Roberto Garcia Saez’s attitude could seem puzzling if not plain odd to some people.
Mr. Garcia Saez, who is launching his novel with a book-signing at Phnom Penh’s Institut Francais on Saturday, was suspected of embezzlement while working on a UN Development Program project in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the mid-2000s.
Even though a full investigation had yet to be conducted, the UNDP canceled Mr. Garcia Saez’s next contract for Egypt, which led him to sue the UNDP at the impartial UN Dispute Tribunal set up in 2009. He won his case last year.
In the meantime, a Danish court case against a company involved in the alleged embezzlement case determined that the wrongdoings did not involve the project he had run in Congo, he said.
Despite the allegations made against him, Mr. Garcia Saez does not resent the UNDP, whose hasty decision lost him a contract, put his life on hold and could have had him blacklisted as a crook for the rest of his career.
On the contrary, the experience became a muse and his book is part of his campaign to present to the public a clearer picture of the UN, humanitarian aid and aid industry professionals, who are neither saints nor bandits, he said.
He has also launched a private consulting firm advising both the private and public sectors on health care programs in developing countries.
From 2000 to 2003, Mr. Garcia Saez worked with Cambodia’s National Malaria Center on a European Commission-funded malaria control program that became a model for malaria projects worldwide.
In 2003, he was recruited by the Global Fund in Geneva and was among the 60 people who set up the organization. The Global Fund now funds 75 percent of the world’s tuberculosis programs, 66 percent of the malaria programs and nearly 25 percent of the HIV/AIDS programs, he said.
His book, which is being released in French under the title “ONU soit qui mal y pense,” with the working title of “Conduct UNbecoming” for its planned English version, is based on his own experience in Congo where he ran a $200 million health care project for five years. The medicine distribution system he set up for the country of 60 million people is now recommended by USAid, he said.
Mr. Garcia Saez’s book has been adapted for the stage in France as another way of conveying the message that in spite of its “inanity and bureaucratic nonsense,” the UN does often do worthwhile work, he said.
Born in France with both French and Spanish citizenships, Mr. Garcia Saez grew up between France and Africa, where his engineer father was often based. The 47-year-old plans to focus the second book of his trilogy on the UN in Cambodia, and the third in Thailand.
