UN health agency struggles with travel abuses

The World Health Organization spent nearly $192 million on travel expenses last year, with staffers sometimes breaking the agency's own rules by traveling in business class, booking expensive last-minute tickets and traveling without the required approvals, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The abuses could spook potential donors and partners as the organization begins its week-long annual meeting Monday in Geneva, seeking increased support to fight a devastating outbreak of Ebola in Congo and other deadly diseases including polio , malaria and measles.

The nearly $192 million is down 4% from 2017, when the agency pledged to rein in travel abuses following an AP investigation.

Recent documents show WHO auditors found some WHO staffers were still brazenly misrepresenting the reasons for their travel to exploit loopholes in the organization's policies and flying business class, which can be several times more expensive than economy, even though they did not meet the criteria to do so.

In response to questions from the AP, WHO said Monday that "travel is often essential to reaching people in need" and noted that 55% of its travel spending went to bring outside experts and country representatives, often from developing countries, to technical and other meetings.

It added that numerous new measures were adopted in 2018 that aimed to make sure "staff travel is necessary, economical, appropriate and efficient."
"We see therefore a culture of non-compliance by staff involved in emergency operations," the report authors said. "Raising a (travel request) as emergency, even if it is not compliant with the criteria for emergency travel, shows a breakdown in controls and results (in a) waste of resources."