{"podcast":{"title":"This Week in Global Development","slug":"this-week-in-global-development-6311778","podcast_index_feed_id":6311778,"rss_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/show/5837438/episodes/feed","website_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/this-week-in-global-development--5837438","image_url":"https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/71e7688b8237c333a8d8a3205a7a0671.jpg","author":"Devex","episode_count":216,"summary":"Dive into the week's most critical global development news with the This Week in Global Development podcast. In each episode, hosts Adva Saldinger, David Ainsworth, and Rumbi Chakamba break down major headlines and invite leading experts for insightful analysis. Get up-to-date on news regarding foreign aid, humanitarian crises, the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, finance, philanthropy, climate, food systems, global health, and stay informed on the latest trends and policy changes shaping global development. Episodes are published every Friday and can also be watched on YouTube. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@devex Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-global-development-6311778"},"episode":{"title":"Inside the corruption scandal that tarnished the UN","slug":"inside-the-corruption-scandal-that-tarnished-the-un","published_at":"2026-05-07T09:46:24+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-global-development-6311778/inside-the-corruption-scandal-that-tarnished-the-un","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-global-development-6311778","url":"https://www.spreaker.com/episode/inside-the-corruption-scandal-that-tarnished-the-un--71904353","audio_url":"https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/71904353/devex_podcast_draft1442_mixdown.mp3","summary":"This week, we take you inside a Devex exclusive: the $60 million fiasco at the United Nations, a complex story with an equally complex set of characters, including Vitaly Vanshelboim, whose rise and fall left a black mark on a key U.N. agency. Once revered as a financial wizard, Vanshelboim was the man credited with pulling UNOPS back from the brink of bankruptcy. However, as our investigation reveals, behind the diplomatic prestige and profits lay a shadow world of secret side deals, luxury cars, and a $60 million trail of broken promises. Now, as the former U.N. assistant secretary-general faces a reckoning from a Spanish prison cell, we discuss the lingering question: For a system that prides itself on rigorous oversight, is this incident a one-off or emblematic of something deeper? To dig into this story and others, Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger sits down with Managing Editor Anna Gawel and Senior Global Reporter Colum Lynch for the latest episode of our weekly podcast series. Request an invitation to attend Devex Impact House @ WHA in Geneva: https://pages.devex.com/devex-at-wha-79.html","meta_description":"This week, we take you inside a Devex exclusive: the $60 million fiasco at the United Nations, a complex story with an equally complex set of characters,…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1923,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/this-week-in-global-development-6311778/episodes/inside-the-corruption-scandal-that-tarnished-the-un/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-global-development-6311778/inside-the-corruption-scandal-that-tarnished-the-un.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}