As Director of Communications for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), I write to correct errors of fact and omission in your 13 February news article, "The global face of corruption is now coming under increasing scrutiny."
First, your article repeats an erroneous assertion published and subsequently corrected by the Associated Press (AP) but repeated elsewhere nonetheless. UNDP in fact manages about 10% of spending by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, & Malaria—not "more than half" as you report. To be clear, UNDP is generally called upon to act as Principal Recipient of Global Fund grants under only the most difficult, dangerous, and risk-prone conditions—in, for example, countries recovering from prolonged conflict or major crises. As of January 2011, UNDP was Principal Recipient in 27 countries, managing a total of 60 active grants amounting to about US$1.1 billion. This represents, again, about 10% of the Global Fund's currently active portfolio.
Second, you write that "UNDP says that the organisation's policy bars it from sharing internal audit reports with the Global Fund…" This statement misrepresents the mechanism under which UNDP is permitted to share information related to its audits, a mechanism set out by the UNDP Executive Board. Unlimited access to internal audits is currently permitted to Members States, but not to non-governmental organizations, such as the Global Fund, under a policy adopted by the UNDP Executive Board, which comprises 36 countries. UNDP also reports to the Global Fund any significant irregularities revealed in its audits, which include the work of sub-contractors. UNDP works diligently with the Global Fund to address such issues if and when they arise. UNDP management, further, strongly supports a proposal to increase access by large-scale institutional donors to relevant project audits—which the Board will consider soon.
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Finally, you omit mention of the millions of people in some of the world's poorest, most crisis-plagued countries who have received life-saving treatment as a direct result of our partnership with the Global Fund. As of the end of 2009, serving as Principal Recipient of the Global Fund, UNDP had reached 28 million people with prevention services, distributed 356 million condoms, provided 4.8 million people with HIV counseling and testing, supported 213,000 people with ongoing, life-saving antiretroviral treatment1, treated 878,000 cases of sexually transmitted infections, provided prevention of mother-to child transmission services to 36,000 women living with HIV, detected and treated 700,000 cases of tuberculosis, treated 26 million cases of malaria, and distributed 11 million bed nets.
As a provider of last resort—working to facilitate critical health care for highly vulnerable populations living under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable—UNDP focuses on delivering the best possible care to those patients most in need of disease prevention and treatment, with maximum accountability and transparency. We hope your future reporting will reflect this, and that you will feel free to contact us directly with any queries regarding this or future news articles.
Stephane Dujarric is Director of Communications of the UN Development Programme.
