The United Nations has turned to a Canadian who was the World Bank's chief auditor as its choice for the next head of the UN's internal watchdog agency.

Carman Lapointe-Young won approval Wednesday from the General Assembly to become the undersecretary-general for oversight. She will be given the huge task of trying to quickly fix an agency that her predecessor says is in disarray.

The Manitoba native was appointed to the non-renewable, five-year term as head of the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, whose leadership was severely criticized in an end-of-assignment memo by outgoing OIOS head Inga-Britt Ahlenius of Sweden.

Ban said in a statement that Lapointe-Young has the "breadth and depth of experience and expertise required for this demanding position." He said she will be expected to rebuild OIOS and fill its many vacancies as soon as possible.

Corruption scandals

Over the past decade the UN has been rocked by a series of corruption scandals in its multibillion-dollar spending. The best known resulted from a two-year investigation into the UN-run oil-for-food program for Iraq led by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

Volcker's inquiry culminated in an October 2005 report accusing more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of colluding with Saddam Hussein's regime to bilk $1.8 billion US from a program aimed at easing Iraqi suffering under UN sanctions.

As a result of the scandal, the UN created a special anti-corruption task force between 2006 and 2008 that found 20 significant corruption schemes. Its work led to sanctions against about 50 UN vendors, many of which were permanently debarred, as well as felony convictions against three UN officials , including two senior procurement officials.

Lapointe-Young won the nod despite some grumbling among diplomats from developing nations who said her appointment upset an informal understanding that the top accountability post should alternate between developing and rich Western nations.

At the General Assembly, several diplomats touched on the issue of geographical diversity. UN spokesman Martin Nesirky acknowledged the concerns of representatives of "regional groups" in the General Assembly who were consulted before Wednesday's approval, but said Ban's selection was ultimately based on merit.

Lapointe-Young has been the director of the office of audit and oversight at the International Fund for Agricultural Development since February 2009. From 2004 to 2009, she was the auditor general of the World Bank Group.

She succeeds Ahlenius, who left the OIOS post in mid-July after blaming Ban for blocking her attempt to hire a former U.S. federal prosecutor as permanent head of the investigation division and taking other measures that she said undermined the operational independence her office is supposed to have.

Ban and his senior advisers soon closed ranks and disputed many of the memo's assertions while trying to put the dispute quickly behind them. Ban is reviewing the memo and has ordered a review of the UN's ability to investigate itself, his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, said last week.

"Where there are lessons to be learned, we will draw them," Angela Kane, the undersecretary-general for management, said in a statement Wednesday.

In a statement labelled "Accountability for a Stronger United Nations," Kane said Lapointe-Young will inherit an office with 76 vacant posts because Ahlenius failed to fill them.