International

This New York Times article raises an excellent point on mass surveillance and the need for more transparency and accountability. 

“Over time, it becomes a question of what is it that we are protecting. Are we protecting simply physical security and our geographical boundaries, or are we protecting a system of political values? That includes open deliberation of national security policies…” – Steven Aftergood

Earlier this year, GAP's international coalition partner across the pond – Public Concern at Work (PCaW), based in London – launched an ambitious effort.

Editor's Note, from GAP President Louis Clark: Michael Winston is a former executive at Countrywide Financial Corporation, who blew the whistle on the company's clearly fraudulent activities that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession.

Information about the diminishing authority and capabilities of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the Global Fund continues to surface. Indications are that the Board of the Global Fund, through its Audit and Ethics Committee, is responsible for the reduced scope of OIG work and authority. It was the Board that sacked John Parsons as the head of the OIG in November 2012, and since then, GAP has received documents that show:

For the past year or more, turbulence has surrounded the independence of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the Global Fund, and at GAP we have been closely following these developments. In November 2012, the Global Fund’s Board took the unprecedented step of sacking its Inspector General, John Parsons, after he had served the organization for five years. The board took this action even though in late 2011, an independent seven-member panel of outside experts, contracted by the Board to review the Fund’s entire operations, praised the OIG highly.

The Guardian: Whistleblowers’ Claims of Wrongdoing Being Ignored

Earlier today, GAP released a new report that details the existing whistleblower protections found throughout Europe.

On Apr.

As virtually all observers of the Global Fund (GF) operations know by now, the Board of the organization fired John Parsons, the Inspector General, in November 2012. At the time, Simon Bland, Chairman of the Board of GF, issued a press release that attempted to justify the termination by criticizing Parsons’ performance. In January 2013, Parsons filed two lawsuits at the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva. He’s suing GF for wrongful termination and defamation.