(picture coutesy The Namibian)A recent article about the United Nations in Nam.
in the local press (Namibian, 22/12/05, not on-line), and its new resident representative. Included, the news that the UN are spending N$ 70 million (US$ 12 million) on a new UN headquarters in Windhoek. Quite apart from the fact that this ‘headquarters’ has damaged a thickly wooded and environmentally sensitive part of the Klein Windhoek river bed, can one ask why the UN is not spending this money in Dafur or somewhere? Namibia is a (reasonably) settled and grown-up country now, and we should be able to tackle our own problems without being nannied by the UN and its UNDAF (or UN-Daft) fund. The UN Resident Representative says that “by 2010, the UN hopes to have strengthened the country’s response to the HIV-AIDS pandemic”. Well, I doubt whether the endless generously funded conferences and 'workshops' will lessen the AIDS pandemic by one single case. Hot air has not yet been medically proven to be a cure for Aids, nor unfortunately, just on its own, is money. And education programmes? If anyone does not know yet the causes of HIV infection, I don’t think further education is going to help much. Rephrasing, I think the N$70m would have been better spent on ARV's than on a new paper-shuffling palace for the UN from which it can launch more 'education' programmes.
The new UN representative, Mr. Nhongo, says that Namibia is the country with one of the biggest income disparities in the world (right) and that “turning this situation around is a major challenge for the UN” (wrong). I did not know that social and economic re-engineering within a country is a job for the UN – don’t they have anything else to do?
In previous years, the UN has rented offices in Windhoek. Now, according to the Representative, "the money saved on rent (in his new N$70M building) can be put towards development assistance”. Assuming that the rent paid by the UN could not be more than say N$ 50 000 per month, and the finance payments on a ‘home loan’ of N$ 70m, assuming you could get such a thing, would be about N$ 700 000 per month, (even though the government i.e. the namibian taxpayer has chipped in a bit) it makes one tend to agree with those who are sceptical about the UN’s ability to plan its finances.
