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Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

oxfam.org

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Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#81

Post by yarg »

starttoaster wrote: post #64
BenjiWiebe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An expired certificate still encrypts your traffic. You might have to change settings or click through a scary warning in your browser, but other than that a certificate doesn't magically quit working as soon as it expires. The expiration date is arbitrary.

You are correct, I had to do a bit of research. Because Chrome even explicitly states that traffic to a site with an expired certificate is unencrypted. But I guess that's mostly to scare you, because the truth is that it just opens you up to potential MitM attacks and other similar issues with regular ole HTTP, but traffic between you and an unverifiable identity is at least TLS encrypted.

> Because Chrome even explicitly states that traffic to a site with an expired certificate is unencrypted.

If that's the case, then Google's condescension is doing a disservice to its users.

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#82

Post by ethbr1 »

lbriner wrote: post #41
setgree wrote: post #31

That's a big number, but I'm not shocked by the error/graft, nor its source (poor accounting). A well-regarded development organization I used to work for went through a quiet reorganization in 2016 when a few million dollars came up missing. It turned out that just getting materials to rural places in Sub-Saharan Africa was really, really hard to do without graft along the way. I don't know how things ultimately res…

Deciding where to spend it is most certainly hard but accounting for it is very easy. Even if the money was $100K to Jimmy to get the stuff into Algeria, there would be some tracking and accountability. It's weird that with the sort of numbers that could lift some countries out of poverty, we can't even write something down in a spreadsheet.

At the end of the day it's people time. And people time costs money.

So how many dollars et al. do you want you want to spend documenting how you spent your dollars?

Presumably 0%?

But what's the right number? If we spend $1 in accounting for every $1 spent on mission, and that produces a perfect audit trail, is that too much or little?

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#83

Post by fragmede »

yarg wrote: post #66
beejiu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still encrypted and you can still access it.

It's insane the way that browsers shit the bed if there's any issue with the certificate. Just throw in a big red exclamation point on top of the little padlock icon next to the URL bar - it's literally only there to inform the user about any potential security issues. Use it and (unless the site is known to be or obviously malicious) load the bloody page. Honestly, it's absolutely insane that the browser misrepresen…

I don't know why my bank's website's got this red button, but I really need to transfer my funds right now, so lemme just mash whatever button I need to mash to get to the website. Ugh, why are computers so dumb!

Seems fine.

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#84

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

zdragnar wrote: post #32
javajosh wrote: post #20

I wish this was a link to the original Oxfam audit. It's strange to me that an audit would say that there's somewhere between $23 and $41 billion missing. If the audit really knew what it was doing, wouldn't it have a more precise number What is unaccounted for? That said, it's high-time for organizations like the World Bank to have fully transparent finances. Like, I should be able to go to a website and see where e…

> It's strange to me that an audit would say that there's somewhere between $23 and $41 billion missing. Audits have degrees of certainty; an opinion may be unqualified, meaning the records are spotless, qualified, meaning there are issues but the records are trustworthy, and adversarial, meaning the records are inaccurate and do not represent the actual financial status. If the records are questionable, it will usua…

> Money comes and goes without accounting meeting financial standards. That does not strictly mean that the money has been embezzled, only that the DOD and World Bank are unable to demonstrate that it hasn't been.

Can you think of a better place to embezzle? Its risk-free without any accounting standards. 100% that embezzling is taking place and at a large scale.

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#85

Post by Fuzzwah »

normie3000 wrote: post #53
ianeigorndua wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really believe that, you should take a look at the Wikipedia page of Kenya, especially the history section.

Which part of it?!

Probably the 1982 coup and 1988 elections.

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#86

Post by fakedang »

dosinga wrote: post #34
edm0nd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like they are based in Kenya and fraud/corruption is rampant in some of these African nations. Really sad but its seemingly been like this for so long which is why many of the countries there are in constant civil wars, coups, and their populations poor/starving. If hundreds of billions of dollars in aide over 2 decades isn't fixing these nations, what will?

Kenya is not a rich country, but hardly suffers from "civil wars, coups, and a starving population". Not all African countries do.

I see someone hasn't worked in Kenya.

There's a lot of change happening now in Kenya, especially in terms of stable and democratic governance, but in no way is it not corrupt. It ranks at near the top consistently amongst African nations for corruption and bribery at all levels of the government.

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#87

Post by [deleted] »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #67
c0brac0bra wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind me what happens to a US citizen if our personal finances "struggle with fraud" and unaccountability to the tune of 40% when it comes to the IRS?

While I'm continually frustrated by the complexity and opaqueness of the US tax code, your analogy doesn't make any sense to me. If your personal finances "struggle with fraud", it means you committed fraud . So yeah, of course you should be held directly responsible. That's very different from a large organization doling out money for tons of various complex projects, and those 3rd parties (or 3rd parties down the c…

[deleted]

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#88

Post by Terr_ »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #67
c0brac0bra wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind me what happens to a US citizen if our personal finances "struggle with fraud" and unaccountability to the tune of 40% when it comes to the IRS?

While I'm continually frustrated by the complexity and opaqueness of the US tax code, your analogy doesn't make any sense to me. If your personal finances "struggle with fraud", it means you committed fraud . So yeah, of course you should be held directly responsible. That's very different from a large organization doling out money for tons of various complex projects, and those 3rd parties (or 3rd parties down the c…

> you get to take a tax write-off for the stolen funds.

At least for US federal taxes, that changed with a very partisan ~2017 law, where Republicans stripped it down to only cover federally declared unique disaster situations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#89

Post by fakedang »

mmooss wrote: post #74
candiddevmike wrote: post #5

What is the Global South going to spend $4 trillion on?

Are you saying people in those countries will have a problem finding worthwhile investments? The US spent ~$6 trillion in one year, 2023 [0] on ~330 million people. Billions live in the Global South and are in much greater need of resources, due to lack of accumulated capital investments. [0] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59727

That's an incorrect measure to look at though. Per capita social expenditure is highly dependent on the welfare structure of a country. There are developed countries (notably the Arab welfare states - for their citizens only!) which get away with a much lower expenditure even adjusted for PPP, simply because the government directly handles the provision of a lot of essential services such as education and healthcare. The US Medicare system is structured in a way to inflate its own costs.

Re: Up to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

#90

Post by SideQuark »

javajosh wrote: post #20

I wish this was a link to the original Oxfam audit. It's strange to me that an audit would say that there's somewhere between $23 and $41 billion missing. If the audit really knew what it was doing, wouldn't it have a more precise number What is unaccounted for? That said, it's high-time for organizations like the World Bank to have fully transparent finances. Like, I should be able to go to a website and see where e…

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