Russian re-confirmed as head of UN Office in Geneva
Hidden among the higher-profile announcments of hiring and firing, it was disclosed by Marie Heuzé, Directrice of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, in the regular (twice-weekly) press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva that, “as journalists were aware, Mr. Sergei Ordzhonikize, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, had been reconfirmed in his post.”
http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/(httpNewsByYear_en)/1E8D404D19DE3E98C1257281004C9C4D?OpenDocument
This has an implication for SG Ban’s proposed restructuring of the Disarmament departments.
Ordzhonikidze has the rank of Under-Secretary-General, and is also (in addition to being head of UNOG), Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament and Representative of the SG to the Conference on Disarmament.
Therefore, as diplomats in NY have argued, it would be very awkward to downgrade the Department of Disarmament Affairs at UNHQ/NY by making its head an Assistant Secretary-General (lower than an Under-Secretary-General — and therefore, lower than Ordzhonikidze),
and subsuming it in the SG’s office (which would not make reporting lines more direct, though that was suggested by Ban, but would muddle them more…)
Russians love to work for the UN in Geneva — it is in Europe, not so far from home as UNHQ/NY, and in Switzerland, which is quiet, clean and more or less orderly. Many of them buy homes in neighboring France. They live as well as the nouveau riche in Moscow, but at half the cost, and with rather much less stress.
This is a far cry from the Cold War days, when Soviet and Chinese staff appointed to the UN were, in fact, all seconded from their governments — and their salaries were paid to their Missions, which then retained most of the money, in return shelling out payments for rent and for a basic living allowance. One Russian lady said, at that time, that this did not give her even enough money to eat in the UN cafeteria — so that she and another Russian lady used to go home together to eat lunch every day.
The pensions of the Cold-War-era Soviet and Chinese staff members employed by the UN were also paid to their governments, who were then supposed to take care of these people at the standard local rate at home, from the cradle to the grave — at least, as long as they adhered to the party line…
And, by the way, has anyone ever asked who is supposed to supervise the UN staff working in Russian, or in Chinese — then, as well as now?
Filed under: Disarmament, UN Administration, UN Secretary-General
According to a Kuwaiti newspaper, the same goes for Thoraya Ahmed Obaid
UNFPA Executive Director, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations as far as reconfirmation is concerned.
Hmmm — thanks for that! There seem to be nearly as many leaks, as official announcments. Obaid is Saudi, isn’t she?
Affirmative
And a couple of more tid-bits:
1.Merwat is a gonner as far as her job is concerned because:
“- Mervat Tallawy has recruited and kept for under two years Faroug Idris (who was fired from FAO in Iraq where he worked under another name), the nephew of Kamal Idris (another player), the Director General of WIPO. And guess what, MT’s daughter (who by the way works for the UN) Cherine Rahmy, who could not get promoted to P-3 in UNOV, suddenly gets a P-4 in WIPO. Rahmy stayed less then a year in WIPO when Mummy finally found a way to get her a P-4 in UNOV where she still is. Few months after Rahmy’s return to Vienna, Mr. Idris’s contract was not renewed.”
2. scandal-plagued Guido Bertucci may replace Civili as ASG @ DESA.
3. Nepotism continues at UNDP
“This is to inform you that Brian Gleeson, Director, Office of Human Resources (OHR), Bureau of Management (BoM), has been designated to serve as Senior Advisor for the Surge Project in the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR).”
Poor chap was serving the former CdC and thought that he was a shho-in to head of the UN Secretariat’s Office of Human Resources and Management. Ugh!!!!!
You are really in the know — where do you get all this??? Amazing stuff!
http://www.un.org/News/ossg/hilites/hilites_arch_view.asp?HighID=767
The site gives a list of who got the axe and who were appointed or re-appointed.
Thanks — somehow, I missed this part, which Namibar apparently announced: “As of today, therefore, the composition of the Secretary-General’s senior management team at the Under-Secretary-General and above levels is, as follows – and I probably be at risk of repetition – is: Ms. Asha-Rose Migiro of Tanzania as the Deputy Secretary-General; myself, Vijay Nambiar, is the Chef de Cabinet; Ms. Alicia Barcena of Mexico will be Under-Secretary-General for Management; Mr. John Holmes, UK, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs; Mr. Lynn Pascoe, U.S., Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs; Mr. Sha Zukang, China, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs; Mr. Kiyotaka Akasaka of Japan, the Under-Secretary-General for Public Information; Nicolas Michel, Switzerland, will be Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs; Mr. Jean-Marie Guehenno, France, will be Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations; Mr. Muhammad Shaaban, Egypt, will be Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly Affairs.Mr. David Veness of the UK will be Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security; Ms. Inga-Britt Ahlenuius of Sweden will be Under-Secretary-General of Internal Oversight Services; Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, Sri Lanka, will be Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict; Mr. Antonio Maria Costa of Italy will be Director-General of the UN Office at Vienna; Mr. Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Russia, will be Director-General of the UN Office in Geneva; Mr. Thoraya Obaid, Saudi Arabia, will be Executive Director of the UN Population Fund; Mr. Ad Melkert of the Netherlands will be Associate Administrator of the UNDP; Mr. Marek Belka, Poland, will be Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE); Mr. Joe Luis Machinea of Argentina will be Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); and Mr. Aboulie Janneh of the Gambia will be Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)”.
Does this mean that ESCWA and UNON are headed by ASGs and not USGs?
Mrs. Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka
Executive Director of the United Nations in NBO _ under the USG equivalent- Away from Headquarters
Same for Tallawy ex-position as Executive Secretary @ESCWA
Ah, so that’s covered by the little qualification here: “Afterward, he said, other appointments would follow, including for Assistant Secretaries-General, after which the appointments of the Secretary-General’s Special Representatives … “
BTW: No where it is mentioned that Kim Won-Soo is the deputy chief of Staff and we don’t know what function Yoon YeoCheol occupies. Choi Soungh-ah is working in the department of Ms Montas.
No, it’s not mentioned…and it seems to be an interesting and tight little team that BAN has grouped around him, much more cohesive and more organized than most transition teams:
Won-soo Kim graduated from the College of Law of the Seoul National University (bachelor of law) in Korea, and received his M.A. from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. Kim has pursued a foreign service career since joining the Korean Foreign Ministry in 1978. He has worked as the second secretary in the Korean Embassy in Washington, DC, and as the deputy director of the North America Division in the Foreign Ministry. He subsequently served as the political counselor in the Korean Embassy in New Delhi, and as the director of the Treaties Division in the Foreign Ministry.
He pursued graduate legal study as a doctoral (JSD) candidate at Stanford Law School. He pursued graduate legal study as a doctoral (JSD) candidate at Stanford Law School. At Stanford, he also worked as a visiting fellow at CISAC between 1994 and 1995, and at Stamford’s Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) between 1995 and 1996.
In 1996-97, Kim served as the alternate representative of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations Security Council. Kim also worked as the political counselor of the Korean Mission to the UN until 1999… Most recently, Kim worked at the Office of the President of the Republic of Korea as the secretary to the president for foreign affairs and trade (2002-03), as well as international security affairs (2000-02).
Then, in September 2003, he was a resident visiting scholar at Stamford University’s APARC, again.
By the spring of 2005, he was back in Seoul as Director-General for Policy Planning, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (when BAN was Foreign Minister)…
Yeocheol YOON – attended Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Diplomacy in Boston, class of 1990. (Somebody with same name earned degrees as MS 1991, then PhD in polymer chemistry from the University of Akron in Ohio in 1995?) In 1994, he was listed as Second Secretary at the Korean Embassy in Washington, when BAN was deputy Ambassador in Washington with rank of Minister. In 2001-2002, he worked with BAN as First Secretary in the office of the then-President of the UN General Assembly, who was also a South Korean. (BAN was Chef de Cabinet to that South Korean President of the GA). The Fletcher School of Diplomacy alumni news notes that “After serving two-and-a-half years in Seoul, first as Director of Protocol and next as Director of North American Affairs Division II of the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Yeocheol Yoon has been reassigned to a new post in February 2005 as counselor at the Republic of Korea Mission to the United Nations.) From 2005-2006, he served at the Korean Mission to the UN in New York. According to a UN Press Release dated 26 April 2006, he participated in a meeting of the GA’s Committee on Information (which decides the “mandate” for DPI, the Department for Public Information — this was just as Shashi Tharoor was gearing up to run for the SG job), and said in that Committee:
YOON YEOCHEOL ( Republic of Korea) said his delegation attached great importance to DPI’s work and noted with satisfaction that, over the past four years, the Department had improved its work by focusing on new strategic goals. By striving for greater effectiveness through targeted delivery of its communications services, by increasing its use of new information and communication technologies, and by expanding its civil society partnership base, DPI had significantly enhanced its efficiency. He was particularly heartened that DPI continued to support the Millennium Development Goals and to strengthen its interaction with civil society, particularly enhancing partnership with academic institutions.
He went on to express support for the Department’s efforts to rationalize the UNIC network, which would help focus their work on priority thematic issues and particular regional concerns. But such an exercise should not be seen as an end in itself, but should rather be a means to achieve the objective of making information about the United Nations and its mission more accessible to a greater number of clients without expending additional resources. The priorities of the rationalization process should be guided by the demand for the services provided by UNICs and the availability of alternate means of access to United Nations information.
Further, in developed countries where the Internet was widely used or where one of the six official United Nations languages was spoken, the world body’s website would soon obviate the need for UNICs, he said, expressing the hope that the rationalization process would be conducted in a manner that would strengthen the Organization’s information outreach to those Member States currently outside the scope of DPI’s information capacity, or which did not have wide access to the Internet.
Specifically on the United Nations website, he said that while his delegation recognized DPI’s efforts towards ensuring parity among the official languages on the site, it also understood that all the proposed improvements could not be undertaken simultaneously. Therefore, DPI could make more efficient use of its limited resources by giving greater priority to enhancing the website in the major languages that received the most traffic. On United Nations libraries, his delegation supported the new motto “From collections to connectsâ€, as well as the proposals to change the name of Dag Hammarskjöld Library to the “Dag Hammarskjöld Library and Knowledge-Sharing Centreâ€.
Finally, he drew the Committee’s attention to the public perception and expectations of the United Nations revealed by some recent public opinion polls conducted by DPI. Although the Organization’s image had been badly bruised by recent scandals, the majority of the wider public wanted a stronger United Nations and believed the world body was central to resolving global conflicts. “This is where we standâ€, he said, stressing that it was vitally important that DPI continue to help the public understand the reality of the United Nations and its hopes for the future.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/pi1710.doc.htm
Choi Soungh-ah: can’t find too much about her, but she was a published journalist in the Korean press. She must have then joined the Foreign Ministry under BAN. Does she have dual US-Korean nationality? She regularly attended the daily Noon Briefings at UNHQ/NY after BAN was elected, but was a silent presence …
On 13 December, former UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said to journalists: “You can ask Ms. Soung-ah Choi, who came with Mr. Ban Ki-moon a few weeks ago, and is, as you know, sitting in my office. You can refer to her any questions related to Mr. Ban Ki-moon until 31 December…”
From what I have read ( can’t recall the source and dateline) , Soung-ah Choi used to live and work in the US but decided to leave everything to join the Korean Govt sometimes last year or 2005. I guess preparing for the race and election of the SG.
Interesting …
Whoops , the saga continues:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/10/news/UN-GEN-UN-Faked-Degrees.php
Let’s see how many U.N. employees have submitted degrees from Trinity College and University
Oh! I can’t understand exactly what happened here — from what is written in the story, the Joint Disciplinary Committee decided that it wa “serious misconduct” for a staff member to mention, or to submit as credentials, degrees from a “non-accredited” university, or, in this case, apparently, a “degree mill.” In this case, it is suggested (but just suggested), the former UN staff member (or s/m as they write, internally) may have simply paid for these degrees, instead of “earning” them through a course of study. These degrees were acquired, somehow, in 1996 or 1997. OK. First of all, if this was a case of deliberate fraud, then that should have been the basis for the immediate termination of this s/m. That would make some sense. This is not stated in the article, but the journalist who wrote it may have just been going for the sensational. But, if we just assume for a moment that this was not a totally cynical exercise, exactly how is a s/m supposed to determine whether or not the school attended was “accredited”? Accredited by whom? Does the UN maintain a list of schools that it approves? Perhaps this s/m acquired these degrees even before his employment with the UN? In that case, before even applying for a post there, one should check every school ever attended to see if it is on the UN list, or not — and if not, it should be censored or suppressed on the cv, or on the UN’s official P-11 form?
Perhaps, alternatively, this s/m added these degrees after starting to work for the UN — just to increase his chances for a promotion, for example. That would be a somewhat different matter. In addition, there are staff members coming from all over the world — who in the UN will know whether some, say, Chinese or Indonesian or Russian or Romanian or whatever, school is “accredited” (and approved by the UN?) or not?
Not many people on the Offices of Human Resource Management speak all those local languages — and who is going to check out every single possible school? There seems to be something wrong here. Like so many of the UN Administration’s actions, it has a whiff of repression, and all in the name of some “reform”… the pursuit of which seems to be in one direction only, and that is, to punish the UN s/m, without ever correcting the UN Administration
He committed the offense of misrepresentation and falsification of his academic credentials ( all the time knowing that the statement is false and with the intent to secure employment).
This is a serious matter especially for someone who works directly for or within the OHRM. You can have a degree from Timbuktu for all one cares but at least it gives credence that one did successfully completed the required course work for and has been awarded one (1) or more degrees or diplomas in a particular field or specialty from an accredited institution of higher education.
He cheated by buying off his credentials for a measly hundred ponds instead of earning them the way that every honest employee does ( through regular / part-time / night-school attendance)
There have been persistent questions about this person in the regular daily Noon briefings at UNHQ/NY — but there was nothing in the reported exchanges that made any sense. The journalists have been asking if this is the person who invented the GALAXY system for applying on-line for UN jobs — which didn’t seem to improve anybody’s chances for consideration for any posting, however.
Well looks like the system isnot effective:
Member States asked the Secretariat to explain the purpose of establishing a “Recruitment Center.†What would be its mandate, what activities it is supposed to be carrying out etc…
Ms. Beagle explained that the establishment of a new recruitment center – which could be also a unit or department – is an important asset meant to professionalize recruiting. Currently, the process of recruitment is only passive, when it should instead be active. Recruiters are still not able to obtain the profiles needed so that it is easier to meet the gender, geographical and technical requirements. More specialized personnel with knowledge of the job market as well as better screening tools, such as staffing systems to manage all the applications that are received, are needed. The recruitment unit within OHRM would be charged with these tasks.
http://www.centerforunreform.org/node/207
One way or the other geographical imbalance still exists