Helen Clark, says there were legitimate criticisms of the way the United Nations dealt with allegations of human rights violations during the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka. Foreign Policy magazine recently carried a probe into Clark’s management style that reported widespread disgruntlement among staff. She said there were legitimate criticisms of the way the UN dealt with Sri Lankan abuses during the civil war with the Tamil Tigers, but said the conflict was officially declared over a month after she started at the helm of UNDP – “it was before my time”. Clark also denied that her reorganisation of UNDP had been an internal disaster. She said the number of employment tribunals brought by individuals was “tiny, a handful”. “One of the hardest things is to change an organisation, as people have vested interests in the way things are. But not to do it, knowing that the whole nature of funding is changing and you have to be much more adaptable, is not an option – you have to act in the interests of the organisation.”
