UN Headquarters, New York City
Fox News reports: "The United Nations is spending billions annually on partnerships with private organizations, governments in the developing world, and think tanks, often without knowing where the money is going or how well it was spent, according to a report from a U.N. watchdog [the Joint Inspection Unit]. The partnerships, which number in the tens of thousands, stretch across economic development and humanitarian relief efforts to such things as 'peacekeeping, disarmament, human rights and good governance,' it says. [T]he report... cited concerns raised by the U.N.'s own auditors about money transfers from the U.N. to its 'implementing partners,' and what the report delicately calls 'the lack of robust mechanisms to provide assurance that partners are spending funds as intended, and projects are executed efficiently and effectively.' In short, under such partnership arrangements, the U.N. may not know what it is doing, how well it is doing it, or even who its partners are...[A] partial accounting for the partnership splurge amounted to about $12 billion in the U.N.'s biennial budget for 2010-2011..."