Message-ID: <m0sCbh8-0005CyC@lisse.na> Date: Fri, 19 May 1995 21:42:56 -0200 From: Dr Eberhard W Lisse <mailto:el@LISSE.NA> Subject: Re: Africa To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L
In message <mailto:Pine.SUN.3.90.950518190212.25001B-100000@nywork2.undp.org>Mike Gurstein write s >On Wed, 17 May 1995, VALERIE BRUCE wrote:
>
>> The UN leading the way? The UN is at present ineffective, burdened by
>> its lack of funds, commitment, vision, and leadership. It is in a state
>> of profound disarray. It can't possibly take on anything else. Besides
>> which, it's a huge bureaucracy. They generally have difficulties getting
>> anything done, even if they have vision, policies, direction, etc.
>
>The UN is not a particularly large bureaucracy--the Secretariat has
>around 10,000 staff +/-, the UNDP less than 2000, the overall figure for
>all the UN family (excluding the World Bank) is less than 20,000--about
>the same number of employees as a North American/European city of maybe
>1,000,000 people.
You are joking, right?
The UN bureaucracy as a whole is the worst I have ever seen. Civil servants are not appointed on merit but on country quota.
The agencies in-country don't cooperate with each other. It is fascinating to see in the field of electronic networking. (Not just in Namibia by the way)
It depends also a bit on the local Resident Representative, but then again when is Namibia's quota at the WHO coming up again? :-)-O
Don't get me wrong, though, we got quite good experiences with UN in Namibia, UNTAG was a great success, UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR and FAO are doing excellent work here, and the WHO is ok too (these work within my ``area of expertise'').
el
-- Dr. Eberhard W. Lisse \ / Swakopmund State Hospital mailto:<el@lisse.NA> * | Resident Medical Officer Private Bag 5004 \ / 641 61503 (pager) 641 5550 (home) Swakopmund, Namibia ;____/ Postmaster Namibia <mailto:postmaster@lisse.NA>