At the end of March, it was announced that the United Nations are supporting Brazil in their effort to finish the stadiums they are building for the World Cup in 2014.
The
whole contract between Brazilian government and the United Nations is
worth 17.6 million dollars. A lot of money that could be used for other
things, like interns.
First of all, I am not against the World Cup in Brazil.
I would love to go there, and I am sure it will be a huge sucess.
However, the financial troubles, the corruption and huge waste of money
are bothering not only me as the protests are showing and I am especially not agreeing with this kind of support the United Nations provides.
According to this report, the United Nations is “providing services
and items such as generators, tents and security cameras.” There seems
to be no direct financial aid, and the main reason for this contract was
that the United Nations “can acquire goods and services without going
through the complex and lengthy procurement process required by the
Brazilian government.”
This means that Brazil, the sixth largest economy
in the world, is just using the United Nations to cover its own flaws. I
think that instead of sending goods, the United Nations should support
Brazil like they did with regard to Rio+20 when they helped, for
example, “to ensure transparency in the procurement process, as well as
accessibility for people with disabilities, environmental sustainability
and social inclusion.” Maybe I do not see the whole picture but I do
not understand how sending generators will help Brazil facilitate its
acquire processes which seem to be the main problem here.
The argument
according to which this would help UNDP gain “visibility” in Brazil
thanks to its participation might be right but as soon as the resources
provided by UNDP are gone, this “visibility” is lost as well while the
procedural problems in Brazil remain.
What bothers me the most is how much other things the United Nations
could support with such an amount of money, especially with regard to
the discussion about unpaid internships.
The whole contract is worth 17.6 million dollars but, according to Boaz
Paldi, a UNDP spokesman in New York, the value of the contract could
rise, which means that the final amount of support by the United Nations
is not clear by now.
While it would not be enough to pay all interns, this amount of money
would definitely ease some of the burden. It could also be used to
increase the number of interns from the least developed countries by
establishing a specific program for this group. Interns at very
expensive places like New York or Geneva could get some support as well.
At least, the United Nations could provide “a daily meal ticket, a
transportation pass, and/or contributing towards insurance costs for
interns lacking financial sponsoring or to interns not from the local
area” as its own Joint Inspection Unit has outlined in 2009.
I hope
that the World Cup in Brazil will be a huge success, for Brazil, the
United Nations and the whole world. Still, I would have preferred the
United Nations to help Brazil facilitate its own working procedures and
used its own financial resources to help solving an important issue
especially with regard to the high rate of youth unemployment.
By.
President
Member of the Presidency of UNYANET, PhD student at the London School of Economics (LSE)
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