Really, Really Small Science (propaganda in other words)

The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself.— Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister

In the UNDP Turkey newsletter for January 2008 there is the following article:


UNDP TOPS GLOBAL ACCOUNTABILITY RANKING

“UNDP received top ranking on the 2007 Global Accountability Report launched in London on 4 December by One World Trust, a leading expert in the field of global governance and accountability.
UNDP is among 30 of the world's leading organizations from intergovernmental, non-governmental, and corporate sectors assessed by One World Trust according to four widely-accepted dimensions of accountability: transparency, participation, evaluation, and complaint and response mechanisms.
Commenting on the report, UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis said, “UNDP finds the key dimensions of the Global Accountability Framework -- transparency, participation, evaluation and complaint/response management -- to be particularly useful and instructive. The Framework independently validates UNDP’s current work and sheds light on areas of possible improvement. This feedback is critical to UNDP’s continued progress in this area and adherence to the best practices of accountability.”
For UNDP’s profile and results in the 2007 Global Accountability Report, click here. The full report is available on the One World Trust website.”

Kemal Dervis, the present administrator of UNDP, is Turkish.

This report was launched By Mark Malloch Brown, UNDP Administrator 1999-2005, in London.

The Introduction to the report was written by Mark Malloch Brown, UNDP Administrator 1999-2005.

The section in the report on UNDP has as its only contributor Mark Malloch Brown, UNDP Administrator 1999-2005.

The biography, admittedly a selected one, quotes as the only source for UNDP, “UNDP (2000) The Way Forward: The Administrator’s Business Plans 2000-2003, UNDP” written by Mark Malloch Brown, UNDP Administrator 1999-2005. (or at least written on his behalf.)

This glowing endorsement of UNDP is only slightly tempered by the admission that:


“While the UNDP has a high quality policy, the organisation’s practice of handling complaints has come under strong criticism recently. Two high profile cases have emerged of UNDP personnel in West Africa and North Korea who claim to have reported malpractice and consequently lost their jobs. UNDP disputes the claims. The West Africa case is currently before the UN Joint Appeals Board, where UNDP will be bound by any ruling. The North Korea case has been taken up by a broader Independent Investigative Review (IIR) of UNDP operations in North Korea. The IIR is expected to produce a final report in early 2008. UNDP along with the other UN Funds and Programmes are in the process of harmonizing whistleblower protection policies into a common UN ethics system. The UNDP is also consolidating its existing protections under a new UNDP Ethics Office. Therefore, while the UNDP policy is of a high quality, ongoing efforts will likely be required to ensure good practice principles protecting complainants are integrated throughout operations and embedded within the organizational culture to ensure consistent treatment of complainants across the organization.”

What we have here is not a “framework (that) independently validates UNDP’s current work and sheds light on areas of possible improvement” but a piece of propaganda and a very insidious one at that.