24 June 2022 – Mukesh Kapila This article was first released in The Conversation on 21 June 2022. Somalia is on the brink of catastrophe. A recent assessment suggests that 7.7 million Somalis need emergency aid right now, a similar number to those affected by the Ethiopian famine in 1984, one of the worst humanitarian disasters in history. About one millionContinue reading “No time for complacency: Somalia’s unfolding catastrophe”
Category Archives: Senza categoria
“History does not stop because we messed up”
Come what may, sooner or later, UNOPS will find that history has to be squared. It cant be brushed under the carpet.
Humanitarian instinct against humanitarian bureaucracy
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”
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?
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.
Flesh & Blood: The Blog of Mukesh Kapila 