The Inner City portal reveals new shocking details of Madame Azoulay’s adventures as UNESCO DG, where her antics are not limited to “double standards”. “UNESCO, like the whole UN system under Antonio Guterres is falling apart in corruption and fraud,” claims the portal, adding that “a fish rots from the head.” An unnamed high-ranking official at UNESCO told the portal, “This senior team is driving the organization to its full-blown collapse.” We can add here that apart from the banal and vulgar corruption there are also appalling management issues. For example, according to sources, UNESCO has a serious “budget” problem. Funds for program activities have been drastically cut. The reserve for increase in staff costs is also exhausted, which means that most of the planned activities will simply not take place, and hiring and promotion will be suspended indefinitely. The portal also cites the reason: Azoulay turned out to be simply not ready to hold the post of UNESCO DG.
No less challenging has been the human resources problem. More precisely, filling senior management positions. Madame Azoulay has brought to UNESCO the morals of the French elite: backroom deals, personal connections, nepotism… And she was completely unprepared for the fact that UNESCO is an international organization, and even though it is headquartered in Paris, the rules are slightly different. As a result, no replacement has been found for the Director of the Office of Strategic Planning at UNESCO. The former Director, the Frenchman Le Saux, even had time to throw a farewell party. But his successor has not been appointed yet. None of the three short-listed candidates was deemed good enough, while both the budget and the strategic documents are to be submitted to the Executive Board of UNESCO by March 2023. The reason for the “management crisis” is Madame Azoulay’s leadership style, densely laced with favoritism and incompetence.
Another scandal was the replacement of Firmin Matoko, UNESCO Assistant Director General for External Relations.
It all started when the ambassador of Namibia, Albertus Aochamub publicly announced at a dinner attended by 35 ambassadors Matoko’s departure and his replacement by Ambassador Henok Teferra Shawl of Ethiopia, obtained from Azoulay “thanks to the support of the African Group at UNESCO”. The ambassador was lying: no decision had been made, but the personnel reshuffle was taking too long, the rotation terms were coming up, and it was necessary to “reset the situation” somehow. But Madame Azoulay did not take into account that such appointments attract too much attention. Senegal, the chairman of the African Group, immediately reacted to the revelations of the Nigerian ambassador by disseminating a note verbale in which it categorically denied support for the ambassador of Ethiopia. Who is indeed favored by Azoulay. Madame Azoulay was either unable or unwilling or did not see fit to appoint a truly respected representative of the African Group as an ADG, hoping to push her own candidate. It did not work. Whether an organization of UNESCO’s caliber can work productively in this environment of schemes and intrigues is a rhetorical question.
Meanwhile, the scandals are multiplying. Audrey Azoulay promised Serbian Tamara Rastovac-Siamashvili, President of the Executive Board of UNESCO, to appoint another Serbian, Uros Mijuskovic, to the strategic post of Secretary of the Appeals Board. The recruitment decision is highly controversial, to put it mildly, and as a result of the ensuing scandal the appointment was put on hold. Rastovac-Siamashvili denied any knowledge of this, putting herself in a very awkward position: UNESCO people usually very closely follow career advancement of their compatriots.
Then Rastovac-Siamashvili distinguished herself once again. Her official car was urgently commandeered by the Director of Azoulay’s Cabinet Nicolas Kassianides. The same Kassianidis who organized a luxury cruise for his boss at the expense of UNESCO. For what he needed Rastovac-Siamashvili’s car is not specified. But the President of the Executive Board of UNESCO herself meekly took a cab home, something, according to those in the know, no other President of the Executive Board would agree to do.
Or take another “administrative feat” of Madame Azoulay. ADG for Management Nicholas Jeffreys proudly announces: the contract of Ms. Mary Moné, President of the Staff Union (STU), ends in December. And then Ms. Moné … gets a three-month extension on her contract. Intentionally or unintentionally, Azoulay has demonstrated that Jeffreys is a nobody in the UNESCO hierarchy, that he is not a decision-maker, and that his official statements are worthless. Mismanagement, outright corruption, promotion through corrupt schemes, and crackdowns on those who fight corruption—is it any wonder that UNESCO is rapidly losing credibility?
Madame Azoulay received a resounding slap in the face last week in Morocco, where, it would seem, no issues were to be expected. Audrey Azoulay spent her childhood in this country, her father André Azoulay was the King’s advisor, and Audrey herself even spent vacations in the royal palace. And here she is, as Director-General of UNESCO, visiting Morocco. Counting, no doubt, on an audience with the King. But … as the local media reported, the UNESCO DG greeted His Majesty for three minutes as King Mohammed VI inaugurated the new bus station in Rabat. Journalists are outraged: what was that? A meeting at a bus stop instead of an audience at the palace?
Meanwhile, even her closest supporters are deserting Azoulay’s ship, and Nicolas Kassianides, Director of Azoulay’s Cabinet, dreams of moving to the Quai d’Orsay, to the French Foreign Ministry. The situation at UNESCO is burdensome even to him. But for the third time his application has been rejected.
And while this career setback is a personal problem of Kassianides, this unscrupulous discrediting of UNESCO is certainly not a personal problem of Madame Azoulay and her cronies. Even if this lady obviously mistakes UNESCO for her private shop.
