António Guterres’ role questioned in UN harassment case

It was just five days after Fabrizio Hochschild Drummond won a major appointment to be the United Nations’ first technology envoy that he was placed on paid leave, pending an investigation into workplace harassment allegations against him.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said through his spokesperson that the first he learned of the allegations was after he had already awarded Hochschild his promotion.

But it wasn’t the first that his own staff knew of the allegations against Hochschild. 

A POLITICO investigation into the case shows that at least one member of Guterres’ senior staff was aware that formal complaints were about to be lodged against Hochschild by one of his former female subordinates — more than a month before his promotion occurred.

In an email reviewed by POLITICO, the former Hochschild staff member sought advice from a member of Guterres’ chef de cabinet’s office about how to proceed with her complaint.

That complaint sheds light on the circumstances leading up to the investigation into Hochschild over allegations of discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment and abuse of authority, according to documents reviewed by POLITICO.

The inquiry into Hochschild was first reported when he was suspended on January 27. POLITICO’s reporting, which includes extensive interviews with five current and former U.N. staff members, shines a light on the motivations of women who complained about him.

In stories from different sources that often overlap, these women described feeling bullied by abusive language, demanding telephone calls at late-night hours and weekends, and comments from Hochschild saying his office didn’t want women employees to get pregnant. POLITICO has the accounts of some complainants but does not have access to other evidence, whether corroborating or exculpatory, that will be available to the investigators.

In emails, Hochschild denied the allegations, but declined to comment further while the inquiry is underway. He called the allegations “unfounded.”

POLITICO’s reporting, meanwhile, highlights a new question: Why did Guterres proceed with the promotion when some on his staff had a preview of the trouble that lay just ahead?

The current and former U.N. employees say they believe they know the answer. Top levels of the U.N., they said, have a culture of favoritism in which influential insiders like Hochschild advance easily and get the benefit of the doubt, while people raising questions about improper workplace behavior aren’t listened to as seriously as they should be.

In 2019, one in three U.N. employees and contractors said they had been sexually harassed in the past two years, according to a U.N. study.

Through a spokesman, Guterres said he does take the issue seriously, and that he acted immediately to put Hochschild on leave until the questions about his conduct were resolved.

But the current and former employees — who all spoke on condition of anonymity, citing concerns about retaliation — said the time to take action had passed.

“This is the stuff that undermines trust,” said one of the staffers who previously worked under Hochschild and has now left the U.N. “These are the issues that are important, ultimately, because they are so within his [Guterres’] power.”

‘Toxic workplace’

Hochschild’s three-decade career inside the U.N. followed a trajectory typical of staffers who make their reputations on high-risk assignments around the world.

Hochschild’s status in the U.N. as an under-secretary-general is analogous to that of a government minister. He began his career in 1988 working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Sudan, and in the years since has worked as a U.N. peacekeeper and at various U.N. agencies, including the United Nations Development Programme in Colombia and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.

Before being promoted to his most recent job, as coordinator for the U.N.’s 75th anniversary commemorations, Hochschild worked closely with Guterres as assistant secretary-general for strategic coordination on the 38th floor of the U.N.’s New York City headquarters — the same floor from which Secretary-General Guterres works. The U.N.’s announcement of his promotion to the tech role cited his “diversified senior leadership experience, both at Headquarters and in the field.”

According to one U.N. employee who has worked with Hochschild in the past year, Hochschild’s record in conflict zones made him an “archetypal ‘hero’ in the U.N.”

Having been through “horrible stuff” had given him a “free pass” in the organization, added the employee. Several of the U.N. insiders said the institution covered problematic behavior due to a macho culture that persists inside the institution despite public rhetoric about gender equality and inclusion.

In Hochschild’s case, they said this meant being promoted despite complaints that he created a toxic workplace in his job coordinating U.N. 75th anniversary commemorations, known as UN75, according to the five current and former employees, who worked under him during 2019 and 2020.

One of them, who described Hochschild’s management style as “demoralizing,” recalled receiving texts and emails from him at midnight and on holidays for urgent work. “He called my work useless. He told people their work was trash,” the ex-employee said, adding that they had been expected to work while diagnosed with COVID-19. People who worked with Hochschild said he was meticulous about conducting aggressive conversations over the phone and never in writing.

Two former subordinates said Hochschild would often joke about women not being allowed to get pregnant or married in his office. One of his female staff members was told that her contract would not be renewed days after she announced she was pregnant, endangering her access to health care and immigration status. The legal dispute around her contract ended when she was offered a new role elsewhere in the organization.

Hochshild’s three former subordinates filed their complaints in December 2020 and early January 2021. The U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) launched an investigation, and interviews were conducted with the complainants in early and mid-January, according to people with knowledge of the investigation. 

Then, on January 22, in a move that caught many U.N. diplomats off-guard, Guterres announced that he had appointed Hochschild as the U.N.’s first-ever tech envoy. On January 27, Hochschild was placed on leave over the investigation.

Yet a former staffer who wanted to file an official complaint about Hochschild had contacted a member of Guterres’ chef de cabinet’s office on December 11 for advice, according to the email seen by POLITICO.

“Of late too many people working under USG [Under-Secretary-General] Hochschild are reaching out to me seeking support on how to cope. This triggered some guilt for me that I should have done more last year,” the email read.

The Guterres aide had replied supplying the name of a contact in the Office of Legal Staff Assistance, the U.N.’s internal justice system.

“I recall from our conversation that I had indicated there are avenues to staff members seeking advice or assistance,” the member of Guterres’ chef de cabinet’s office wrote in the email.

Asked whether the secretary-general had been informed about the complaints, his office said he only found out on January 27 and then triggered an investigation.

Lobbying blitz

To many who had been following the tech envoy process, Hochschild’s nomination came as a shock.

A self-described “newcomer” to the tech portfolio, the Chilean-British diplomat beat several high-profile, tech-savvy candidates who had been nominated by their member countries. These included former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Finnish member of the European Parliament Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, India’s Amandeep Singh Gill, who ran the U.N.’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, and Dutch politician Marietje Schaake, who’s currently international policy director at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center.

None of these candidates were interviewed, according to two former staff members and three U.N. diplomats. 

Several diplomats said that they had expected a formal process and a longer timeline for appointing the envoy given that internal discussions about creating the role had started years earlier, they said. The Europeans were particularly annoyed as they are trying to position themselves as leaders in the global tech conversation and had seen the position as an opportunity.

Much of the frustration around Hochschild’s nomination focused on his fundraising for the new role. Unlike other U.N. positions, funding for the tech envoy’s work does not come from the institution’s overall budget, but solely from member country donations.

The proposal for the creation of a tech envoy came out of the U.N.’s high-level panel and roadmap on digital cooperation. The tech envoy is charged with implementing the secretary-general’s digital agenda, focused on building connectivity and international cooperation.

Work on the U.N.’s tech initiatives was funded by Switzerland, China, the United Arab Emirates, Norway, Qatar, Denmark, Finland, Denmark, the U.K., Germany and Israel, as well as foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Alibaba Foundation. But more money was needed for the tech envoy’s office.

In a project proposal sent to member countries for fundraising purposes, seen by POLITICO and dated July 2020, the tech envoy’s office was projected to need a total budget of $3,280,574.

Hochschild set about raising that money and lobbying U.N. member countries personally for the creation of the role, according to his former staffers. Money from the UN75 budget was used during the second half of 2020 to fund the salaries of employees working to create the tech envoy’s office, according to the project proposal seen by POLITICO.

“It felt a little bit egregious in the sense that for the last few years, what he’s done is helped create this position for himself to occupy, because we all knew that after the commemoration of the 75th anniversary, it wasn’t clear if this gentleman had a job in the U.N. system,” said a U.N. diplomat based in Geneva.

The technology envoy’s monthly rate is marked as $35,117 (€28,715), or $421,404 (€344,588) a year — more than double the gross annual base salary of an under-secretary-general, which was $200,998 in 2020. By comparison, the U.S. president makes $33,333 (€27,259) a month or $400,000 (€327,120) a year.

Civil society groups, led by digital rights group Access Now, sent an open letter in October 2020 asking for transparency in the tech envoy’s selection process. “We didn’t hear anything back,” said Laura O’Brien, the group’s U.N. advocacy officer.

In Hochschild’s absence, his office has been run by Maria-Francesca Spatolisano, the assistant secretary-general for policy coordination and inter-agency affairs at the department of economic and social affairs, as well as senior program officer Yu Ping Chan.

“The office is continuing to mobilize funding for its work,” a U.N. spokesperson said. “The current budget covers the work through 31 December 2021.”

A deep-rooted problem

Critics argue Hochschild’s case is far from isolated.

While the U.N. claims to have a zero-tolerance approach, in 2019 one in three U.N. employees and contractors said they had been sexually harassed in the past two years, according to a U.N. study.

According to the U.N.’s latest statistics, in 2020 the organization received 66 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping and 91 allegations about U.N. personnel outside peacekeeping. The number of cases has stayed steady in recent years.

Purna Sen, who was in charge of addressing workplace harassment at U.N. Women, told the Guardian in December 2020 that she feared the organization’s efforts to tackle sexual harassment have been “put on the back burner.” 

“The system lacks independence and there is a real problem with accounts being taken seriously. Managers are instructed to start with the presumption of innocence but this has translated to a starting position of distrust of those making complaints,” she said. 

In its latest report on preventing sexual exploitation, the U.N. said it will launch a digitized complaints platform and update its “sexual exploitation and abuse e-learning programme” for staff.

Two former staff members described participating in a dignity and harassment training session led by Hochschild. “It felt tense, as much as you can feel tension on Microsoft Teams calls,” the former staffer said.

The U.N. spokesperson underscored ongoing efforts to combat harassment. Guterres “strengthened the U.N.’s investigating and we now have a specialized team of investigators, mostly women, who are focused solely on looking into allegations of sexual harassment,” the spokesperson said.

The U.N. has a helpline for staffers to report sexual harassment, and has also adopted a database that should prevent people who were let go because of harassment issues by one U.N. agency to be hired by another. But staff members say these processes are not enough because many victims fear retaliation, and allegations take months if not years to resolve.

“It’s impossible to actually hold people to account in practice, unless you really stick your neck out,” the former staffer said. “And most people I know who want a job in the system just wouldn’t do that.”

Ryan Heath contributed reporting.

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