Mr. Steiner
UNDP Administrator
United Nations Development Programme
One United Nations Plaza
New York, NY 10017 USA
Dear Administrator Steiner,
We are writing in response to your letter of 13 December 2021 on issues related to the UNDP GEF Russia Standards and Labels project and whistleblower protection, and in particular in relation to the two whistleblower cases of Mr. John O’Brien and Mr. Dmitry Ershov. We write to you jointly, with Government Accountability Project and the Whistleblowing International Network (WIN). We would like to make the following points.
First, we note that the UNDP debarment list is not yet public. In your 13 December 2021 letter, you stated that the vendor sanctions policy is being updated and will be released in 2022. We believe it is important that the UNDP make this debarment list and vendor sanctions policy public, and kindly request to be informed of the results of this updated policy once it becomes available.
Second, we would like to correct a statement in your letter; you wrote that Mr. John O’Brien “confirmed he was not retaliated against.” Mr. O’Brien has consistently claimed that he was the subject of whistleblower retaliation and that, because whistleblower best practice standards are not applied at the UNDP, particularly with respect to a properly constituted ‘reverse burden of proof,’ it is nearly impossible to prove retaliation under the current system. We therefore do not accept your statement characterizing what he said.
We...
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