FAO Ombudsman's report on 'systemic failings' suppressed by Chinese director general

 ROME – The latest report of the Ombudsman at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, due to be published in July, still has not been released, evidently because Chinese Director General Qu Dongyu decided to suppress its conclusions of “systemic failure” at the troubled UN poverty-busting agency, diplomatic sources said.

 “The report by the former Spanish Ombudsman was evidently hidden in a drawer by the director general,” a well-placed Spanish diplomatic source told the Italian Insider. “Clearly Qu decided to censor what the Ombudsman sought to expose about systemic failings at the agency,” the source said, speaking on condition he not be identified.

 José Martínez-Aragón, a Spanish national with extensive experience (including with the European Ombudsman), served as the FAO's Interim Ombudsperson until June, meaning he was supposed to ensure impartial conflict resolution for FAO personnel globally.

 It remains to be seen whether any donor countries such as the new US Ambassador to the UN agencies will demand that Qu’s office publish the report or whether they prefer to be complicit with the regime at the agency that is largerly run by Chinese communist party officials at the Chinese Embassy, the sources added.

 Qu already had been deeply embarrassed by the previous Ombudsman, British lawyer Katya Mellush, who before she jumped ship to WFP championed the rights of consultants and “ghost workers” at the FAO who she said are “vulnerable to exploitation.”

 In her hard-hitting report issued in September 2023, Ms Delluish said that consultants at the Food and Agriculture Organization and people employed on local and short term contracts as “ghost staff” are “vulnerable to exploitation” by the poverty-busting agency including abuse by managers, sexual harassment, overburden of work and firing without due process.

 She also lambasted the cover up culture at FAO abused by frequently "disrespectful managers" and recommended wide ranging changes to restore flagging staff morale, including measures to help employees working for long periods without rotation on the front line in far-flung countries remote from headquarters.

 “Visitors and other interlocutors of the Ombudsperson continue to raise the issue of the long-term, repeated employment of individuals via the mechanisms of consultancy, personal service agreement (PSA) contracts and national project personnel (NPP) contracts,” said the report for 2022.

 “The majority of these do not fall under the Staff Regulations of FAO, meaning that these personnel do not have recourse to the existing internal justice mechanisms, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation. Visitors continue to describe circumstances of abuse by managers, including harassment, sexual harassment, overburden of work, and threats of (or actual) termination without due process. Given the relative insecurity of their contracts, these affiliate personnel are often afraid to speak out let alone to lodge formal complaints, which they feel might jeopardise their chances of future employment at FAO.”