The United Nations has quietly upped this year’s peacekeeping budget for earthquake-shattered Haiti to $732.4 million, with two-thirds of that amount going for the salary, perks and upkeep of its own personnel, not residents of the devastated island.
The world organization plans to spend the money on an expanded force of some 12,675 soldiers and police, plus some 479 international staffers, 669 international contract personnel, and 1,300 local workers, just for the 12 months ending June 30, 2010.
Some $495.8 million goes for salaries, benefits, hazard pay, mandatory R&R allowances and upkeep for the peacekeepers and their international staff support. Only about $33.9 million, or 4.6 percent, of that salary total is going to what the U.N. calls “national staff” attached to the peacekeeping effort.
[Via Jack Liberty]
Are you kidding me? The UN ineffective? I am so surprised. NOT.
Who’s that in the photo?
http://charitywatch.org/criteria.html
Use it!
With all those pesky, indigent natives stuck under collapsed buildings now is a perfect time for the Europeans to fly down on an all-expenses paid holiday in the Caribbean.
Why yes, of course, why would the UN actually have to PAY its workers while they are on peacekeeping/humanitarian missions?
After all, they should just give up all their time for free, right?
Idiots, it costs money for personnel and their upkeep, no matter WHERE they are deployed. They are also counting… UP FRONT… the full costs of the personnel since they assume the folks will likely be there a year or more (since the Haiti government barely exists.)
Do you think all rescue operations are free just because they happen in poor countries?
Wow, the stupidity of this blog sometimes really surprises me.
Isn’t that what the UN Peace Keepers are supposed to do?
Provide security and safety so the other 158 charities can provide their services?
Isolate a single fact and imply something is wrong. tsk, tsk.
It is upsetting though that those UN troops don’t donate their time.
You know, when you focus on drivel, the elephants are free to roam.
The alternative is to allow US troops to garrison in Haiti. Somehow, people have problems with that.
This is just like the donations australians gave to the Red Cross after the Bali bombings the year after 9/11. $15m or so was donated, but only $3-4m actually reached bali to help those affected by the bomb.
How on earth the Red Cross has such a low rate of return on donations when ‘proper’ charities like Oxfam (who have yearly public audits) get over 90% efficiency is beyond me.
As far as the UN goes, was anyone really surprised?
If the 12,675 soldiers and police are Haitian, then at least some of the money gets to the locals.
Not surprising. This is how a bureaucracy works.
“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.”
We’ll all be better off when the UN falls apart.
#5, Considering the prevailing cost of living in Haiti vs. where these “peace keepers” flew in from, that $732 million would have gone a lot further in the hands of the native government/people than in the hands of the rescuers. $732 million doesn’t buy much white labor when it’s from countries where a cup of coffee goes for north of $4.
Lets BRAINstorm. Can anyone think of a reason why giving the money to “the hands of the native government” might have some problems of its own that has resulted in the use of UN troops to begin with???
Heh, heh. With thinking like this, misery will continue to be the human condition.
Collect a lot of money and spend it on the relief effort. So it turns out the ones who get all the money are wealthy outsiders and not the people supposed to be helped. We already knew the UN was run by con artists.
Do-ill==at least YOU are transparent even if the Obama administration is not. Ignore the facts given, make up a few of your own, and viola==self centered BS crafted so you avoid the moral stain of telling those in need to die.
well done.
Why does any money need to be wasted this way in the first place? How about each country look after itself, and put aside resources in case of emergencies? Or would that be asking too much of governments? I don’t expect my neighbors to help me of there is a disaster, much less people from other countries.
Government = Waste. The bigger the government, the bigger the waste. It has been proven time and again private enterprise runs more efficiently than government bureaucracy. And that’s not even counting corruption-with which government is riddled.
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
(Btw, his last verse in this song is BS. He had many possessions, and I didn’t see him living like a monk 😉 )
congratulations to Bobbo #8 for noting that this is a budget for a peacekeeping force, not aid. Same force was in Haiti well before the disaster trying, not very successfully, to keep order in a chaotic society. Not a very good example of bad bad UN.
sheesh
The UN has a very large budget for Toyota Land Cruisers with A/C and power windows.
I thought that “looked weird” myself.
Hah, hah. Good one.
The UN is and has been for the most part an utter failure.After the enormous bloodshed and useless futility of World War I nearly every political leader from around the world promised their people it would never happen again. The League of Nations was formed which morphed into the United Nations.There isn’t one aspect of the United Nations that worked.Its institutionalized and accepted failure and a ridiculous rubber stamp that allows Nations to say we are trying and then do something that’s just past nothing but so far short of anything meaningful its a joke.The UN is responsible for the enormous suffering in North Korea they have allowed a criminal dictator to seal off the country while they have done nothing for 50 years.They have done nothing to solve the Israel and Palestine problem,nuclear weapons are spreading,starvation, Aids and other preventable diseases are on the march. The General assembly needs the final say not the Security Council.Each nation should get as weighted vote based on its population. At least then we could get or hope to get world consensus.UN Ambassadors should be elected, not appointed.
Lee==the UN works just the way the USA wants it to.
Stupid Hooman.