This appears to be a growing "pattern and practice" -- the U.N. has a habit of employing NGO's generously to leverage their personnel, budgets, and research capabilities. For example, European and Japanese governmental and NGO's are behind the international gun-control regime the U.N. is pushing while looking right down Americans' throats. Lots of murmurs about "conforming laws and practices" to international needs, etc. etc. -- and when the NRA attended one of their planning conferences in 2002/3 and tried to raise a point, they got blown off with a line about needing more to "apply lessons learned". I.e., we already know what we think, so shut up.
In fact, the U.N. could almost become a hive of officially-sanctioned NGO's supported by budgets slurped off constitutional nation-states.
And they're all very Left.
Every politician's wet dream, is it not? How to get rid of those pesky voters "who think we work for them". They fantasize about having the freedom to operate under the radar, completely insulated from observation and accountability. Damn few of that Gang of 535 is doing the job we hired them to do. At least 300-350 of them deserve to be dragged out of their offices into the streets and horsewhipped by the voters.