U.N. Defends Choice For Environment Job
Pick Was on Panel That Gave Prize to Annan

By Colum Lynch
May 2, 2006
The Washington Post
Original Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/01/AR2006050101534.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 1 -- The United Nations' incoming director of environmental programs was offered his job after serving on an international jury that awarded a $500,000 environmental prize to Secretary General Kofi Annan, U.N. officials acknowledged Monday.
In March, after an international talent search, Annan appointed Achim Steiner of Germany to head the Nairobi-based U.N. Environment Program because he is in our eyes the best man for the job, said Annan's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. He said Annan was aware that Steiner, the director general of the World Conservation Union, was on the panel that gave the prize in December, but that it had nothing to do with Steiner's hiring.
Mr. Steiner was appointed after a long and exhaustive search, Dujarric added. If you look at his résumé, and if you speak to people in the environmental community, you will see that he is a first-rate person. Steiner's role in selecting Annan for the prize was first reported in Saturday's Financial Times.
Dujarric also defended Annan's decision to accept the Zayed prize, which is sponsored by Dubai's crown prince, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, saying that Annan has pledged to donate the money to a charity he intends to create to promote agricultural advances and girls' education in Africa. The secretary general is not keeping the money for his personal use, he said.
The decision comes as some members of Congress are growing increasingly frustrated at what they consider to be the slow pace of U.N. moves to ensure greater accountability over its financial dealings. Last week, a bloc of developing nations voted to stall a U.S.-backed initiative by Annan to streamline U.N. management practices.
A spokesman for John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Steiner's appointment is expected to be addressed Tuesday at a House hearing on the oil-for-food program, before the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, emerging threats and international relations.
Some U.N. officials and diplomats said Annan's decision to accept the financial award was politically unwise when the organization is struggling to recover from charges of corruption in the $64 billion oil-for-food humanitarian program -- an effort overseen by the United Nations that allowed Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government to sell oil to buy food and other civilian goods.
In response to the scandal, the United Nations recently sought to tighten its rules on financial disclosure, requiring U.N. officials to report gifts amounting to more than $250. Officials previously were not required to report gifts under $10,000.
The Zayed International Prize for the Environment, named in honor of Sheik Zayed al-Nahyan, the late president of the United Arab Emirates, was established in 1999. The prize has been awarded to former president Jimmy Carter and the British Broadcasting Corp.
Steiner said in an interview that he had not been seeking the top U.N. environmental post in December when he and other jurors decided the prize should go to Annan. He said he was approached by the United Nations about the job in late January.
Kofi Annan has received, with the United Nations, the Nobel Peace Prize. It never would have occurred to any of us that some people would construe a conflict of interest, because this was not a U.N. committee awarding this, but a credible jury, Steiner said. I consider my role in the Zayed prize a very honorable one.
In addition to Steiner, the eight-member prize jury included Klaus Toepfer, who until March 31 was executive director of UNEP, and whom Steiner will replace. A spokesman for UNEP, Nick Nuttall, said Toepfer was traveling in China and was unavailable to comment.
Nuttall said the award selection was a totally transparent process. There was nothing secret about it.
I can be quite candid with you -- they were aware that some people might raise questions about giving the prize to Annan at a time when the United Nations faced corruption allegations, Nuttall said. But the jury, he said, believed that the U.N. and Kofi deserved it, and they weren't ashamed or embarrassed of the fact.