Back in the day, MFAT got around to reviewing its contributions to various UN organisations. They discovered they were contributing $250,000 to some obscure committee that was part of the UN Food and Agricultural organisation.
When this particular committee heard that their contribution was under review, they immediately dispatched 6 bureaucrats from Rome to Wellington to make their case.
These flying UN diplomats could have been so stupid as to not notice that 6 UN bureaucrats showing up out of nowhere after years of silence as soon as their budget contribution was under review might not improve what little goodwill they had left in the Wellington bureaucracy. No one could remember why we were contributing. Their willingness to spend so freely in airfares certainly did not help.
The same goes for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This bank was formed shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. New Zealand joined for reasons now forgotten.
I happen to call upon the Australian Executive Director representing New Zealand at that Bank while passing through London representing the New Zealand Treasury. Naturally, he felt the need to call upon his New Zealand masters in Wellington shortly after. MFAT did not know what to do with them because they could not remember why New Zealand was still a member of that bank.
This London based Australian international diplomat did better than the Australian Executive Director representing New Zealand on the World Bank. He managed to visit all 12 Pacific islands but never visited New Zealand in his entire 4 years of office. This included after the establishment of the New Zealand Agency for International Development.
What more, this Australian Executive Director flew to Canberra for consultations with his Australian authorities just before Christmas every year. He felt rather put upon when his New Zealand deputy insisted that he take personal days while attending his grandson’s christening.
I visited the World Bank once or twice. It was like visiting a brothel. Absolutely everyone propositioned me from money.
The first people I spoke to try to sell New Zealand some oil debts that Mozambique are defaulted on to Angola. The last person I spoke to tried to interest New Zealand and investing in Latin American trade research.
They are all hopeless is give me directions to the Cato Institute. They seemed to know very little about American politics and Washington DC think tanks.
One of my first jobs at the New Zealand Treasury was to form a position on what the OECD Secretariat should do about its seriously underfunded pension plan. It provided for a 50% life pension after 10 years of service.
I suggested what was done with underfunded superannuation funds in Australia, which was to close them to new members.
An OECD official called upon me in Wellington at my desk a few weeks later. I do not think he made a special trip to Wellington just to put me right, but he made sure I was included on his itinerary.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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