Uganda’s Winnie Byanyima is among five candidates competing for the top job at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS to replace Michel Sidibé, who led the organization since 2009 and left in May this year amid controversy.
Ms Byanyima is a strong critic of the Kampala regime and is wife to opposition strongman Kizza Besigye who is a four time contender for the national presidency. The shortlist includes only one woman and four men.

The shortlist includes:

• Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa or CAPRISA.
• Sani Aliyu, director general of the Nigerian National Agency for the Control of AIDS or NACA.
• Chris Beyrer, professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
• Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International.
• Bernard Haufiku, former minister of health and social services of Namibia.

Whomever emerges as the finalist from the shortlist will take over from Gunilla Carlsson, currently acting executive director of UNAIDS. Carlsson was appointed to the position in May, following the resignation of Sidibé, who had a controversial legacy at the organization. The new leader will also be tasked with fixing what was described by an independent panel as a “broken organisational culture” at UNAIDS.

In December 2018, the panel came out with a damning report describing how the aid agency was “in crisis,” with its leaders, as well as its organizational policies and processes, having failed to prevent or respond to allegations of sexual harassment, bullying, and abuse of power. Sidibé, according to the panel’s findings, had “created a patriarchal culture tolerating harassment and abuse of authority.”

For the organization to recover, the panel underscored the need for a new “trustworthy, energetic leader” who has the skillset and experience, including “emotional intelligence,” to foster and implement a “genuinely open culture” where harassment, bullying, and abuse of power no longer exists.

Following the publication of the report, Sidibé announced he would step down in June, but decided to leave earlier to take over as minister of health and social affairs of Mali.

Process confidentiality
In December, UNAIDS’ program coordinating board called for the “immediate initiation” of the selection process for the next executive director, and a search committee was formed to oversee the process. In a published letter, the chair of the committee highlighted the experience and competencies required for the position. The letter stated they were looking for a leader with strategic management skills, including the “ability to manage organizational change and innovation, including leading transformation and reform processes in work culture” and the “ability to effectively address all forms of harassment, discrimination, bullying and abuse of power.”

Get development’s most important headlines in your inbox every day.
Email
Subscribe
The committee encouraged female applicant and geographical diversity among the candidates. It also encouraged applications from people living with HIV, as well as those living with disabilities.
The committee added: “Candidates will be submitted to a rigorous, competitive and transparent selection process.”

Information on the succeeding meetings of the committee were published on UNAIDS’ website, but without publishing the names of candidates vying for the position. This had created numerous rumors about who might be in the running for the top job at UNAIDS.

In response to an inquiry from Devex, Michael Hollingdale, communications manager for UNAIDS, told Devex that the board had decided to follow a process similar to 2008, and that the process “seeks to protect confidentiality of the candidates to the maximum extent possible.”

“Board members have the possibility to express views on the different candidates. Subsequently the Committee of Cosponsoring Organisations, under the leadership of UNFPA’s Executive Director, Dr Natalia Kanem, will be providing its consensus recommendation to the UN Secretary-General who will appoint the Executive Director. There are still several steps left in the process, which reinforces the need to protect the confidentiality of the candidates,” he wrote in an email.

Next steps
Last week, the search committee, during its ninth meeting in Geneva, interviewed shortlisted candidates and has since submitted its report to the program coordinating board. According to the timelines published on the UNAIDS website, the board will meet on June 28 to discuss and consider the report. Afterwards, the search committee will send the list to the Committee of Cosponsoring Organizations — which includes 10 U.N. agencies, the World Bank, and the UNAIDS secretariat — along with any comments and recommendations from the board.

The CCO will conduct a round of interviews with the shortlisted candidates before sending its recommendation to the U.N. secretary general the first week of July.

Stories Continues after ad

KAMPALA- There is intense fighting going on in the eastern DR Congo between the Rwandan Special Forces and armed groups opposed to Kigali government.

According to security sources in DR Congo, many Banyamulenge have been pushed by the fighting in South Kivu and there is a looming humanitarian catastrophe.

The Rwandan troops are said to be expanding their operations to Beni and Bunia.

The source says the Rwandan troops have been operating in DR Congo since March. There were also reports of hundreds of refugees fleeing the areas of Beni to Uganda because of the fighting between ethnic armed groups.

This is not the first time Rwandan forces have entered DRC. For instance in 2004, the forces entered after Paul Kagame had repeated warned that his forces would invade Congo to deal with rebel Hutu militias that the Kigali regime claims had begun cross-border attacks on Rwandan citizens.

In July 1997, Kagame while defence minister acknowledged for the first time his country’s key role in the overthrow of late DRC president Mobutu Sese Seko, stating the Rwandan government planned and directed the rebellion that toppled Mobutu and that Rwandan troops and officers led the rebel forces.

Rwandan forces at the time participated in the capture of at least four cities – Kinshasa, Lumbumbashi, Kenge and Kisangani, which fell on March 15 in what was considered the key battle of the war, Kagame said.

Between 1999-2000, Rwandan and Ugandan forces would fight inside the DRC, with each side saying had interested to protect. It later emerged individual military officers on either side benefited from the Kisangani clashes as they looted DRC’s natural resources like minerals and timber, among others.

Stories Continues after ad

Uganda Police’s Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Crime Intelligence (CID) headed by Assistant Inspector General of Police, Grace Akullo, continues to quiz Bank of Uganda (BoU) and other officials in relation to the ongoing currency consignment scandal.

However, sources at CID say the BoU Deputy Governor Dr Louis Kasekende has told them he won’t appear before them for questioning on grounds that he was not involved in the saga and that he is above the level of the officials to be questioned as regards the matter.

“He has indicated to us that he is not supposed to appear, his juniors who were involved in the saga having appeared,” a source said, adding that the inquiry is likely as well to contact BoU Governor Prof Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, who said days ago that he called in State House’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) after detecting an anomaly in the consignment of the currency.

Despite Kasekende’s alleged plea that he won’t go to Kibuli for questioning by the CID, Akullo’s department is to ensure effective detection, investigation and prevention of crime in Uganda and it is the reason why it is working with ACU to dig deep into saga where BoU officials, some of them now behind bars, are said to have printed extra currency in Germany as they were sent to pick the Uganda Shilling notes.

Last Friday, two BoU officials were charged at Anti-Corruption court sitting at Kololo Kampala, on allegations of inclusion of unauthorised cargo on BoU chartered plane.

Francis Kakeeto, a branch manager at Mbale and Fred Wanyama were charged with abuse of office and in alternative corruption which they have both denied before magistrate Herbert Asiimwe.

Prosecution informed court that on April 26, 2019 between France, Belgium and Entebbe airport, the duo while on assignment by their employer to carry out a pre-shipment inspection of printed materials in France, in abuse of the authority to offices did an arbitrary act prejudicial to the interest of their employer and allowed the inclusion of unauthorised case on a cargo plane fully chartered by BoU.

And in the alternative, it’s alleged that they failed to refute and report the inclusion of unauthorised cargo on a plane fully chartered by BoU.

The development at BoU suggest there are factions within the central bank, one controlled by Kasekende and another controlled by Mutebile. However, Mutebile looks like he has lost direction and hold onto the mantle at BoU because the latest development indicate it is Kasekende in charge of operations of the central bank.

Stories Continues after ad