Rambles on NGO's and the UN

I've been going out this past week and interviewing NGO's to see what they have been doing and will be going to do with the downsizings occurring. There are bigger crisis (Afghanistan and Iraq) so lots of internationals are gearing up for that and money is not coming here in the same volume as the past. Also I'm looking for volunteer positions and thus circulating my resume. The information I'm gathering is very interesting. I'm trying to put together something for the web site on the role of NGO's and the UN and OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe). There has been a lot of good done by the UN but the stories of waste and incompetence are long, amusing and sad.

For example in trying to set up financial systems in the municipal governments (about 40-similar to our counties) that would tie into the central assembly they let the local UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo) administrators set up the accounting systems. Well, the staff are mostly from different countries and set them up as to how its done in their country. Needless to say the system wasn't standardized so the data going back to the central assembly isn't similar so one is comparing apples to oranges. That's tough to get a budget report out of. An opportunity lost.

The UN doesn't have the market cornered in the blame area as there is also a lot of blaming among the locals too. We were at a conference last week trying to foster better communication between the local municipal governments and local NGO's. The NGO's were complaining about lack of access to them and the municipal people were complaining about the lack of participation by the NGO's. It seems that all wanted the same thing but couldn't communicate with each other.

I received an email the other day from an OSCE person that I met at the conference mentioned above. He invited me to a coordination meeting of all the NGO's trying to provide civil society trainings to the municipalities (how to run a meeting, role of opposition parties, working with the media, etc.). In the invitation he had a piece that pretty well states the current affairs and events that have lead up to them. I was trying to write a piece on this but he's done a better job than I could of. I'm including a link here and one on the main page for die-hard readers.  It is a longer piece but I think it should give one some really good insights into why things are they way they are.