Jim Grant’s Legacy
by Kul Chandra Gautam
I was fortunate to work closely with Jim Grant, and my memoir, Global Citizen from Gulmi: My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of the United Nations, also contains extensive references to his extraordinary leadership and impact on the world, including on myself. This essay recounts some of the personal vignettes of my exhilarating experience of working with JPG.
I was UNICEF Rep in Laos when Grant was appointed as UNICEF’s new Executive Director in 1980. Just a few months before Grant’s appointment, I had a very pleasant and memorable meeting with his predecessor Harry Labouisse at the VIP lounge of the Vientiane airport. Harry and his wife Eve Curie Labouisse (daughter of the Nobel prize winning scientists Marie & Pierre Curie) were transiting through Vientiane on their way from Hanoi to Bangkok. I was deeply impressed with Labouisse’s gentle, patrician and compassionate personality. So we were all curious about what his successor might be like.
Jim Grant came to UNICEF like a tornado, with a bright rainbow on the horizon. He was bubbling with grand ideas, and bouncing with extraordinary energy and enthusiasm. He wanted to shake things up and build a dream world that was more fit for children. Upon becoming the head of UNICEF, he sounded as if all his life he was preparing to come to lead it. UNICEF provided him the perfect bully pulpit to espouse his grand ideas and bold vision.
Before coming to UNICEF, Grant had been the champion of a school of thought that we now call human development. Development, he argued, had to be measured not by the gross national product of a nation but by the physical quality of human life. He argued that infant mortality, life expectancy, literacy rates and other social indicators were far more important measurements of a nation’s development than its economic wealth or military might.
Grant inherited an already highly respected organization that had won the Nobel Peace Prize and earned a great reputation as the world’s premier humanitarian organization to help women and children in times of war and natural disasters. As a development agency, UNICEF was known for its practical actions and effective operations at the community level. However, the scope and coverage of UNICEF supported development programmes were rather limited, and it was not seen as a major development organization of the world.
Grant was determined to turn this already good organization into one that could make a massive national and global impact. He was convinced that in a world ravaged by political and ideological conflicts, the cause of children would be the most fitting one to unite peoples and nations following different faiths and ideologies. He was inspired by his personal experience of how the Barefoot Doctors scheme in China had led to massive coverage of basic health care, and the Green Revolution in India had averted dire predictions of famines and led to food security and prosperity for many farmers.
His experience in Sri Lanka, where he had served with USAID, had convinced him that even an economically poor country could achieve impressive results in basic health and education if it followed the right approach. He wanted to replicate such success globally in child health and human development.
Child survival at the heart of human development
Grant consulted widely with the best minds inside and outside UNICEF and came up with a bold vision of a “Child Survival Revolution”. He argued that one could bring dramatic changes in people’s health and well-being by applying a small set of proven, low-cost and innovative life-saving technologies and behavioral changes on a large scale. Generating high level political commitment and broad-based social mobilization on a massive scale were other key ingredients for success.
Grant argued that it was unconscionable that 40,000 children a day, or 15 million annually, were dying at that time, when there were many low-cost, readily available interventions to prevent such deaths. He proposed an initial package of interventions comprising growth monitoring to promote child nutrition; oral rehydration therapy against diarrheal diseases; breast-feeding; and immunization – which together could greatly cut down child deaths and promote child health. These interventions would be even more powerful if they were combined with family planning and female education. The whole package became collectively known as GOBI-FF.
Specific, time-bound and ambitious goals and targets were set for each of these interventions - e.g. to increase childhood immunization rates in developing countries from less than 20 percent to 80 percent by 1990. Grant was convinced that the required financial resources and political will could be mobilized if one could show demonstrable progress on a large scale at relatively low-cost.
Within a decade of the Grant-led child survival campaign, the results achieved were impressive. Compared to the early 1980s, some 10,000 fewer children died every day a decade later, thanks to the spectacular increase in childhood immunization, oral rehydration therapy and other child survival interventions.
Cumulatively, it was estimated that the child survival and development revolution that UNICEF spearheaded saved the lives of an estimated 25 million children and protected the health of millions more. In the words of the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, “…the late James P. Grant, a little-known American aid worker who headed UNICEF from 1980 to 1995 and launched the child survival revolution with vaccinations and diarrhea treatments, probably saved more lives than were destroyed by Hitler, Mao and Stalin combined”.
Besides saving lives, the UNICEF-led child survival revolution improved health and nutrition, and enhanced the learning and earning capacity of millions of children. It also engendered empowerment of women and local communities. Most importantly, it led to elevating the well-being of children high on the world’s development and political agenda as a subject of regular discussion in Summit meetings of world leaders, and a topic of increased media coverage.
Putting Children on the Political Agenda
Jim Grant personally persuaded hundreds of leaders – democrats and dictators alike – as to why it was in their political interest to promote child survival interventions. But he did not want them to focus on small scale, symbolic pilot projects and marginal, incremental progress. He wanted to see action that was commensurate with the scale of the problems. Many leaders were persuaded that provision of such life-saving services would give them great political dividends at minimal financial cost.
I had the good fortune to accompany Grant in many meetings with local, national and world leaders. These meetings were never simply formal courtesy calls, as those of many other heads of agencies. When Grant met leaders, he always had a handy list of four or five specific things he wanted them to do. He presented them in a compelling manner explaining why undertaking those actions would be not only good for their country’s children, but also politically beneficial for the leaders concerned.
Heads of State and Government routinely meet many visiting dignitaries from international organizations. But most would not even remember their names or messages after their meeting. Not so with Jim Grant. Leaders remembered Grant not only as a visiting Executive Director of UNICEF, but many referred to him fondly as “my friend Jim”. One could be pretty sure that long after their meeting with Grant, many leaders would still remember and recount the four or five things that he asked and they agreed to do.
Beyond political leaders, Grant mobilized religious leaders, film stars, sports personalities, corporate tycoons, NGOs and the mass media to promote immunization, ORT and other child survival actions. In an era before the advent of the internet, mobile phones and today’s social media, such outreach and social mobilization greatly encouraged and energized the usually weak and lethargic health ministries. As their action or inaction came under the national spotlight, they got higher political visibility, bigger budgets and were subjected to greater public scrutiny and accountability.
Grant’s crowning achievement was the convening of the World Summit for Children in 1990. It was the first ever world Summit, attended by the largest gathering of world leaders in history until that time. I personally had the privilege to work closely with Grant and served as his point man to draft its outcome document: “World Declaration and Plan of Action for the Survival, Development and Protection of Children”. The Summit laid down many time-bound and measurable goals for children to be achieved by 2000. The origins of the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the United Nations at the turn of the century and today’s Sustainable Development Goals can truly be traced back to the intellectual legacy of the goals of the 1990 Child Summit.
Jim Grant’s Ten Commandments for sustainable development
How can one summarize key lessons of Jim Grant’s approach to development, and might these be relevant in implementing today’s Sustainable Development Goals?
In the book entitled ‘Jim Grant: UNICEF Visionary’, I contributed an article on the ‘Ten Commandments of Jim Grant’s Leadership for Development’. The headlines of the commandments were: 1) Articulate your vision of development in terms of inspiring goals, 2) Breakdown those goals into time-bound, doable propositions, 3) Demystify techniques and technologies needed for large-scale development, 4) Generate and sustain political commitment, 5) Mobilize a grand alliance of all social forces, 6) Go to scale, 7) Select your priorities and stick to them, 8) Institute public monitoring and accountability, 9) Ensure relevance to broader development agenda, and 10) Unleash the full potential of the United Nations system.
I believe these 10 commandments capture the essence of Grant’s approach and what made him so effective. As we strive to implement the SDGs in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, I believe these commandments can be as relevant today as they were three decades ago.
Besides his inspiring vision, Grant also had some special personal qualities that enabled him to bring out the best in his colleagues and counterparts. One such quality was his ability to find, with a laser-beam precision, fertile kernels even in a haystack. If someone gave him a 100-page report that was mostly rubbish, he would find one good idea – perhaps in page 79 – and praise the author for that kernel and encourage him/her to develop it further. Sometimes his successors and other colleagues did just the opposite.
Grant’s positive feedback inspired people to give their best. There were times during the negotiations of the outcome document of the Summit for Children when I found myself deeply dispirited by the petty politicking by delegates. I went to Grant’s office late in the evenings seeking his commiseration. But he unfailingly motivated me to think about the great impact my hard work would have on the wellbeing of the world’s children, while nobody would remember the nitpicking delegates’ unhelpful remarks. If the negotiations got really bogged down, he was always ready to intervene with higher authorities to resolve the matter. Such feedback and reassurance energized me and others to persevere.
Grant’s knack for finding something to praise in everyone he met, including brutal dictators and motivating them to do something good for children was amazing. Watching him interact with national leaders, local chiefs and village midwives was equally awe-inspiring. What I learned during my travels with Grant, I would have never learned in the world’s best universities.
Grant was masterful in generating a healthy competition among countries, provinces and municipalities to outperform their neighbours. If a low-income country like Sri Lanka could reduce its child mortality and illiteracy so successfully, why could not much richer countries like Turkey or Colombia or Indonesia do better? If Bangladesh, considered the basket case by some, could increase its immunization rates from 5 per cent in the early 1980s to 50 per cent in the mid-80s, and 70 per cent by 1990, Grant argued, there was no excuse for other countries not to match it. Grant skillfully used such comparisons not to humiliate leaders or countries but to motivate them.
Sharing credit with others
For someone who achieved so much, cultivated the world’s most powerful political leaders and acquired great visibility, Grant was unpretentious. He was dignified but didn’t care much for protocol. He was readily available to staff and cultivated a wide network of contacts in governments, academia, the media and civil society.
A characteristic of Grant was his generosity in giving credit to others. He unfailingly gave credit to WHO for achievements in maternal and child health, even when some UNICEF staff protested that such praise was not warranted. Grant often reminded us to “never underestimate the amount of good a person can do, if they don’t mind who gets the credit”.
He was not only generous in giving credit but took an enlightened and far-sighted approach in sharing resources as well. I recall two great examples.
In 1985, persuaded by Grant’s compelling advocacy, the US Congress established a Child Survival Fund with an initial allocation of $25 million which it intended to allocate to UNICEF. To the consternation of his UNICEF colleagues, Grant suggested that the funds should go to USAID. His logic was that if a budget line for child survival was established in USAID, it would have a vested interest to maintain that account and seek increased allocation in future. Grant was prophetic. Since the Child Survival Fund was established, USAID lobbied Congress and got regular increases from $25 million to $40 million to $80 million and eventually to over $300 million per year.
In another instance at the World Summit for Children, we were alerted that German President Richard von Wisacker planned to announce a contribution of DM50 million to UNICEF to address the issue of child labor. But Grant suggested that the Germans channel this funding through ILO instead. He reasoned that such funding would energize ILO to give higher priority to the elimination of child labor. Indeed, with that seed money, ILO established the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) that became one of ILO’s successful flagship programmes for many years.
Carrying forward Grant’s legacy
In January 1995, when Grant was hospitalized, he designated Richard Jolly as Acting Executive Director, and assigned me as Acting Deputy Executive Director (Programmes) while continuing as the Director of Programme Division. Soon after Carol Bellamy became Executive Director, Jolly left the organization and Bellamy asked me to continue performing these dual functions. On top of that, she asked me to chair a highly demanding task force on the “Structure of Accountability” as part of a major management reform exercise. Thus, during the last year of Grant and first year of Bellamy, I was essentially doing three full time jobs simultaneously.
By mid-1996, I was physically exhausted and on the verge of collapse.
I went on a sabbatical for a year at Harvard University, and seriously wondered if I should return to UNICEF. I already had a most satisfying career, and the opportunity to work with a talented team and an inspiring leader. I worried that my subsequent career with UNICEF might be an anticlimax.
There were good prospects for me in several other UN agencies, and I also had feelers from Nepali leaders to return home and contribute to national development. These offered very tempting prospects for a second career, and the timing seemed perfect.
However, I had a nagging worry that, as most of Grant’s close senior colleagues left UNICEF, there was a real risk of the loss of institutional memory and the ethos of Grant’s spirit being frittered away. I felt it was my duty to do what I could to keep that spirit alive. So, I continued with UNICEF for one more decade of an exciting and rewarding career.
I keep with me a framed letter written by Grant’s Special Assistant, Mary Cahill, dated 28 January 1995 just a few hours before his death, and addressed to Richard Jolly, Nyi Nyi, and myself. The letter says:
“Dear Richard, Kul and Nyi Nyi,
I have just returned from the hospital where I found Jim to be in increasingly frail condition.
While he did drift off intermittently, his mind and thoughts were clearly on UNICEF. He murmured something about the need to continue our policies. I told him that Richard had repeatedly said at meetings that we must pursue Jim’s vision and continue the work he started. Jim’s faint response was “good, good, good”.
Jim said something to the effect that another very important person in all this is Kul. I talked a little about how hard Kul is working, including on the management study, and referred to his drafting etc, for the Declaration of the World Summit for Children. Jim smiled and said, “yes, marvelous, marvelous” – his voice trailing a little at the end of the long words.
We touched on the mid-decade goals and I said that Nyi Nyi had his finger very much on the pulse and would leave no stone unturned to ensure success and that he could count on Nyi Nyi. Slowly, Jim said, “I know I can always count on Nyi Nyi”.
The above is to the best of my recollection. I hope that I can help along the way.
Yours sincerely, Mary Cahill”
Such confidence and hope expressed by Grant instilled in me a sense of special obligation to remain in UNICEF and help carry forward his vision.
Even decades after his death, Grant continues to be a constant source of inspiration for me and many others. The greatest privilege of my life was to work with and observe him at close quarters. I have never encountered another person whose faith in the human propensity for doing good was so profound and whose capacity for seeing a silver lining in every dark cloud was so total.
Tens of millions of children survive today and lead healthy and productive lives because of Grant’s leadership and vision. His contribution endures because there are thousands of development workers, like me, who strive to contribute to human development and social justice inspired by his example.
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