Amid a leadership team shake-up, World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wants to hang on to his deputy for just a little while longer.
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Also in today’s edition: We have the latest on the saga of a U.N. agency that apparently bit off more than it could chew, as fed-up donors demand that officials associated with the UNOPS debacle be held accountable and millions of dollars in lost funds be recouped.
‘Some more time’
In WHO news, Tedros has asked his deputy to hold off on her retirement, while naming officials to temporarily fill slots emptied by a wave of departures, my colleague Jenny Lei Ravelo scoops.
In an email to staff that Jenny saw, Tedros asked Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab to continue as his deputy director-general and officer in charge of the regional office for Western Pacific “for some more time.”
Previously, Jenny revealed who was among the raft of top officials on their way out.
According to some sources, it may take a few months to find permanent candidates for some of the positions.
Professor Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Global Health Law, tells Jenny the shake-up didn’t surprise him: “I read Tedros' management changes as introducing new leadership that will be more creative and dynamic.”
Scoop: Tedros asks deputy to delay retirement, fills posts temporarily
ICYMI: Here's everyone who is leaving WHO leadership
Donors read UNOPS the riot act
The fallout from the meltdown of a once-sleepy but now scandal-plagued U.N. agency continued yesterday as donors demanded accountability from those involved in any wrongdoing at the United Nations Office for Project Services, including the possibility of criminal referrals.
We’ve been following the travails of UNOPS for months, exposing the failure of its signature investment initiative, Sustainable Investments in Infrastructure and Innovation, or S3i.
Two recent KPMG draft reports painted a picture of incompetence, a “culture of fear,” abuse of power, and disregard for oversight in the top echelons of UNOPS as management decided to shift gears from practical contracting services to dive into the risky world of impact investing.
The risk didn’t pay off, and now wealthy donors want the money back and heads to roll, my colleague Colum Lynch writes.
“We demand full accountability, including individual accountability,” said New Zealand’s U.N. ambassador, Carolyn Schwalger, speaking at a special U.N. session on behalf of more than 20 donor countries, including France, Germany, Japan, and the United States.
Read: Donors demand accountability in UNOPS scandal
+ Catch up on all of our coverage of the UNOPS scandal.
Denmark’s first DAC chair
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee has a new chair-elect, but it was a close race.
Denmark’s Carsten Staur pipped Norway’s Nikolai Astrup 16-13 in a runoff vote that closed Wednesday night. We’ll have more coverage on what Staur’s election — to replace Susanna Moorehead from the U.K. after four years — means for aid in the coming days.
But the fact the vote was so close perhaps says something in itself. Staur offered impeccable credentials for the role as the current permanent representative to OECD, with past stints to the U.N. in Geneva and New York, and six years helming the Danish aid agency, Danida.
He also offered a fairly classic vision of official development assistance, or ODA, calling it “the jewel” in the DAC’s crown and noting that emerging measurements of donor effort, like Total Official Support for Sustainable Development, lack “the same universal and longstanding political recognition.”
The 31 DAC members appear to have chosen a continuity candidate. But with the idea of ODA itself being questioned — by seemingly everyone from the head of the French Development Agency to a former U.N. assistant secretary-general — that could prove to be a bold choice in itself.
ICYMI: The 3-man race to replace Moorehead as DAC chair (Pro)
SBF talks BS
Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX blasted greenwashing at a New York Times-hosted summit yesterday.
“There is a bunch of bullshit that regulated companies do to try and look good, and these are things that everyone who does them basically know are kind of dumb. … It's just a PR campaign masquerading as do-gooderism,” he said, placing greenwashing in that category.
Strong words from a guy who’s under federal investigation and who doesn’t have much to lose at this point anyway since he’s lost his fortune and reputation.
“I did not try to commit fraud on anyone,” he said, though he also admitted, “Look, I screwed up.”
Related: What will FTX's collapse mean for global health and development?
Japan woos Africa
Japan pledged $30 billion in aid over three years to Africa at this year’s Tokyo International Conference on African Development — a $10 billion jump from its previous set of pledges at TICAD in 2019.
Devex contributor Anthony Langat reports there’s been speculation that the move is designed to counter Chinese influence, but Tokyo insists it’s all about cooperating with Africa as a partner rather than competing with China.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also reiterated Japan’s support for an African seat on the U.N. Security Council — a longstanding priority for the continent given its lack of representation on the all-important decision-making body.
'Cooperation rather than aid': How Japan plans to spend $30B in Africa (Pro)
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Time for a reset
Today is World AIDS Day — a moment “to consider a reset in the HIV response,” write Sharon Lewin and Kenneth Ngure of the International AIDS Society in an op-ed for Devex.
They say that while the pandemic response has been led by the people most affected by it — initially the gay male community in high-income countries and then activists across the world including in lower-income countries — there’s a stubborn reality to 40 years of progress: HIV is a pandemic of the poor that thrives on inequality.
That’s why they call for a more holistic approach that tackles other barriers, such as stigma and poverty, keeping people from getting the treatment they need.
Opinion: The HIV response must put people first
Deceptive growth
Remittances to low- and middle-income countries are estimated to have increased in 2022 by about 5%, to hit $626 billion, my colleague Shabtai Gold tells me. That sounds like a lot, and while the growth did alleviate some concerns about a reversal, it still marks a sharp drop compared to growth in 2021, which clocked in at 10.2% — more than double this year’s movement.
New World Bank data shows sub-Saharan Africa particularly on the low end, with remittances growing by just 5.2%. Remittances to Ukraine also increased but by less than expected, in part because money flowed to neighboring European nations hosting refugees.
Inflation has eaten into real wage gains in places like Europe, also curbing remittances.
Separately, the International Monetary Fund is warning that a decline in remittances from Russia, along with the rising cost of living, could push an additional 1 million people into poverty in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
OECD notes that remittances are for many low-income nations “the largest source of external finance,” far ahead of aid.
In other news
The U.N. and its partner agencies are asking donors to contribute $51.5 billion to a global relief fund to address the increased demand for humanitarian aid in 2023. [The Guardian]
Vanuatu and 17 other nations issued a draft resolution asking the International Court of Justice for legal clarification on governments’ obligations to protect future generations from the impacts of climate change. [Reuters]
The International Labour Organization's latest report found that global real wages fell by 0.9% in the first half of 2022, which could exacerbate inequality and drive social unrest. [Al Jazeera]
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About the author
Anna Gawel
Anna Gawel is the Managing Editor of Devex. She previously worked as the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat, the flagship publication of D.C.’s diplomatic community. She’s had hundreds of articles published on world affairs, U.S. foreign policy, politics, security, trade, travel and the arts on topics ranging from the impact of State Department budget cuts to Caribbean efforts to fight climate change. She was also a broadcast producer and digital editor at WTOP News and host of the Global 360 podcast. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Maryland in College Park.
