Kiwiblog

There was a fascinating radio interview at 7.40 am on National Radio today. It was from a specialist newspaper that reports on the UN, and complaining about the refusal of Helen Clark to do press conferences, how Clark and Heather Simpson try to handpick journalists for interviews and a general lack of accountability.

You can listen to the interview here.

It sounds like the UN media is less compliant than some of the NZ media has been. Some extracts from the interview with Matthew Lee the founder and editor of the Inner City Press that focuses on the UN:

In the six months she has been in office there have been a number of UNDP issues that have arisen and repeatedly, I would say half a dozen times, myself and other journalist have asked that she comes and do a press conference, an actual Q&A and take questions and it is yet to happen.

He points out she is the third most senior official at the UN, and not a single press conference in six months.

It has become somewhat striking, a total failure to answer questions about the agency as they arise. … Once requests were made for Helen Clark to do a press conference there were a flurry of calls from her two spokespeople at the UNDP to specific media outlets saying do you want a one on one. One of them responded and said Okay here’s the journalist who will do it. But UNDP responded No No we prefer this other journalist who works for you. That’s a degree of micro-management of press coverage that is almost unheard of in the UN.

But very familiar to people back in New Zealand. And many in the media went along with it, or they risked losing access.

If she is the third highest official in the UN, she needs to come and take questions because everyone else does. The Secretary-General does it on a monthly basis, the head of peacekeeping every two weeks.

Almost funny that Helen’s managed to actually lower the standards at the UN!

He also goes on to say how the only briefing anyone in the UNDP has given for some months has been about relief efforts in Samoa and Tonga.

Geoff Robinson: Are you the only journalist, is yours the only organisation raising this as an issue?

Lee: No, No … In July an issue arose about a hiring, a kind of nepotism hiring took place in UNDP. Inner City Press had the exclusive but after that it was covered by the Times of London, Reuters and even newspapers in Italy. All four of these publications wanted answers from UNDP and none of them got them. I sent e-mails to her long time staffer, Heather Simpson, to make sure we got her answer as to why this nepotism scandal was not a problem. There was never any response at all.

Heather’s job is to block media, not facilitate them!

But here is what is really interesting. All the media listen to Morning Report. Yet this quite stunning and significant interview has not been reported anywhere else at all!

A few Kiwis will become regular readers of this blog – UNDP Watch.

I only discovered it after it linked to a profile I did of Helen Clark a few months back.

The blog is not run by the vast right wing conspiracy, but by a group of UN staffers who are critical of the UNDP for its lack of transparency.

The well informed Trans-Tasman has just told subscribers that Helen Clark has been appointed Administrator of the United Nationals Development Programme. The role, is the third most senior at the UN, and needs to be confirmed by the UN General Assembly.

Kiwiblog broke the news on 7 February that Clark was seeking the job, and that the NZ Government was backing her for it.

Congratulations go to Helen Clark for gaining the job. As I blogged back on 7 February I do think she will do a good job, and on balance supported her candidacy – not without reservations of course. And the fact she was successful does show she is highly respected for the contribution she can make to development issues.

Kudos should go to John Key and Murray McCully for their strong backing of Clark, and putting the NZ Government in full support of her bid. It is in New Zealand’s interest to have a NZer in the third most important role there and they look good for putting party politics to one side. Despite the many imperfections of the UN, we are better for its existence (parts of it could go though).

Incidentally I ran into Clark last night in the basement of the Beehive and noted to a Nat MP afterwards that she was looking pretty happy. I had heard a few days that she was the likely successful candidate, but not that she ws home and hosed.

Phil Goff should also be pleased. Once Helen leaves the country he may manage to make second place in the Preferred PM polls

As expected, Helen Clark has made the shortlist for the UNDP Adminstrator job. NZPA reports she is now in New York for an interview with the UN Secretary-General.

Hard to know her chances, as it depends of course on who ther other candidates are. Also whom influential countries like the US support.

Mike Moore has said he thinks Helen Clark is the best candidate for the UNDP Administrator job, and has been lobbying on her behalf. He thinks she has a strong chance to win, rating her ahead of the unanmed other candidates.

I have heard from a highly reliable source that at the recent Pacific Islands Forum, support was canvassed by the NZ Government for a candidacy by Helen Clark to take up the post of Administrator of the UN Development Programme.

A few weeks ago on 12 January 2009, the UN Secretary-General announced that the current Administrator, Kemal Dervis, was retiring. His four year term ends on 15 August 2009.

The role is a very very senior one at the United Nations. It is basically third only to the Secretary-General and the Deputy Secretary-General. They chair the UN Development Group, which is a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, programmes and departments dealing with development issues. This is as big as it gets basically.

My initial source is not anyone within Government or Parliament, or anyone associated with them – I am happy to sign an affidavit to that. I have spies everywhere As the story is potentially quite significant I e-mailed the PM’s Chief Press Secretary with the guts of what I had learnt, and asked if they could comment on its accuracy. They have declined to comment which suggests to me it is not without substance.

The role is not elected at large, but appointed by the Secretary-General, and confirmed by the General Assembly. So one does need to have good consensus behind the appointment – however it is not a lobbying game to the same extent say the WTO Director-General was.

Helen will not be the only candidate. It is likely there will be a couple of candidates from within the UN bureaucracy – development and aid specialists. So it will be a choice between a candidate with political leadership experience vs candidates with fulltime development backgrounds. While the decision is the Secretary-General’s, Barack Obama’s support will be influential as the UN wants to build ties with the new administration. All bar the last two UNDP Administrators have been Americans.

The annual budget of the UNDP is close to US$5 billion and they work in 166 countries. This is arguably the most senior job one could expect Helen to obtain as the UN Secretary-General job is done by rotation amongst the regions.

So what’s my reaction to the candidacy, if it is in play? I think it goes without saying that I have not been Helen’s biggest fan. It doesn’t concern me that she led a Government whose policies I disagreed with. Talent doesn’t come from just one side of the political spectrum. And I have generally regarded Clark as an able political administrator – as have most of the public.

But I do have some concerns. To me the pre 2005 Helen Clark is different to the post 2005 Clark. I’m not sure what happened, but somewhere along the way Helen seemed to lose her previously reliable judgement. From 2005 to 2008 she made the wrong call on almost every big issue such as the deliberate over-spending, the initial refusal to pay back the pledge card costs, the inquiry into Taito Philip Field, the Benson-Pope sagas, the Electoral Finance Act, the “trust” campaign against John Key and most of all her continual defence of Winston that defied comprehension. I saw a disturbing commitment to the ends justify the means, which is a slippery slope.

So if the last three years had never happened, I would say supporting the candidacy would be a no brainer.  I feel much more conflicted after the last three years, but then I look at the particulars of the position:

• Helen has a lifetime of experience and passion on “development” issues and would bring that to the job. If it was IMF Managing Director I’d be worried
• She has a formidable international network that would be of great benefit in the job
• As a former Prime Minister she would bring considerable status to the role, making it easier to get in the door with donor nations
• New Zealand has a very proud history of doing our part, despite our small economy, with development issues and the opportunity to have a New Zealander heading up the UNDP is a once in a lifetime chance.

So I conclude that just as we supported Mike Moore, Denis Marshall, SImon Upton and Don McKinnon to international jobs, we should also support the candidacy of Helen Elizabeth Clark to the position of Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. There is a time to put partisan politics behind us.

I am sure there will be plenty of people agreeing and disagreeing in the comments! For those who think I have lost my marbles, well then consider that Angelina Jolie is is a UNDP Global Ambassador, so if Helen gets the top job that increases the chances Angelina may visit New Zealand