Transparency

I have been struck by a common refrain I have been hearing from some vocal, if not quite factual, UN : the UN is not transparent or accountable and that we have no idea where U.S. taxpayer dollars are going. The current UN whipping boy is the UN Development Program (UNDP) which these bloggers have taken a special interest in.

I work on a daily basis to support the work of UNDP and as a person of limited means, I can tell you that I would not do this if I didn't know how UNDP was spending my money (both the money of U.S. taxpayers and of my special project donors).

First, a bit about UNDP's budget. There are two types of funds that UNDP has within its almost US$5 Billion budget:

• Core Funds--which are funds voluntarily provided by donors to generally support the work of the organization. Each year the U.S. Congress decides how much money it will contribute to the work of UNDP. The amount of U.S. taxpayer dollars contributed to UNDP core funds has been around $100 million (or about 10% of UNDP's total core funds). To see information on what donors are contributing to core funds, read pages 44 and 45 of UNDP's 2007 Annual Report. The U.S. Government sits on the UNDP governing body (called the Executive Board) that approves the UNDP work plan. The Executive Board also approves each country program once every 3 years (with 166 countries, it would be difficult to review them all each year).
• Non Core Funds--anything that is given by donors for a specific purpose. In some cases a government will ask UNDP to handle the financial management of a program in their own country (locally financed programs). In 2007 almost $1.4 billion of UNDP's total budget came from this. The U.S. government does not do this so none of your tax dollars fall into this category of funds. In other cases a country will decide they want to help another country with a specific project but for some reason doesn't want to provide that country funds directly. In this case, donor nations will provide UNDP funds to carry out the project. U.S. taxpayer dollars contributed to UNDP in this way are reported on to the U.S. government on a yearly basis upon completion of program financial audits. In 2007 the U.S. provided almost $128 millon dollars of donor directed programs (UNDP had around $2 billion in these funds). For those bean counters among you, the other non-core funds that UNDP manages are funds for other UN efforts like the UN Development Fund for Women and UN Volunteers.

Now, the U.S. government gets a lovely audited report of how UNDP is spending all of its funds once a year. However, assuming you are not sitting in the U.S. government, you might have difficulty getting access to this information (apparently, based on comments from some of them during recent hearings, members of congress are not provided this information by the State Department).

So, if you want to see the work that UNDP is doing (and who is funding that work), you should visit the UNDP country office websites from the comfort of their own Internet connection by visiting the UNDP country office website that you are interested in. These websites have project documentation which lists the donors to the project. Where you see UNDP listed as a donor, that means core funds are being used... thus about 10% of that is funded by U.S. taxpayers. For example, in Sri Lanka there is a $200,000 livestock recovery project that is funded by UNDP. Thus, about $20,000 of U.S. taxpayer dollars are going to help buy chickens for farmers working to rebuild their lives after the 2004 Tsunami. There are some exceptions to this where the U.S. Congress has forbade UNDP from using its funds in specific nations (such as Burma), in these cases none of your taxpayer dollars are spent in these countries. I am trying to find the list of these countries and once I do I will update this post!