The US has said it will leave the United Nations’ culture and education agency Unesco, accusing it of supporting “woke, divisive cultural and social causes”.
Unesco’s Director General Audrey Azoulay described the decision as “regrettable” but “anticipated”.
The move is the latest step in the Trump administration’s efforts to cut ties with international bodies, after removing the US from the World Health Organization and Paris Climate Agreement, as well as cutting funding for foreign relief efforts.
Unesco has 194 member states around the world, and is best known for listing world heritage sites. The US’ decision will take effect from December 2026.
The state department said Unesco’s “globalist, ideological agenda for international development” was “at odds with our America First foreign policy”.
It also described the inclusion of the Palestinians in Unesco in 2011, as “highly problematic, contrary to US policy, and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization”.
Those claims “contradict the reality of Unesco’s efforts, particularly in the field of Holocaust education and the fight against antisemitism,” the organisation’s head Audrey Azoulay said.
“This decision contradicts the fundamental principles of multilateralism, and may affect first and foremost our many partners in the United States of America— communities seeking site inscription on the World Heritage List, Creative City status, and University Chairs,” she added.
The Unesco head said the agency had been preparing for Washington’s move, diversifying its sources of funding. Currently, she said, Unesco was getting about 8% of its budget from the US.
In 2017, during his first presidency, Trump pulled the US out of Unesco but the decision was later reversed under Joe Biden’s administration.
The Paris-based UN agency was set up in November 1945 – shortly after World War Two – to promote peace and security through global co-operation in education, arts, sciences and culture.
The leaders who catalysed the liberation of Africa from colonial power majority have up-to-date declined to vamoose power. An incumbent can willingly jeopardise a country into pandemonium just to secure his/her position and demand for much more ‘adequate’ time to rule and dictate due to biasness and ‘The big man‘ syndrome.
Exit of African leaders from power can be categorised into two:
Normal- Constitutional means
Abnormal- Unconstitutional means
Normal means have been through Voluntary resignation, Natural death and Loosing an election. Abnormal means have been through Civil wars(coup) and Assassination.
Research shows three quarterof Incumbents who left power in the 1990s-1970s was through coup, assassination or violent overthrowbut apparently wheeled by Constitutional term limits.
Before 1990 when Term limit law came to effect, African leaders exit power at their pleasure, but now at a time and way dictated by the constitutional rules and set up. Incumbents being hit by Age limit are calling for Age Limit discard referendum while those hit by Term limit are calling for Term limit discard referendum. Unfortunately, all those that have called for these exercises have all won, many due to power from the depth of the pocket and power from the bullet.
Elections in Africa have lost importance in terms of credibility, fairness and freeness and by leaders overturning constitutional term servicelimits on their favour to overrule.
~Recently, Uganda’s long time President Yoweri Museveni assented a bill into law regarding scrapping off of Presidential term limit in his favour and which will make him lawfully seek reelection. This decision was seconded by Constitutional court of Uganda judges who ruled in Museveni’s favour in ration 4:1.
Museveni was quoted saying before, “I’m only one whose language is understood in Washington where Uganda gets funds to promote rural electrification”
Uganda’s parliament in turmoil during Museveni’s Age Limit bill debate
~DemocraticRepublicofCongo(DRC ) is at war by herself. Democracy can’t be prevailed where the leaders themselves are antidemocratic. The ongoing crisis is attempted coup to remove President Joseph Kabila out power whose term was to end 2016 and elections to be held in November that year. He decided to manipulate the constitution and rescheduled election to 2018. From the records, 5.4 millionpeople have lost their lives in this civil war since 1998.
~InBurundi Pierre Nkurunziza caused attempted coup when the opposition took action upon themselves to defend the law. Tricks by him to manipulating the constitution in his favour to rerun for third term after claiming that 90% of the population supports his bid and governance.
Pierre Nkurunziza casting his ballot during Referendum
He argued that he was elected by parliament in his first time and not by the people and in line for a second directly elected term. After the successful manipulation, he was set to rule till 2034 but have promised to step down in 2020. Human Rights Watch said that more than 15 Burundians were killed and women were raped during referendum campaign and he ran for a third term that’s in 2015 and went on to win in a bloody political conflict that left over 1,200 Burundians killed. Four hundred thousand more fled the country.
Victim
~In 2016, Paul Kagame also manipulated the constitution in claim of responding to the voice of the people, a decision which caused unrest and instability from opposition and economy respectively. It favours him to rule until 2034.
President Paul Kagame during the Referendum day
~In 2001 Zambia’s President Chiloba attempted to manipulate the constitution for the same selfish reason but was halted by Civil society who held a massive campaign against his decision.
~Congo Brazzaville, Dennis Sassou Nguesso won referendum on constitutional amendment to scrap of Presidential term limit in 2015 and got reelected again in 2016
Power addicts manipulating the law to favour their interests forgets power lies in the hands of the people who can squeeze them to dehydration and render them casualties.
Perhaps unclear position or state at which when a president retire they will be in. These worries are possible causal reasons for clinging onto power.
Perhaps before i ignite this ride, let’s first agree on what ‘Health’ means: This is a state of complete Physical, Mental and Social wellbeing of an individual in simple terms and precise. For temperately sometime, researchers and researches, some confusing because they’re contradicting the reality of Good health or Ill health and i believe you might have read some or rather several of them or even listened to them, opinions concerning healthcare matters hence i don’t have to ‘plagiarise’ by repeating the basics of what they entail.
After humble time of observation and doing some statistics, i came to solidify the verisimilitude that genuinely in developing countries, Middle class families struggling with Unaffordable healthcare live to hocus-pocus that ‘Eat Healthy, Live Healthy’ is the solution to a healthy body- Corpore sano.
The middle class that’s the Economy class can afford meals compared unlike low class that even affording a meal is nightmare and just survive to fight another day. These findings have made me authenticate that Unaffordable healthcare is a dangerous Psychological Health Hazard that worsens our unhealthy state. As a matter of fact, everyone is prone to ill health and when we’re in this situation especially in third world countries who’ve poor, below standard and unaffordable healthcare, patients tend to suffer more from Psychological torture, distress of how they’re gonna clear the hospital bills and other human expenses. Like in Kenya, government policised that every adult Citizen ought to have medical insurance cover but sincerely they only cater for 10% expense in special cases like Cancer treatment and research shows Psychological torture or Depression which erupts due to affinity for funds (which are inadequate) for treatment triggers and stimulates some hormones in excess portion worsening further the pathogenic cells in the patient who is suffering.
Photo|| Courtesy
Some Elite class families too have moved from grace to grass, so many families are being held hostage in hospital wards over hospital bills arrears and more shockingly corpse too being held hostage in the morgues over hospital bills, a scenario which is a disgrace to a country which is visualizing for Universal Healthcare standards.
This Unaffordable healthcare being a clinical depressant can cause furthermore new diseases to a patient, talking of; stroke, heart diseases, kidney diseases, multiple myeloma and which further results to blood problems ‘hematological problems’, ‘Acquired hemolytic anaemias’.
Considering the biological fact that some cancer cases in some individuals are as a result of genetics link, you don’t encourage them to Eat Healthy and Live Healthy instead you provide Affordable healthcare to them to help not worsen their situation. For this matter, if there is affordable healthcare then these people can commence eating healthy and continue living healthy but before this provision and state, Eating healthy and living healthy is null and void and a Dream.
I’m proud of the current initiative of Universal Healthcare which have made governments, NGOs struggling to shine to connect the dots with the Affordable International Standards of Healthcare but at the same time also afraid that Healthcare sector cartels who majority are the hungry political class won’t allow this smooth transition for reasons they personalise as ‘meant to sideline their (fraudulent) business income’. Nearly two out of every five Kenyans have no access to medical insurance, thus a large part of the population is excluded from quality health care services and which reflects to Africa as a whole and that achieving Universal Health Care standard is a formidable challenge because Africa as a continent requires about 50% more doctors to achieve Universal Health Care standard, compared to the West which needs only about 3% more.
A job with the UN remains one of the prestigious opportunities many people look up to but humanitarian work is not a walk in the sandy beaches as Sid would later come to learn in life. The oomph and the glamour that the organization beams is just a painting but not really what’s inside. As for Siddharth whose name I keep bitting my lips struggling to pronounce and the UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya, the math is more complicated. He’s the face of UN in Kenya, the backstops with him. As the head, he gets the balloons and stones which puts him in a position that only those fitted with crocodile skin can survive through.
Recently, UN Social 500, an in-house indexing platform ranked Sid at number 5 globally amongst UN employees globally actively using social media to champion for social good. This brings me to the main point of this article. Kenya is just coming from a lengthened period of ruthless politics that did not only end in election nullification, injuries and loss of lives but the reputation and characters of many people were left bruised as collateral damage in a highly ethnic country.
Kenya is exceptionally polarized with a sizeable tolerance to dissenting opinions, it is this factor that voting is predominantly tuned along tribal divisions. On the 8th of August, the general election was held but the presidential election that gave Uhuru Kenyatta the upper hand would later be nullified by the supreme court on the 1st of September and a fresh election would later happen in three months.
During this period, the international community including the envoys, observers, and organizations such as UN came under fierce criticism especially from the opposition NASA coalition accusing them of conspiring to rig in and endorse a fraudulent election of Uhuru Kenyatta. This was fueled by the speedy endorsement of the contested election by a majority of the western representatives. Many would be left on the focus radar and that’s where I picked up the story of Siddharth.
SIDDHARTH CHATTERJEE, a former Indian Army Special Forces Officer being decorated for gallantry.
Through UNDP which is a partner and a funder of IEBC, the UN was accused of meddling in the election in an alleged move to favor the re-election of Uhuru Kenyatta. In the crossfire, Ms. Sheila Ngatia the Assistant Country Director in UNDP Kenya, became a target of a vicious social media campaign of claims that her father is Mr. Fred Ngatia, President Kenyatta’s lawyer join to the conspiracy dots that she was working in favor of Uhuru, but when Kenya Insights later did a background check on the rumours on social media, we found out that Sheila’s father passed away 10 years ago and had no relations with the President’s lawyer.
However, the onslaught impugning the motives of the head of the UN Country Team in Kenya Mr. Siddharth Chatterjee didn’t stop but instead opened. His relationship with Jubilee government would specifically be scrutinized and a curious case of his close ties with Ambassador Amina who by then was looking for the top AU seat came into focus. He was accused of lobbying for her in a move that compromised the UN’s independence and nonpartisan stands.
Kenya Insights had an interview with Sid an on this particular issue of lobbying for Amina which he vehemently denies. In his defense, he wouldn’t have taken a compromising position, “I as a UN staff have no influence to lobby anyone for a political position like the AU. Besides not only does it go against the principles of the UN but contradicts all the values I uphold. I was specially invited to go to Addis to discuss the Kenya Ethiopia Cross-border programme, which has the potential of transforming peace, security and human development for the good. The President of Kenya and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia take this programme very seriously. . Ambassador Amina Mohamed and former Foreign Minster of Ethiopia Dr Tedros signed the MOU and wrote a joint OP-ED about this fascinating initiative. Kenya and Ethiopia: A cross-border initiative to advance peace and development..”The programme that was to foster tranquillity along the border for development was a brain of the two governments in partnership with the IGAD and the UN.
For many, the existence of Sid became a reality after the August Election, that’s when he started hitting the social media waves. We track back the talk from Matthew Russel who’s a UN HQ’s based blogger. He opened a case and pushed it to Kenya’s blogosphere on on dishonest Sid was at his work, in fact, it is through him that we came to know that the coordinator was a son-in-law to the former Sec Gen, Ban Ki-Moon, Matthew insists Sid’s appointment was not based on merits but influenced based on nepotism n his relationship with Moon, a claim that Sid himself laughs off. “I met my wife in 2004 in Sudan during the Darfur crisis and married in 2006. This is well before Mr. Ban became the United Nations Secretary-General. In fact I joined the UN in 1997(10 years before Mr Ban and rose from an IFLD 4 in Bosnia to a P-5 in Somalia by November 2004.” An article to clarify this was published by Forbes – Misread Nepotism At The U.N.: Why Siddharth Chatterjee’s Well-Earned Appointment Requires Explanation
Sid believes that he’s a target of fake news championed by the UN based controversial blogger, “Mr. Matthew Russell Lee, who runs a blog called Inner City Press. Over the last 10 years, he has repeatedly published malicious, false and libelous allegations against me. This started in 2007 and continues to date.” He said.
“As regards my appointment as the UN Resident Coordinator to Kenya, perhaps a bit of background may help. Every Resident Coordinator has to pass a UN Resident Coordinator Assessment. Failure rates at the assessment are quite high. A private human resources company from Canada undertook the assessment during my time. I passed the assessment in 2008 and was proposed by UNICEF (the agency I served with) to become the UN Resident Coordinator to Namibia in 2009. I declined that job because of my personal situation” Sid explains.
He continues, “Just to clarify, I was invited to apply by UNDP for this role. Following that I got the support of UNFPA (I was the UNFPA Representative to Kenya) to do so, I applied for the UN Resident Coordinator role to Kenya in 2016. Again I went through a selection process called the Inter-Agency Appointments Panel and was shortlisted. Regardless of the decision being taken, the final decision rests with the Government of the country where an RC is being proposed to.”
Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi who has made a name out of controversy dwelling on fraud cases and accountability advocacy, accused the coordinator on his blog that he got together with John Kerry and Tony Blair to rig the elections in favor of Jubilee and that he profited from Kenya’s SGR project. We’ve however established that neither UNDP nor the UN had nothing to do with this project. Sid terms the allegations as “outrageous and malicious statements. This is not just absurd but totally fake news.”
For a soldier who later turned on his career to become a humanitarian and a development enthusiast, Sid holds a strong belief that Kenya is a beacon of hope regardless of the intrigues and turmoil it undergoes.
SIDDHARTH CHATTERJEE with US Ambassador Godec on finishing a 21KM race for the anti FGM campaign.
Mohamed Guleid, former Deputy Governor testifies
Mr. Chatterjee for having been at the forefront personally in the struggle for empowering those usually on the fringes of social and economic agenda, including women and girls, as well as the youth.
He has championed the delivery of maternal, child and adolescent health services to areas previously left out and brought private sector participation in remote North Eastern counties. We have witnessed the different organizations like UNDP, UNFPA, Unicef, WHO, UN Women, FAO and many others are making in the Frontier Counties. Here is an opinion piece by Mr Guleid. “Falsehoods targeting development partners end up hurting us”
Kenya Insights sought to know what is the motivational factor behind Sid despite being a target of negative publicity, especially on social media, “ I am the face of UNDP so it is easy to attack me. The fake news got propagated after the elections. I can take the attacks but will stand in between when it comes to my staff. The safety, security and reputation of my staff is paramount and non-negotiable. I will go to the end of the earth to defend them ” He said. “The man from Inner City Press reached out to others who are perhaps more gullible. As you can see he has an obsessed mind. He has the facts but is nudged on by vested interests.” He adds. ” I have responded to his allegations but my response is difficult to find. So here it is: https://siddharthchatterjee-wws.blogspot.co.ke/2017/02/siddharth-chatterjees-response-to-mr.html”
As for the motivational factors, Mr. Chatterjee told Kenya Insights, “My father was a refugee from East Pakistan now Bangladesh. I have seen first hand on what displacements does to families and how it impoverishes them. I feel for people that are displaced by conflicts of natural disasters.”
“I have a personal mission to champion the rights of women and girls because I have seen how this half of humanity has been treated and what harm that is bringing to our societies. As a young officer in the Indian Special Forces, at the front lines of combat in counterinsurgency environments, I have seen how brutal and savage all parties to the conflict become. Again I have seen this in my work at the UN posted in Iraq, South Sudan, Darfur, and Somalia.” He continues.
A comment picked up from a colleague
“The years I spent in fragile environments will always remain a poignant reminder of the disparate harm that women are predisposed to whenever one form or other of humanitarian crisis arises. Some were victims of rape and torture, others were widowed at young ages, their husbands murdered or kidnapped. I have seen how rape is used as a weapon in conflicts. I have seen children as young as 5 being recruited as child soldiers. In many of the countries I have worked in, disease outbreaks, lack of water and sanitation were the order of the day. Reproductive health services, including midwifery outreach services, antenatal care, management of prenatal complications and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS were not readily available in conflict regions. These problems had particularly harsh consequences among women and children. I believe that access to quality health care must be a fundamental and nonnegotiable human right.” He concludes.
Sid who runs to work regularly and most Sundays does a 21KMs half marathon, wraps up our talk which is basically a right of reply to accusations flying around he quotes Rev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “If you want the truth to go around the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go around the world, it will fly; it is light as a feather and a breath will carry it.”
