to spend $5.8 million entirely unnecessarily. Below is what
Inner City Press received from within UNICEF, then UNICEF's official
response.
Subj:
Scandal in UNICEF
From:
[Address withheld due to fear of retaliation]
To:
Inner City Press
Sent:
8/23/2009 8:30:48 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
Dear
Matthew, Your
article on Friday 21 August 2009 titled "At
UNICEF, Quarter Million Dollar Photo-Ops Opaque for a week, Even a
Child Could Answer" was very good, although it was very sad for
UNICEF. Here is another example of how UNICEF under the inept
leadership of Ann Veneman wastes its public and donor contributions. We
are extremely concerned about what is going on in our
Organization. Signed by: Concerned UNICEF Staff.
$5.8M
being spent to please Ann Veneman to install Microsoft Outlook
as her e-mail preference.
In
the name of the Office Modernization Investment Project, UNICEF is
spending USD5.8M, which would have gone otherwise to the world
poorest children, to switch from the current well-functioning IBM
Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook/Exchange. Not only this project was
opposed by some of UNICEF’s own IT experts because there was no
compelling technical reasons for such migration but also confirmed by
the world’s IT consulting leader, Gartner Group (please refer to
the research paper dated 22 December 2008) that the migration from
Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook/Exchange environment would yield
no return on investment (ROI). Furthermore many parts of the IBM
Lotus Connections packages are far better than what Microsoft has to
offer. This research paper goes on to say that end-user demand, for
example, senior executives who came to appreciate Outlook on their
previous assignments, is the No.1 e-mail migration driver, based on
emotions and not focusing on business issues.
According
to the whistleblower, this is what is exactly happening in UNICEF. When
Ann Veneman came to UNICEF in 2005, the first thing she
complained about was her e-mail; “why aren’t we using Outlook? I
want us to move to Microsoft.” For the last four years she has been
pressing the IT division to migrate from IBM Lotus Notes application
to the Microsoft environment to which she was accustomed while
working with an US Government agency. Ann Veneman fired her first IT
director in 2006 giving him the golden hand-shake, and then
personally involved in selecting the new CIO who was familiar with
Microsoft Office Suite. As soon as the new CIO joined UNICEF in the
summer of 2007 she pressed him to migrate into the Microsoft
environment. It was supposed to happen over a year ago…..He has
just gotten his two year contract extended on the condition that he
would finally deliver on the commitment made to introduce Outlook.
This
is quite ironic when the UN has recently upgraded its IBM Notes to
version 8 (from 6.5) for about 30,000 employees. The latest version
apparently is quite powerful and users love it. Even non-IT people in
UNICEF are saying it's hard to cost-justify migrating e-mail from IBM
to Microsoft. Some staff who used to work with other agencies using
Microsoft emphasize that IBM Lotus Notes products are superior to
Microsoft. Calculating the e-mail migration cost is relatively easy.
But calculating a tangible return on investment (ROI) is much harder,
yet UNICEF’s own business case proposal inflated this cost savings
which were disputed by some of their own experts.
In
the current economic environment, moving e-mail users from
Notes/Domino release to Outlook/Exchange is difficult to justify when
you think about unnecessary user training for over 12,000 staff, 80
percent of them are spread over 150 field offices all over the world.
To make the matter more complicated, other mission critical data are
stored in Lotus Notes applications
Of
course this Office Modernization Investment Proposal went through
various internal review processes but controlled by the CIO and Ann
Veneman whose only interest is to make sure she gets “Outlook”,
no matter what. No one dares to say in public this is a waste of
money and time in UNICEF.
Because there is
censorship within UNICEF, from fear of retailiation and also a loyalty
so extreme it sometimes hurts the organization by keeping it from
improving, Inner City Press publishes the above.
UNICEF and kids' computers, waste on email change not shown
Inner
City Press sought a response from UNICEF. Unlike the eight day delay
before responding, without dollar figures, to Inner City Press'
August 13 request for how much two UNICEF's events flying in over 100
people cost, this time UNICEF to its credit provided at least some
response quickly:
Subj:
Re: Press Questions re UNICEF's switch to Microsoft Outlook
From:
[spokesperson at] unicef.org
To:
Inner City Press
Sent:
8/24/2009 5:19:48 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
Dear
Matthew, UNICEF decided to migrate to Microsoft Exchange/Outlook
because doing so meets organizational needs and priorities. The
process was based strictly on organizational needs and cost-saving
options that we have studied carefully. UNICEF has looked at the
ongoing licensing burden, as part of its assessment of options, and
found significant cost-savings based on this decision. The evidence
shows this effort will be a building block in a superior email and
communication environment. UNICEF is one of several UN agencies
taking this step.
But
as we asked about the events flying UNICEF reps in from all over the
world for photographs with Ann Veneman, running for re-election to
UNICEF's top post in 2010, how much in public funds is being spent?
Watch this site.
* * *
At
UNICEF, Quarter Million Dollar Photo-Ops Opaque For a Week, Even a
Child Could Answer
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, August 21, updated -- That public money should be accounted
for is a
principle often ignored in the UN, not only in Ban Ki-moon's
Secretariat but also UNICEF run
by Ann Veneman. Last week a UNICEF
whistleblower complained to Inner City Press that Ms. Veneman in
recent months convened all of the child agency's country
representatives to New York for a "photo-op with each of them,"
calling this a waste of
money directed at trying to get Ms. Veneman a
second term as Executive Director.
Inner City Press on August 13
asked UNICEF how much the event cost, and to respond to the
complaint. And then Inner City Press waited.
Eight
days later,
even after repeatedly reminding UNICEF of the request, still the
requested
information had not arrived. In the interim, a representative of
UNICEF's
Staff Association came forward to account for and defend a similar
event, in which 155 staff representatives flew to Istanbul for a
meeting, including the requisite photo-op with Ms. Veneman. The
meeting had initially been planned for Mexico, but was moved in
response to the outbreak of so-called swine flu.
The
staff
representatives' event cost, in Daily Sustenance Allowance, $222 per
day for six days for 155 representatives, plus seven or eight
management types: that is, before airfare, $216,000. But what of the
management-side country representatives' meeting in New York, with
its higher DSA?
A
UNICEF
spokesperson argued that the DSA levels are public, somewhere, and
resisted provided the figure of how much it cost. On August 21, Inner
City Press reiterated:
Eight
days ago I asked UNICEF some simple questions. For some reason, and
as shouldn't need to be reiterated, these remain unanswered:
how
much was spend flying all the country office chiefs to New York three
months ago?
what
is your comment on charges by some (including within UNICEF) that
these were (1) inappropriate uses of funds during the global
financial crisis and (2) related to a campaign for re-appointment as
Executive Director?
please
describe and quantify UNICEF's work in the IDP camps, described as
without freedom of movement for IDPs, in Northern
Sri Lanka,
including what if anything UNICEF is doing to ensure that its
assistance is not supporting a violation of international law and
human rights, the involuntary confinement of IDPs.
From right, UN's Ban and Ms. Veneman, answers
on costs & 2d terms not shown
Ironically,
last night I spoke with Ms. Veneman at a farewell reception in the
Delegates' Dining Room. She said she thought Inner City Press had
already been given answers. But to the above, no answers have been
provided. Extended deadline is now 5 p.m. today.
Regarding
the
quantitative question, while it seems UNICEF should be able to
provide a total cost (use of publicly-raised funds), be sure to
provide the number of people who attended,airfare and DSA and all
other applicable costs. Thank you in advance.
Nevertheless,
UNICEF still did not provide
the answers by deadline, eight days
after the question was asked. When the answers are provided, they will
be published on this site.
Footnote:
as mentioned in the reiteration above, Ms. Veneman was at the
farewell for French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert on Thursday night.
She spoke with Inner City Press, not ungraceously, but insisted that
everything was off the record and not for use. Meanwhile a well
placed NGO chief, also there, told Inner City Press not for
attribution that the U.S. is
prepared to trade away Veneman's post in
order to have more input imput on the next Secretary General. That
doesn't bode well for Ms. Veneman.
Update
1 -- an answer has arrived about Sri Lanka, published in full herebelow:
"UNICEF
has continued to respond to the most immediate needs of more than
280,000 IDPs in camps in Vavuniya, Jaffna and Trincomalee districts.
A concrete example of our work in the camps would be the vaccination
of some 27,000 IDP children against measles, polio and rubella
between 3 and 7 August in the Vavuniya IDP camps."
But what about the question that was asked, to
describe "what
if anything UNICEF is doing to ensure that its
assistance is not supporting a violation of international law and
human rights, the involuntary confinement of IDPs"?
Particularly eight days after the question was asked, shouldn't there
be some answer?
And what about the simple, eight day old question about
money?
Update 2 -- later, the following arrived, still without any figure for
how much the event cost:
The
purpose of the “Leadership for Children in a Changing World”
meeting you refer to, held in New York in late April, was to give the
organization a valuable chance to discuss issues of strategic
importance, in what has become a rapidly changing development
landscape. Issues like; climate change, the economic crisis, the
‘youth bulge’ and innovations in technology.
The
goal of the meeting was to provide a platform of discussion with key
leaders and thinkers outside the organization, to help UNICEF better
position and more sharply define our work for children, with the
ultimate aim of generating the best possible results.
This
meeting replaced a regular set of regional consultations that would
otherwise have taken place, thereby offsetting the funding for this
one. UNICEF conducts most of its business through phone or video
conferences. However, bringing the leadership of the organization
together at critical times is an important and valuable exercise that
contributes to the overall improvement of UNICEF’s work for
children. Most global organizations pause for this kind of reflection
annually or every other year. In the case of UNICEF, the first such
meeting was organized in 2004, in Dubai. Five years later,
especially because of the financial crisis and its impact on
children, it was essential to examine ways to continuously improve
our work.
There
were about 135 UNICEF staff brought in for this meeting.
Inner City
Press is informed the Daily Sustenance Allowance paid for this event in
New York was higher than in Istanbul, at $378 a day -- that is, over
$50,000 a day. But how many days did the event last? And what about the
air fare? That is, what about the actual
questions asked eight days ago:
how
much was spend flying all the country office chiefs to New York three
months ago?
what
is your comment on charges by some (including within UNICEF) that
these were (1) inappropriate uses of funds during the global
financial crisis and (2) related to a campaign for re-appointment as
Executive Director?
We will
continue to dig into this. Watch this site.
, 
