Some claim that big international organisations like the UN reinforce a two-tier economy
Secretariat has a $3.2bn budget this year, with additional pots for peacekeeping and other agencies. A fair bit of that goes into salaries. So-called “professional staff”, who move around the globe, earn a base salary ranging from $46,000 a year for a fledgling policy wonk to $205,000 for an undersecretary-general .
That would be more than enough to live on comfortably in any African capital. But there are additional allowances for expats with a family in tow. And jobs in cities like Nairobi and Addis Ababa come with extra pay because they count as “hardship” postings. was established in 1945, American cities competed to host its headquarters. Since then places such as Copenhagen and Geneva have wooedagencies with shiny new buildings and tax incentives.
The economic impact is apparent in Gigiri, a leafy corner of Nairobi where the organisation’s African headquarters are based. Street signs hint at how important the 5,000staff who work there are to the local economy: United Nations Crescent leads to United Nations Avenue. The neighbourhood is filled with fancy restaurants, cafés and hotels that are unaffordable to most Kenyans.
That sort of inequality could spark resentment, but many locals are pragmatic. At Alkimia, a restaurant in Les Almadies serving $88 steaks and $45 seafood platters, Dimitri Vasnier, the chef, sees the irony in anti-poverty and environmental advisers arriving in four-wheel drives and leaving untouched plates piled high at buffets. Butstaff in the area are an important clientele for the restaurant. “There is so much waste,” he says. “But that is what gets the economy ticking.