[Stoves] GACC CEO's compensation (Re: Roger)

[Traveller]

Roger:

In your 8 December e-mail (below), you wondered "There is nothing like a
House of Commons question about how much is Canada or Britain is funding
this UN Development Foundation? How much is the CEO making? Why are the
taxpayers funding an agency that lacks an effective governance structure
with experience around international development and at the same time the
agency is have noteworthy failures in improving health outcomes of the
poor?"

I assume you mean UN Foundation, Inc. (UNF) rather than "UN Development
Foundation". GACC is not a legal corporate entity in its own right; it is a
"public private partnership", an "initiative", "hosted by UN Foundation".
As such, I don't know if CEO is a legally correct title.

>From what I can tell, she is the sole Executive Director of UNF, and earned
about $390k in compensation for 2014 and 2015 each, and about $220-240k for
2012 and 2013 each, for a total of about $1.25 m over four years. It is not
clear how much of it was from GACC, apart from her other duties for UNF.

GACC CEO's base compensation is probably comparable to those in
high-powered Washington-based NGOs, and she surely deserves bonuses for
fund-raising if that's what makes her the highest-earning official at UN
Foundation, Inc., which takes a 10% "overhead" cut for donor contracts with
GACC.

I don't think GACC receives much funding from the US government except as a
contractor for specific services. It has no official status, is not an
agency, nor does it have a mandate for "improving health outcomes of the
poor". It may well have some private philanthropic funds, and if there is
any "taxpayer funding", the questions belong in the parliaments of Canada,
UK or elsewhere.

>From all appearances, many in GACC Leadership Council and Advisory Board
were FOC (Friends of Clintons) or FOW (Friends of Wirth). Antonio Gueterres
has left for the UN and Gina McCarthy may well leave when she is no longer
EPA Administrator.

What has "international development" got to do with Water Boiling Tests?
Please don't be so harsh; UNF still has friends in high places. As I said,
GACC is a fine-wine-dine-and-shine party with celebrities like the Pretty
Woman, Chef Jose Andres, and the Obamas.

***

I remembered all this because of this story on Seth Berkeley, CEO of
another Global Alliance, who made £2 million net over four years.

That Alliance was also for directing donor money for public health benefits
- of vaccination and immunization, whose benefits are presumably
well-established.

The fattest charity fat cat of them all: Foreign aid boss has made MILLIONS
out of the £1.5billion handed to his charity by British taxpayers
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4078904/The-fattest-charity-fat-cat-Foreign-aid-boss-MILLIONS-1-5billion-handed-charity-British-taxpayers.html>,
Daily Mail 31 December 2016

If DfID can be brought in to support GACC to the tune of £1.5 billion in
the next four years, GACC CEO can surely earn what she deserves. As the
Daily Mail story notes,

"Two other big recipients of British aid are charitable foundations run by
former US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Clinton’s controversial charities have received more than £50 million since
2011, much of it going to the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI).

CEO Ira Magaziner, a long-term Clinton aide, saw his pay package leap from
£121,746 in 2010 to £302,232 in 2015 – the most recent year for which tax
data is available.

Bruce Lindsey, one of Clinton’s closest confidantes, received £319,383 as
chairman of the Clinton Foundation."

-  Poverty is rich business. Clean cookstoves are the new vaccines under
development.

Competent marketers of poverty don't come cheap. Global Alliances and
partnerships with thousands of organizations and individuals - plus,
running cookouts in White House South Lawn or the Imperial Hotel in Delhi -
is a lot of hard work.

Perhaps GACC can be bought out by the Clinton Foundation now.

Nikhil

PS: If you don't mind my asking, what was your unsuccessful grant
application to GACC for?



-----
Message: 8
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 02:43:29 +0000 (UTC)
From: Roger Samson <rogerenroute at yahoo.ca>
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
        <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: Re: [Stoves] report with dissapointing results from cleaner
        cookstoves
Message-ID: <1625233618.566352.1481424209248 at mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8


Hi All

Tom had a few points that raised my eyebrows. Take a look at the governance
structure of GACC (which lacks clarity as to roles). It seems to have two
councils that have on balance no credible background in International
Development. Radha is the only one who has a credible development
background (aside from the Nigerian medical doctor/politician who looked
pretty good) and its just inappropriate that as an employee of GACC, Radha
would also be placed on the advisory council.   The advisory council (I
assume it?s their main board but I may be wrong) is then only 6 which is
rather remarkable given the scope of their budget (which I couldn't find on
their web site, did anyone else find it?).

So it?s pretty understandable why they have ineffective programs is they
lack a credible governance structure with sufficient expertise to oversee
the organizations mandate. It looks like the Radha road show, if she is the
only governing advisor with a development background and she is the CEO. I
wonder what kind of external program review they have... perhaps someone
knows? .. Who provides them with input it can't just be their leadership
and advisory board?

In any event I guess Radha won't be firing herself anytime soon if she is
the primary person who understands what the agency is supposed to be doing
around international development issues :)

I find it appalling Tom that anyone would ask you to shut down the Stoves
list. It has an amazing history as a forum for free and fiercely
independent thinking people to express themselves and their ideas to their
peers.  I have learned a lot through the years from the amazing
contributions that are shared freely on stoves, biomass and broader
development issues. I would participate more but we have gotten more into
the area of warm season grass plant breeding and developing beneficial
organisms from native grasses in Canada.

For the record Tom we only applied unsuccessfully for one grant with GACC
and we had an intern attend the Laos conference a few years back who found
it useful. We work mainly with the rural poor internationally and that
doesn't seem to interest GACC as much as clean urban cooking and financing
schemes (which seems to be a better link to the background of their board
members).

I think the only way to restructure GACC from a top down agency running
ineffective programs for the poor to a more effective bottom-up
participatory development agency serving their members is through writing
their donors. I don't think they will respond to us. There is nothing like
a House of Commons question about how much is Canada or Britain is funding
this UN Development Foundation? How much is the CEO making? Why are the
taxpayers funding an agency that lacks an effective governance structure
with experience around international development and at the same time the
agency is have noteworthy failures in improving health outcomes of the poor?


Best regards

Roger Samson

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