Who Monitors the Monitors? UNDP Debate Reveals Uncomfortable Truths

Dulam Harshita Sai | The Moscow Times

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Wealthy countries simply push accountability measures for aid recipients while conveniently avoiding scrutiny of their own political interests.

The UNDP session on economic sustainability and having a clear stance on aid shows repetition. Wealthy donor nations are talking about accountability and good governance while smaller countries struggle to get a word in about who really controls development.

Nigeria kicked things off with a proposal that sounds reasonable (only on paper). Let the UNDP act as a third-party monitor to ensure aid money gets used properly, with the power to raise concerns about misappropriation for committee debate. It's basically the kind of measure that makes sense if you assume everyone's operating in good faith. But that's a big assumption.

The problem isn't about the transparency itself. It's a given that aid money shouldn't disappear into Swiss bank accounts or fund luxury cars for corrupt officials. The problem is who gets to decide what counts as "misappropriation" and who faces consequences when funds get misused.

The United States jumped in quickly to emphasise "credible governance" and "accountability in aid distribution." They proposed government and public finance capacity compacts to improve financial management and combat corruption. All very noble sounding, although there's a convenient blind spot in the US’s position. They're talking about governance and accountability in recipient countries while saying nothing about accountability for how donor countries use aid as leverage for their own political interests. American aid doesn't come with neutral strings attached. It comes with policy conditions and market access requirements. Political alignment is required, too. When the US talks about "credible governance", what they mean is governance that aligns with their interests. Transparency apparently doesn't extend to being honest about that dynamic.

Japan called for collaboration and compromise, which is diplomatic speech for let's all get along. They talked about reducing international development disparities and focusing on "neutral development efforts." Except there's no such thing as neutral development when major powers are involved. Every aid package advances someone's political priorities, whether it's securing access to resources, building political alliances, or opening markets for exports.

China questioned whether UNDP debates on corruption would be publicly disclosed, which is actually a fair question that got glossed over. If the UNDP is going to act as a monitor and raise concerns about fund misuse, will those debates be transparent? Or will powerful countries be able to work behind closed doors to protect their allies while publicly shaming countries that have fallen out of favour?

Denmark supported "voluntary information release" on transparency, which sounds nice but is basically meaningless. Voluntary disclosure means countries release whatever makes them look good and hide everything else. Real transparency requires compulsory reporting with independent verification. Anything less is just public relations. What came through clearly in the

discussion was how smaller countries struggle to be heard. Multiple delegates raised concerns about ensuring all countries, regardless of size, have a say in decision-making. But wanting a voice and actually getting one are different things. When Norway, the US, Japan, and China are in the room, smaller countries aren't operating on equal footing, no matter what the procedural rules say. This matters as aid relationships are fundamentally unequal. Donor countries have leverage. Recipient countries need resources. That lack of balance in power shapes everything about how transparency mechanisms work in practice. Rich countries can demand a detailed accounting of how their aid gets spent. Recipient countries can't demand the same transparency about why donor countries attach the conditions they do or how aid decisions align with strategic rather than humanitarian priorities.

Nigeria's proposal for UNDP monitoring could work if it applied equally to all parties. Monitor how recipient countries use funds, sure. But monitoring whether donor countries are using aid to advance inappropriate political objectives, whether conditions attached to aid undermine recipient sovereignty and whether the entire system is structured to benefit donor countries' economies and strategic positions is important.

However, transparency discussions are entirely focused on recipient country governance while treating donor country decisions as if they exist in some neutral technical space beyond scrutiny. Its accountability for thee but not for me.

The US talking about combating corruption is particularly rich given how much American aid ends up recycled back to American contractors and consultants. Transparency would mean acknowledging that a huge portion of aid money never actually reaches recipient countries because it gets spent on American goods and services. That's not corruption in the legal sense, but it's hardly the neutral humanitarianism it suggests. The real question isn't whether transparency is good or bad. It's obviously good. The question is whether these mechanisms will actually create accountability or just give powerful countries another tool to control smaller ones while avoiding scrutiny of their own behaviour.

Smaller countries are right to be sceptical. History shows that international institutions often end up reinforcing rather than challenging power imbalances. The IMF and World Bank have been demanding "governance reforms" from developing countries for decades, while wealthy countries face no equivalent scrutiny of how their own economic policies create the conditions that make

aid necessary in the first place.

If the UNDP is going to monitor aid transparency, the mandate needs to include examining the entire aid relationship, not just how recipient countries manage funds. That means looking at donor motivation, conditionality practice, tied aid requirements, and whether the system serves development goals or donor interests as a whole. Without that broader accountability framework, this transparency discussion is just another way to blame poor countries for staying poor while ignoring the structural factors that keep them that way.