OSCE reviews

No transparency in recruitment. Depends a lot in the recruiting manager and his/her honesty. I was lucky to be recruited based on skills and aptitude, but often it’s who you know, what country you are from, and if you fit perfectly into the box. Initiative is not welcome, the less waves you make the better. Corruption, harassment and ineffectiveness are never really sanctioned. Higher management is appointed according to political criteria (geographical distribution & pressure from states), so no real visionaries or reformers. With seconded staff it’s a roulette: if you’re lucky they can be great people, if not… And despite the limitations on length of service, some people somehow find ways to stay on for much longer than 7-10 years. No pension (only a Provident Fund which is similar to mandatory savings with an equal contribution of the organization. Budget getting smaller & smaller (Zero net growth which results in inadequate resources). Gender balance and “safe environment” are proclaimed but not really implemented if you look beyond numbers.

- It’s non-career organization, but by some miracle administrative assistant or personal assistant can become Project Officer with 0 experience, while more experienced staff members participate in recruitment. - Almost 90% of recruitments are technical, since there is already someone who was promised to get this position. If you are not from Balkans or Central Asia your chances are really low. - A lot of local management staff members work for more than 15 years and have no idea what is going on outside the building in terms of procurement, financial issues, as well as project management. - There are many questions, as for the proper usage of budget, since international staff members receive both BLA and DSA. That would be really great to carry out the audit of the missions that were already closed or are in process, since there are a lot of interesting facts to discover, how the money of tax payers is used in reality.