26 May 2022 – Mukesh Kapila Last month, I visited Romania and the border region with Ukraine towards Odesa, in my role as Special Adviser to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM), accompanying its President Hon. Gennaro Migliore and Secretary General Sergio Piazzi. PAM is an international organisation of the parliaments of theContinue reading “Humanitarian instinct against humanitarian bureaucracy”
Author Archives: Mukesh Kapila
What the UNOPS scandal teaches about multilateral vulnerabilities and reforms
25 May 2022 – Mukesh Kapila I have found over past weeks that professional circles familiar with the multilateral United Nations system tend to see or excuse its transgressions in nuanced terms. It is as if the complexity of the contexts in which the UN functions confuses their moral direction-finder. Perhaps a weary cynicism andContinue reading “What the UNOPS scandal teaches about multilateral vulnerabilities and reforms”
How UNOPS executed an internal coup and installed a junta
How do you subvert an organisation from inside, surely and systematically, and turn it into an instrument of your supreme will? UNOPS provides a salutary example.
Journey into the heart of a scandal: how UNOPS cheated donors, exploited the poor, and lost millions
I used a trip to India to see for myself how UNOPS’s social impact investing initiative for affordable housing via its partner SHS was doing. It wasn’t doing anything. The where did the money go?
UNOPS Chief Grete Faremo leaves in disgrace
The Executive Director of UNOPS, Grete Faremo is thrown out of office in disgrace.
Ten reasons why the World Bank and other donors must stop funding fraud-tainted UNOPS
Should the World Bank and other donors be bankrolling such as enterprise whose conduct would be considered completely unacceptable – and illegal, even criminal – in their own organisations and countries?
UNOPS reaction to likely fraud is too little, too late, too phoney
22 April 2022 – Mukesh Kapila If there was a competition for the least trustworthy communications from a development agency, the United Nations Office for Project Services would be the undoubted champion. Scrolling its website is a singularly uninformative experience. UNOPS has never been transparent about the ups and downs that are normal for anyContinue reading “UNOPS reaction to likely fraud is too little, too late, too phoney”
Acting for accountability and correction at the top of UNOPS
Slowly but steadily, the impunity enjoyed by the leadership of the corruption-mired United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is getting stripped away.
Hard times are normal times: reflections on resilience to crises
What is resilience? In our age of severe and prolonged crises from repeated disasters and endless wars, we need a lot of resilience at policy, institutional and, above all, at personal level.
Mismanagement, fraud, and corruption at UNOPS: the Executive Board must act now
This is a call for urgent action by the Executive Board of UNOPS to tackle mismanagement, fraud, and corruption at this Unites Nations system agency
Flesh & Blood: The Blog of Mukesh Kapila 