David Beasley, the World Food Program director, center, traveling the past week in northern Burkina Faso with Peter Eriksson, left, Sweden’s minister for development aid, and others. The UN agency was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 9, 2020, for its work fighting hunger globally and preventing the use of hunger as a weapon of war. ERIK ESBJORNSSON
In the cyclone-hit city of Beira, Mozambique, the World Food Program springs into action, 2019. A new external survey of the agency’s workplace found a range of grievances, including sexual harassment. DEBORAH NGUYEN/WFP
The World Food Program may be receiving millions of more donations from the Trump administration than under past presidencies, but its management is skidding around amid complaints of sexual harassment, retaliation, abuse of authority and, most startling, rape, according to a new external survey.
Pierre Krahenbuhl, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency, which administers to Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, at a conference in Rome, March 2018. The agency, which was significantly rocked by the withdrawal of American donations last year, is now caught up in a possible ethics scandal.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which has been undermined by a sharp cut in United States contributions, has been embroiled in a scandal that threatens to jeopardize its very future.
Farmers selling conservation agriculture goods, including onions, in Meru County, Kenya. Conservation agriculture projects, supported partly by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, strive to maximize crop production while minimizing ecological disturbances. ©FAO/LUIS TATO
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has existed at the periphery of UN agencies and been a focus of critics almost since its founding in 1945, as the vehicle for ending hunger and achieving food security.
Mukhisa Kituyi, secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, at an e-commerce session on Africa, organized with the Alibaba Business School, April 1, 2019. HENRIQUE PACINI/UNCTAD
A wave of new or persistent accusations of harassment and corruption in some UN system agencies and programs reflects poor management and more politicization of high-level appointments demanded by UN member nations. Here, the UN headquarters.
In Cairo last year, Melania Trump toured the Giza Pyramids, a Unesco World Heritage site. The author of the essay toured Unesco sites across five continents, noting how designations can increase tourism to an area but can also hurt a place’s physical integrity. ANDREA HANKS/White House
In the fall — before the caravan, before the firings, before the shutdown, before the wall — Melania Trump concluded her first solo goodwill tour with a photogenic visit to the Great Pyramid and Sphinx of Egypt, the only surviving complex of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
United States Ambassador Nikki Haley with David Beasley, the World Food Program executive director, July 13, 2017. Haley and Beasley are former governors of South Carolina, and Haley nominated Beasley for the UN job in 2017.
A son of David Beasley, the World Food Program executive director, worked briefly this year for the UN agency, but it is not clear what his status was, given original discrepancies. Beasley is a former governor of South Carolina, and the agency’s largest donor is the United States.
