On Mon, 10 Jan 2000, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> What a hogwash. I can assure you that virtually no UN money goes to
> the nonprofits
Wojtek, have you read Michael Maren's book on NGOs? He said that he found documents showing that Care, one of the NGOs he researched in depth, received very substantial UN funding, but that he almost had to commit crimes to get those figures. He claims that contract funds like these are not itemized anywhere in NGO public statements because this allows them to improve their overhead ratios considerably. (NGOs seem required to disclose remarkably little of their financial details compared with for profit companies.) Maren also argued that much of not most of the UN High Commision on Refugees' funds were spent via NGO subcontractors during the 15 years it was in Somalia, and suggests that this is true for most UN overseas operations, but that there is no law requiring the UN to disclose the details of these contracts either, and it doesn't. Is it possible that your figures are skewed by relying on public disclosure statements? Or do you think that Maren is unreliable?
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com