Yet Another in the Long Line of U.N. Embarrassments

Gary Gore — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:13:10 -0400

Have you ever had one of those mornings where you looked all over the place for your car keys, but for the life of you, they were nowhere to be found? Then, finally, you stick your hand in your front pocket, only to feel embarrassingly foolish?

Well, alongside the sense of shame and guilt, embarrassment is exactly what the U.N. should be feeling right now, with the release of this news.

Just weeks before it announced the onset of a global food crisis and the urgent need for donors to provide at least $775 million in additional funding, the World Food Program was sitting on a cash and near-cash stockpile of more than $1.22 billion.

The startling figure is contained in the latest audited statements of the WFP, which were endorsed by the WFP’s executive director, Josette Sheeran, on March 31, just a month before Sheeran announced at an international aid conference on April 22 that a "silent tsunami" in rising food prices demanded the huge infusion of cash for the WFP’s latest budget.

In a May 1 International Herald Tribune op-ed, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon further declared that the WFP had just "$18 million cash in hand" in the wake of its appeal for emergency funding.

The United Nations once again proves itself to be the quintessential example of bureaucratic black holes. McCain's (and Krauthammer's) League of Democracies idea cannot get here soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.