Losing
WFP
Fight, Sheeran
Sets Sail for
WEF, Cousin
Fix In UN
System Fog?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 3 --
This morning
Josette
Sheeran, the
head of the
World Food
Program who
didn't want to
leave,
announced that
when her
term ends in
April she will
become the
deputy at the
World Economic
Forum.
As
Inner City
Press reported
in early
November,
Sheeran was
enlisting
Republican
members of the
US Congress to
threat to cut
funding to WFP
if she did
not get a
second term.
But
Barack Obama
had in mind a
former Chicago
public
relations
executive
Ertharin
Cousin.
Conveniently,
Cousin has
been serving
as US
Ambassador to
the
UN Food and
Agriculture
Organization,
whose director
along with
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
nominates the
head of WFP.
So it would
seem the fix
is in.
Back
in July 2009,
as Inner City
Press exclusively
reported,
"UNITED
NATIONS,
July 11 -- On
the sidelines
of the G-8
meeting on
July 10,
the World Food
Program shut
down its
headquarters
for a
"simulated
food
distribution"
for the
spouses of the
G-8 leaders,
flying in
school
children from
Ghana to put
them on
display. Many
WFP staff
members found
the display
disgusting, a
waste of money
and a
disrespect to
UN recipients.
U.S. First
Lady Michelle
Obama may have
shared some of
the concerns:
she did not
attend...
Sheeran,
rumored
to be under
review by the
the U.S. which
nominated her
under George
Bush,
conducted a
'seminar'
which some
attendees
found awkward
and
stilted, 'a
quest for
personal
publicity.'"
There
was
also some less
public
jockeying:
again as Inner
City Press
exclusively
reported,
within the UN
system
community in
Rome, many
alleged
Sheeran
engaged in a
quid pro quo
with then FAO
chief Jacques
Diouf, hiring
a relative of
his for an
information
technology
post in
exchange for
FAO hiring the
husband of her
personal
assistant,
Tanujah
Rastogi.
(Cousin, we
note in
passing, once
served as
Deputy
Director of
the Chicago
Ethics Board.)
One
thing Sheeran
can
be credited
with during
most of here
WFP tenure is
not shying
from
questions, in
marked
contrast
to most other
UN system
executive in
Ban Ki-moon
five years.
(c) UN Photo
Ban
gives Sheeran
a picture:
(Chicago) boot
not shown
Footnote:
Sheeran's
announcement
was re-tweeted
by the head of
the UN
Development
Program Helen
Clark, who
like Ban's
chief lawyer
Patricia
O'Brien has
refused
multiple
requests to
take questions
in New York,
the
headquarters
of UNDP.
So
here's
a
question for
UNDP: does the
agency deny,
or why has it
covered it,
that the
Sudanese
National
Security
Committee has
barred it from
entering Al
Muglad in
South
Kordofan,
including
having
vehicles
detained by
military
intelligence
for days in
Babanusa and
being
barred from
passing to El
Obeid in North
Kordofan?
There are of
course other
questions.
Watch this
site.
, 
