In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT,  Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

By Matthew Russell Lee & UNESCO sources

UN GATE, Sept 25 – Inner City Press wrote already about Sunna Altnoder, the totally incompetent “advisor” of DG Azoulay for culture and communication.  Over a short period, Altnoder actually became a star at UNESCO by imposing a number of senseless top-down decisions on the two sectors under her surveillance and by missing two planes on the same mission and trip to Africa.

It was indeed hilarious for her new UN colleagues to watch Altnoder trying to justify her unprofessional behavior after she forgot her passport at home while traveling on official mission for UNESCO to Abidjan, missing thus the flight scheduled for her boss. She then arrived late even for the second flight booked by UNESCO for her first-class trip. This single mission provoking considerable costs to UNESCO of some additional 10,000 euros paid for air-tickets for no reason other than her amateurish behavior.

Of course, in the corrupted UN of Antonio Guterres she was not asked to pay back.

Instead, after a year long recruitment process, savvily manipulated by the Japanese Director for Human Resources, Kazumi Ogawa, she got a P4 position in the culture sector of UNESCO. This is the UN today, cushy jobs location for friends and compatriots. 

  On another hand, after an extensive and tedious process including a desk audit, a list of eligible staff members who over-performed during the period covered by the reclassification exercise, was prepared and approved at both the financial and administrative levels. The file with all necessary approvals then landed last June on the desk of DG Azoulay for final approval.

Instead of signing with satisfaction the promotion of her over-performing staff, DG Azoulay simply refused to do so without any justification.  Despite the intervention of the staff unions, with the complicity of her cabinet and the Director HR, the Japanese Ogawa, the files were put on hold with slim chance for high priority approval by the erratic DG. “The whimsical princess is inventing new rules every day for the running of the UN Agency, that only she is aware of”, said an internal source to Inner City Press. “You cannot manage effectively this heavily bureaucratic UN organization by breaking all existing regulations, by ignoring staff rights and by creating chaos instead”. 

Post reclassification is indeed a basic staff-members right. It takes place when, after the review of a reclassification request, a post is upgraded as a result of a substantial increase in the complexity of duties and responsibilities assigned to the post by the responsible manager, with due regard to a balanced grade structure. (HR Item 3.1./C.6 “Post classification system”, here) 

Again, a fundamental right of all staff members is abysmally ignored by DG Azoulay, who, after appointing and promoting all the French she wanted to, is sending a strong message to the staff saying that she simply does not care about their rights and that rules will never be respected at UNESCO under her directorship. Despite the fact that item G. para 44 of the HR manual clearly states that “The Director-General approves reclassifications of posts in and to the Professional category”. 

The question as with Guterres is why member states are allowing DG Azoulay to get a fat salary funded by taxpayers money without doing the job for which she had been elected by them? It is but time to impose on DG Azoulay to act as a director general, to assume fully her functions and deliver on her constitutional duties. 

Only then the Assistant DG for Management, Nicholas Jeffreys and the Director for HR Kazumi Ogawa, will stop with the too much of obvious misinterpretation of rules and regulations. The two of them zealously approved the appointments of dozens of French nationals and covered-up harassment and retaliation against staff members. In the absence of any action against those practices by influential member states, they will both continue to violate the rules and the basic rights of staff without batting an eyelid in order to please their boss and keep their jobs. 

Still, the criticism in public during the executive board against Kazumi Ogawa, in front of the Japanese ambassador, made her lose face and nerves. She later complained to her staff about the pressure on her to follow instructions blindly and to keep her mouth wide shut. Kazumi Ogawa went as far as she could in perverting the human resources unit of UNESCO.  “Cases of contestation against this administration expanded, a disastrous recruitment policy was implemented and the political mess surrounding the mobility policy was masterminded by Ogawa”, added the internal source. 

All the unprecedented breaches of the rules by DG Azoulay and serious misconducts of the senior team are covered up as well by the Assistant-DG for Administration Nicholas Jeffreys who enthusiastically put his head on the block in order to please his boss.  Sooner than later, governing bodies will have to investigate and ask unpleasant questions about this orchestrated disaster.

Quite inevitable and predictable, the five features depicting best the DG Azoulay Administration will have to get publicly exposed: incompetence, corruption, disorganization, lack of long-term vision and improvisation. 

In the mid-1980s, there was a political scandal in Europe. Now forgotten, it did however enhance the English language. One observer described the affair as “grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented” – a phrase which was promptly shortened to “GUBU”. After more than two years of the French administration at UNESCO, with a leadership which would be laughable if it were not having so serious damaging consequences, UNESCO successfully entered the GUBU phase.  How will it end?

One may only guess at this stage, but certainly, elections for a real DG are looming on the 2021 horizon.  This is UNESCO today. This is the UN of Antonio Guterres. We will have more on that. Watch this site.

***

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

Past (and future?) UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA
For now: Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2020 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for