I have never worked within the UN, but I have worked for companies small and large, like many others here I am certain, and have seen the loss of quality of purpose and people happen many times.
With a company, it is possible for a good leader to come in and start cleaning up shop with either a buzz axe of a scalpel. Even at small companies, I have seen places where a small subset of an organization get cancerous or hardened by a bad director, and then when a new CEO comes in (often because an investment firm takes over) that director is given the boot quite quickly. Often this director is allowed to remain because the previous CEO is somehow related or friends with that person, and once that pressure or corruption is gone, then that director is no longer protected.
In the case of the UN, if I were to surmise, it is impossible to do so because so many of the corruptions are external. It is possible that nobody is capable of actually cleaning things up because one country or a group of countries want to keep making sure that one of their friends live high on the hog at taxpayer expense without doing anything valuable, hence the terrible personal actions listed in the article. Dealing with these external corruptions are basically impossible in a modern political climate in many nations, and of course globally.
I don't have the connections, influence, intellectual capability, or any kind of power to disrupt such massive forces. I wonder, does anyone? Is it possible to disrupt such a thing without revolutionary action in a large number of countries? With the internet, many things seem possible, but it seems that the only way to make change happen is to go into meatspace. The internet seems to delay that from happening in most instances (although it does seem to have the effect of keeping the fire burning when they start).
This post is more of me speaking to my frustration than anything else.
With a company, it is possible for a good leader to come in and start cleaning up shop with either a buzz axe of a scalpel. Even at small companies, I have seen places where a small subset of an organization get cancerous or hardened by a bad director, and then when a new CEO comes in (often because an investment firm takes over) that director is given the boot quite quickly. Often this director is allowed to remain because the previous CEO is somehow related or friends with that person, and once that pressure or corruption is gone, then that director is no longer protected.
In the case of the UN, if I were to surmise, it is impossible to do so because so many of the corruptions are external. It is possible that nobody is capable of actually cleaning things up because one country or a group of countries want to keep making sure that one of their friends live high on the hog at taxpayer expense without doing anything valuable, hence the terrible personal actions listed in the article. Dealing with these external corruptions are basically impossible in a modern political climate in many nations, and of course globally.
I don't have the connections, influence, intellectual capability, or any kind of power to disrupt such massive forces. I wonder, does anyone? Is it possible to disrupt such a thing without revolutionary action in a large number of countries? With the internet, many things seem possible, but it seems that the only way to make change happen is to go into meatspace. The internet seems to delay that from happening in most instances (although it does seem to have the effect of keeping the fire burning when they start).
This post is more of me speaking to my frustration than anything else.