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UN pension fund

The $75 Billion UN Pension Fund: Kicking Reforms Down the Road

November 12, 2020 
by Loraine Rickard-Martin
Flags of UN Member States outside of the UN in New York
A new governance study has confirmed what many United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund observers have long surmised: there are significant variances between the fund’s own operations and best practices and those of pension funds elsewhere. The areas reviewed by Mosaic Governance Advisors, who prepared the study, include standards of professional and ethical conduct, …

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COVID-19

Why the Head of the UN Pension Fund Resigned

April 28, 2020 
by George G. Irving and Sugiyama Iutaka
In the middle of the coronavirus epidemic, the United Nations spokesperson announced that Sudhir Rajkumar resigned from his job as representative of the secretary-general for investment of the assets of the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund, effective March 31, 2020. The abruptness and lack of explanation in the March 29th announcement came as a surprise …

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The $67 Billion UN Pension Fund: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

October 10, 2019 
by Loraine Rickard-Martin
Since 2014, when staff members of the United Nations Pension Fund blew the whistle on serious mismanagement in its secretariat, a change in leadership has been made on both sides — assets and liabilities — of the $67.4 billion fund. Yet the turmoil persists. Stabilizing the fund’s management and investment decisions has been mandated …

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The UN Pension Board Rejects an Audit of Its Work

August 27, 2018 
by Loraine Rickard-Martin
The United Nations Pension Board’s recent meeting in Rome ended with a record number of disagreements and much acrimony. The chief cause of distress was the results of the internal governance audit requested last December by the General Assembly. At the meeting, held July 29 to Aug. 3, board members directed much of their …

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WORLDVIEWS

Long Overdue: A New Boss at the UN Pension Fund and a Reformed Board

November 15, 2017 
by Loraine Rickard-Martin
An important change was made to the United Nations pension fund last month, when Secretary-General António Guterres announced he was appointing Sudhir Rajkumar of India to succeed Carol Boykin as his representative for investments of the $61.5 billion fund. Guterres needs to make another major change, however, to address serious problems at the joint …

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WORLDVIEWS

The UN Pension Fund’s Leaders Must Go

March 30, 2017 
by Loraine Rickard-Martin
The General Assembly resolution passed in December could not have been clearer: the United Nations pension fund has failed to deliver on both the investment side, led by Carol Boykin, and the secretariat side, led by Sergio Arvizú. The resolution came on the heels of critical reports documenting massive foreign-exchange losses, low investment income …

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WORLDVIEWS

UN Secretary-General Guterres: Please Protect Our Pension Fund

March 2, 2017 
by Loraine Rickard-Martin
United Nations staff members and retirees, concerned for many years about low-investment performance by our $54 billion pension fund and unprecedented delays in benefit payments, welcomed the adoption last December of a General Assembly resolution that allayed worries about attempts to privatize the fund. The resolution reaffirmed that UN financial rules and regulations remain the …

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The UN General Assembly Urges the $54 Billion Pension Fund to Shape Up

January 2, 2017 
by Susan Manuel
The United Nations General Assembly sharply rebuked the United Nations Pension Fund, which it oversees, reaffirming control of the $54 billion account by the UN Secretariat and calling on the fund to improve its problematic performance and service to its 72,000 beneficiaries. The strongly worded resolution came amid other resolutions being finalized at the …

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Skeptics Still Question the Status of the UN’s $54 Billion Pension Fund

September 6, 2016 
by Susan Manuel
Twenty months after the staff union accused management of the United Nations’ $54.5 billion pension fund of “massive fraud,” controversy over its structure and performance remains on a low boil. While the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services dismissed fraud allegations, a near perfect storm of management restructuring, a software fiasco and a weak …

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