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In Corrupt UN of Guterres UNESCO Had A Horrible 2019 Like Everything Gooter Touches

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, Video

UN GATE, Dec 28 –  From the corrupt UN of Antonio Guterres in New York, the whole UN system has been corrupted in 2019, including UNESCO.

   Earlier this month Inner City Press exposed the declining influence of France at UNESCO, highlighting that at the General Conference of UNESCO in Paris for the first time since the foundation of the organization in November 1945 France ended with the lowest number of votes in the elections for a seat at the Executive Board of UNESCO. Now this recap:

2019 - the United Nations under fire - following their exposure in the press, a number of high UN officials resigned after demolishing  the reputation and the credibility of their respective agencies   Four Heads of UN Agencies had resigned after internal investigations  proved their mismanagement, corruption and abuse of power practices. 

First dismissed - Michel Sidibe, the former Executive Director of the UN agency for HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS, stepped down in June, six months before his term was set to expire after an independent panel said that his “defective leadership” tolerated “a culture of harassment, including sexual harassment, bullying, and abuse of power.” 

Second fired  - the Head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency Pierre Krähenbühl resigned after becoming embroiled in a scandal involving accusations of nepotism and abuses of authority. The leaked investigation depicted an “inner circle” around Krähenbühl who were suggested to have benefited themselves. They were accused of “engag[ing] in misconduct, nepotism, retaliation ... and other abuses of authority.” 

Third resigned - The UN’s environment chief, Erik Solheim, has resigned following severe criticism of his internal rule-breaking. The audit said Solheim had “no regard for abiding by the set regulations and rules”.

At UNESCO, this is illustrated by the regular misuse of funds and the systematic breaches of the rules by the administration and its office of Human resources for which UNESCO was sentenced by the UN Tribunal in Geneva to pay millions of dollars of tax payers money to staff who were rightfully complaining against the practices of groundless harassment, retaliation and abuse of power.  Fourth dismissed  – the UN biodiversity Chief quitted amidst accusations of serious misconduct. Cristiana Pasça Palmer resigned after internal audit documents described a chaotic work environment at the Secretariat, widespread staff illness and resignations and allegations that Pasça Palmer discriminated against African staff members on the basis of their race.

Yes: only one of many instances of racism in the UN of Guterres, getting worse all the time.

This illustrates at its best the similarity with the current situation at UNESCO. In interviews, staff told auditors there had been a breakdown in trust with management and Pasça Palmer’s busy travel schedule made her unavailable. This made the secretariat a “conflictual and stressful” place to work. Likewise, at UNESCO staff members complain massively about the identical chaotic working environment created by incompetent senior managers appointed by DG Azoulay since her election in 2017. Furthermore, Between the start of 2017 and the middle of this year, 22 “senior and experienced staff” left the secretariat – one fifth of the total personnel – seven of them in the first half of 2019.

Likewise , at UNESCO, in 2019 only, 52 senior and experienced staff members resigned in protest against the management practices of the French DG Azoulay and her team. Alongside a general breakdown in staff morale, certain staff members felt they were being singled out by Pasça Palmer, some because of the color of their skin. At UNESCO, racism and discrimination is a common practice with several investigations currently underway by IOS but still no sanctions whatsoever against the managers perpetrating such misconduct. 

The superficially encouraging results in removing incompetent and corrupted Heads of UN Agencies, already stimulate debates on the  issue of the prejudice to UNESCO created by the poor management style of its Director General Audrey Azoulay. It is now high on the agenda and will be addressed by member states at the next session of the Executive Board of the organization early next year.   We will have more on all that. Watch this site.

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