11 April, 2008
New York - Ines Alberdi is said to have the necessary requirements to be an excellent director of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), a post for which she was appointed on Monday, April 7. The Madrid newspaper El Pais described her as follows: "sister of the former minister of Social Affairs, Cristina Alberdi, and candidate of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the elections of the Community of Madrid in 2003, Inés Alberdi is professor of Sociology at the Complutense University and a recognized expert with international experience on issues related to women and family. She
has been a consultant to several international agencies, including the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW)."
With this excellent academic background, political involvement, and support of a government with an exemplary record on the issues of promoting women, Alberdi should receive the applause and congratulations from women's groups around the world. However, on Tuesday, the headlines of the global newspaper International Herald Tribune read that the nomination "sparked criticism" from feminist colleagues.
According to Adrienne Germain, president of the International Women's Health Coalition, "we are deeply disappointed because this decision was not based on merit but on factors that should not be considered in a professional appointment in the United Nations" especially given that "since last Fall a candidate, who meets all the requirements and is from the South, had been identified."
Germain referred to the Indian economist, Gita Sen, whose candidacy, supported by women's organizations and networks around the world, was voted unanimously by the UNDP selection committee as the best among more than a hundred applicants.
Although the Spanish EFE agency praised Alberdi as "the first Spaniard who is head of a fund, agency or programme in the United Nations," in the organization chart of the world organization UNIFEM is just one fund under the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and its leadership (traditionally occupied by women) is a third level position in the UN hierarchy, just a "D2" located below the deputy secretary-general, under-secretary-general and assistant secretary-general levels.
A position with such a small hierarchical significance should normally be appointed by Kemal Dervis, UNDP's Administrator, the third in the hierarchy after the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, and his Deputy Secretary General, the Tanzanian Asha-Rose Migiro. The office of Dervis was, in fact, responsible for announcing the appointment of Alberdi on Monday, but all the sources consulted in New York agree that the decision was personally made by Ban Ki-Moon. The official announcement said that the selection process (which took seven months) was "comprehensive and extensive" but does not explain why it started as a process based on merit and then their results were not taken into account.
Despite the limited formal recognition, UNIFEM's task is enormous, because among its duties are the reduction of poverty and women's exclusion, combating gender-based violence, reducing the spread of AIDS among the female population, and supporting the presence of more women in governance. For this ambitious goal, UNIFEM has an annual budget of less than one hundred million dollars, while UNICEF, the Children's Fund has two billion. The major donor country of UNIFEM
is ... Spain, which contributed 7.3 million Euros for the 2006-2007 period, followed by Sweden (7 million), Great Britain (5), the United States and Norway.
The spokesman for the Spanish Mission at the UN, Jose Caballero, told Inner City Press a few hours before the announcement of the appointment of Alberdi that "Spain is not well represented at senior levels of the United Nations" and announced that for this reason "we will have more and more representation" in the future. Spain currently contributes about $700 million annually to various UN agencies and programmes and this amount should grow because President Zapatero pledged during the recent election campaign to increase by fifty percent Spanish foreign aid and reach 0.7% of gross national product by the end of the current term of office. Spain would join the small group of donors who have achieved this goal, together with the Scandinavian countries, Holland and Luxembourg.
But this should not mean, as Inner City Press said, "today in the UN you must pay to play." In the international system officials are not representatives of their countries but public employees worldwide and, as such, they do not owe loyalty to their governments but to the UN charter. If the appointments depend on contributions, citizens of poor or small countries
would have no chance in the international arena.
UNDP recommends to all countries that civil service appointments be based on competitive and transparent procedures, but is far from implementing this at home. Thus, at the same time Alberdi's appointment was announced, UNDP announced the appointment of Indian citizen (and World Bank official) Ajay Chhibber as UNDP assistant administrator and director of the regional office for Asia and Pacific, a higher position than that of Alberdi in UNIFEM albeit with
much less political visibility. The simultaneity of both announcements is a clear diplomatic message for India, which failed
to get a post but succeeded to get another.
What this message says about UN governance is not very good. In the coming days, Ban Ki-Moon has to appoint three key members of his cabinet: the high commissioner for human rights (replacing Canadian Louise Arbour), the head of peacekeeping operations (replacing French Jean-Marie Guéhenno) and the principal legal adviser (replacing Swiss
Michel Nicolas), all of them with the rank of assistant secretary general.
Three weeks ago, a group of non-governmental organizations wrote a letter to Ban Ki-moon asking to "announce the procedures to be used for such appointments." The signatories affirm that "there are highly qualified people in each region, philosophy, gender and race" and suggested the secretary-general to demonstrate his commitment to a better management of the UN applying good selection practices such as "the public announcement of the vacancies to be filled, the publication of the list of candidates and seeking opinion on them." "In this way," the signatories say, "the secretariat would prevent from appearing as being engaged in reciprocal agreements with certain member states."
In the case of UNIFEM they could not prevent this. And this complicates the huge task that Inés Alberdi has now to elevate this fund to the hierarchical category and budgetary allocation that women around the world need and deserve.
* The author is director of the Third World Institute and co-author of the report "UNIFEM: Past, Present and Future "requested by the Advisory Committee on the UN Development Fund for Women
Related information
Women, commitments and impotence
At the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women`s annual meeting all the world's governments endorsed an agreement that says they have failed their previous commitments to enforce women's rights, These commitments were agreed in 1995 in a high-level international conference in Beijing, and reaffirmed at every summit since then. And worse, UNIFEM, the U.N. agency specializing in women, has been without a head for months despite the existence of a strong candidate -Indian Economist and activist Dr. Gita Sen- backed by women's organizations and with the recommendation of the selection committee. March 2008, by Roberto Bissio
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