Ad hoc group seeks to investigate “inefficiencies” at the United Nations
DEC 05, 2024
An ad hoc group of former high-ranking United Nations officials calling itself DOGE-UN has been formed to publish a report ahead of the 2026 UN secretary-general selection. They hope that the next leader will run the international organization more efficiently. The group’s name is a reference to the incoming Trump administration’s unofficial advisors, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who refer to themselves as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Hugh Dugan, a longtime member of the U.S. delegation to the UN and former National Security Council adviser on international organizations, is working with a group of former presidents of the UN General Assembly. Dugan told Fox News Digital that he has recruited “insiders and outsiders who used to be insiders” to investigate the UN’s effectiveness and identify waste.
“Unfortunately, the mindset there over the years prefers to look at outputs over outcomes,” Dugan said. “How many meetings did we hold, how many pencils did we buy, instead of outcomes. Like, was there an opportunity to get peace underway more quickly in conflict settings, or to what extent are we ameliorating the rate of hunger in the world?”
Dugan’s announcement comes at a time when many serious instances of mission-creep, malfeasance and corruption at the UN have called into question the continuing relevance of the international body. Todd Bensman, investigative author and senior fellow at the DC-based Center for Immigration Studies, has been reporting on how UN agencies created to assist refugees have been coordinating illegal mass migration in collaboration with criminal human smuggling groups. In October, Bensman reported in The Daily Wire that in recent years the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration have built an “incentivizing safety net of aid way stations for migrants.”
According to Bensman, in 2024 the two UN agencies distributed a record hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to migrants on their way to the U.S. border “in the form of cash cards, cash in envelopes, food, vouchers for onward travel and lodging, medical treatment, pharmaceuticals, legal counseling and much more.”
Under the auspices of UNHCR, construction is underway in southern Mexico for a “mass illegal migration mall” intended to house UN and NGO migration-help groups “under one convenient one-stop shop roof.” When the project in Tapachula was announced in April 2024 by Mexico’s foreign ministry, the UNHCR’s Mexico representative Giovanni Lepri stated the purpose of the facility is “to respond comprehensively to the needs of … migrant refugees who travel together from all continents and arrive in Tapachula in need of … attention.” Two other such “malls” have been built in Monterrey and Tijuana. According to Bensman, the UNHCR received $1.9 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds in 2024 and $2.1 billion in 2023.
This fall Bensman investigated Panama’s efforts to stem illegal migration through the Darién Gap and told Daily Mail, “what I discovered shocked me.” In the seaside Colombian village of Capurgana, Bensman witnessed a sophisticated human smuggling operation in which the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, “a powerful paramilitary drug-trafficking cartel that rules the region’s smuggling routes,” controls the docks and the boats that take migrants across the Gulf of Urabá, landing in Panama.
Investigative journalism group Muckracker has also documented the UN’s activities on the migration trail. They exposed large, full-color folding maps “showing incredibly detailed human trafficking routes” from Colombia to the U.S. border, indicating the locations of shelters and aid stations along the way. The maps are produced and distributed by UNHCR, IOM and other UN-funded organizations.
The UNHCR map is unique for the level of detail in its depiction of cartel-controlled human smuggling routes. “The amount of detail given for the Darién Gap crossing routes is incredible,” Thomas Hicks wrote for Muckraker. “We have not seen any other map that displays the jungle crossing routes with this amount of clarity. It also shows lesser used routes across the jungle into Panama.”
Also in October, the UN Dispute Tribunal ordered Vitaly Vanshelboim, formerly of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), to repay the UN $58.8 million lost in deals he made with British businessman David Kendrick “who showered him with interest-free loans, a Mercedes for his wife and perks for his sons,” the Associated Press reported.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been exposed by watchdog group UN Watch for ties to Hamas and by the Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research for the radicalization of Palestinian school children.
Parallel bills introduced in the U.S. Senate and House, titled the “Disengaging Entirely From the United Nations Debacle Act” (DEFUND Act), would repeal The United Nations Participation Act of 1945, terminate membership in the UN, close the U.S. mission to the UN and repeal the United Nations Headquarters Agreement Act.
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