Remembering Africa Section: 1983-1988 

Five Years Which Changed UNICEF

by Fouad Kronfol

Prologue

It was about 35 years ago and I can still remember it like today ! Nadia and I were in our room at the President Hotel in Bangkok, having left our post in Hanoi ,Viet Nam but still not knowing where we were to be stationed next. All indications had been that Jakarta was my next posting ( the recent visit to Hanoi of Maggie Catley -Carlson seemed to confirm the move) but on arrival in Bangkok we were met by our colleague Dan Brooks who announced to us that Jim Grant had appointed him to Indonesia !

The phone call to NYHQ was with the Executive Director who impressed upon me that he had "big plans" for Africa and wanted me to be part of them. Pressed on specifics he finally proposed Addis Ababa. I wanted to turn it down right away but agreed with Jim to make a short visit there and look over the office before a final decision . I spent a few days in Addis discussing with Padmini Ramaswami and others before telling JPG I was not interested and asked if he had another option....the answer was Chief of Africa Section in the Programme Division Field Services headed by our good friend Manou Assadi. I finally agreed mainly because it was to work with Manou, and because we had earlier been four years in NY and had enjoyed the duty station.

I found it rather odd that I was asked to help design a "new and bold" approach for Unicef in Africa when I had very limited knowledge of the continent, did not feel particularly attracted to it, nor had any experience in Sub-Saharan Africa, other than my previous work in the Sudan.

Thus, after a brief "home leave" in Alexandria, Egypt, we landed in New York City on 8 August 1983 for my second "Chiefdom" at Unicef HQ, having been Chief of MENA Section from 1976-1980.

The Challenge

Since 1981 Africa had been in the news because of its major difficulties including droughts, poverty, wars, economic deterioration, and general under-development. In Unicef terms it was a region which had been largely neglected (except for a few notable instances like the 1972 Lome Conference on Development) while most of the Organization's resources and programmes were focused on the major countries in Asia.

In January 1981 the Executive Board had convened a Special Session on Africa notably to increase awareness and strengthen Unicef involvement in this continent, with particular support for nine countries suffering drought. Both the Medium Term Plan (1982-1986) and the Biennium Budget (1984-1985) called for special attention to Africa in terms of Unicef capacities.

With Unicef now embarked on the Child Survival Revolution it was obvious to senior management that for any substantial successes in this area it was imperative to bring Africa into the picture, and fast ! Already the Executive Board and major donors had criticized Unicef for its lack of visibility and activity in Africa, especially that a major drought was then adversely affecting more than twenty countries mostly in the Sahel, but also many others.

The UN had set up their Office for the Sahel headed by my previous colleague Charles Lamuniere (from Khartoum days), and within Unicef the main responsibility was handed to Jacques Beaumont, then Chief of Emergency Section. The Africa Section in DPFS was headed by Dickson Nkembo and had only a small staff, with much of its work related to general follow up and supporting of the country programmes and activities in the 44 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of these countries had barely implemented the "Basic Services" approach when Jim Grant ushered in GOBI and the CSDR, so there was considerable uncertainty in the field offices about revamping their programmes to the new priority. On the other hand, EMOPS had been hoping for an expanded mandate and upgraded posts hinted at by the new Executive Director, and the extensive African drought situation provided ample scope and justification for such growth.

While Dickson was winding down his tenure and preparing to go back to the field I was spending my time learning about Africa, the numerous countries, their political as well as the socio-economic situations, the UN agencies and activities, and mainly what Unicef was doing all over the continent. Very early in the process I discovered that almost no one in Unicef had really studied or analyzed Africa in its entirety, but always through the prism of our two regional entities separated roughly along linguistic lines...Anglophone East Africa, and Francophone West Africa. For my own edification I decided to analyse Unicef in Africa as one whole entity on the understanding that my Section had to support both regions and the countries they covered from one central point at HQ. This simple realisation and subsequent review enabled me to change the narrative of Unicef support to Africa and opened up a multitude of angles from which to analyze our strengths and weaknesses in our assistance to children and women.

As my main initial task I was asked by Grant to draft the report that the Executive Board had requested for their next session in 1984 on how to strengthen UNICEF's capacity to improve its support for African children in the near future and beyond.


The Initial Discussion Paper

Other than going over a mountain of documents related to Africa in general and to Unicef programmes there, I made many copies of a small map of Africa and started to examine various aspects of Unicef -related work and factors constraining them that came to my attention.

In summary, the draft paper defined three main areas where Unicef could make a difference: advocacy for child related activities; more and better prepared programmes ; and structural organizational/operational matters. My personal penchant for "organizational management" led me to concentrate on the third element on the understanding that it affected the other two areas.

The different aspects that I reviewed included among others: emergency proneness; land and/or sea locked countries; the size of the countries, their child population and the resources available to them; the bureaucratic demands of recommendations prepared to the Board; the number of BAL's ; the staffing situation including vacancies, representation, experience and number. Each of these factors was individually plotted on the small maps in order to physically visualize the differences between the regions and countries. It turned out to be a very interesting exercise when viewed from an "all-Africa" perspective.

The Board Report and Sequels

The 40 page "discussion paper" plus 24 colored maps was submitted to a limited HQ senior staff and to the two regional directors Mary Racelis in East Africa and Bertram Collins in West Africa for review, discussion and approval. Mary had just joined her post in Nairobi, coming from NYHQ where we got to know each other and Bertram was the Representative I had replaced in my previous post in Hanoi. I knew that I could count on their support in this endeavour. It was clear from the start that there were divergent views on the paper's main operational recommendations which called for (among others);

a) a major restructuring of the two African regions to realign the countries served by each regional office (this gave rise to the name changes whereby East Africa became East& Southern Africa region, while West Africa became West & Central Africa region);

b) the rapid upgrading of thirteen offices to full Representative level;

c) upgrading the levels of staff to P4 where they were de facto Unicef heads of office.

Many felt that such a large increase would not be approved by the Board (they referred to problems in 1981 when Grant proposed a large number of senior staff at HQ and was refused by the Board). Others thought that the paper did not deal enough with substantive programme matters. Still others were concerned that Board members would find it an imbalance to favour one region to such an extent. There were many discussions at NYHQ and the "saga" continued until the first ever All Africa Representatives meeting (an African Mohonk we called it ) in Nairobi in February 1984.

The draft Board paper (E/ICEF/1984/L.2) was extensively discussed during the meeting in Nairobi and still not signed off by Grant when he left the hotel on his way to the airport to return to NY. The night before we had one last discussion among a smaller group but still could not get Grant's approval. He asked me to accompany him to the airport and promised to decide on the document before he left. I begged off this suggestion saying I had done all I could and had nothing more to add. He took Richard Jolly with him instead for a final, final, final review!

My argument to Grant all along was that the "political climate" had never been as favourable for Unicef support to Africa; that the Board had really wanted a "management" oriented document; that its foremost concern was for Unicef "capacity" to meet the needs of children; that "budgetary, staffing and operational" areas were indeed major drawbacks to our effectiveness; and that certainly the 44 African countries would welcome this substantial upgrading of our establishment in the continent. Furthermore, I hinted that the fulfillment of the CSDR would be jeopardized if Africa did not join the other regions in reaching our goals.

When Jolly returned from the airport he had with him the signed copy of the Board paper, and we all breathed a sigh of relief !!!! The document could now be sent for printing......

It should be mentioned that the Executive Board not only passed the recommendations but congratulated Unicef for its contents, strategy and its objectives. The Board also asked that Unicef report to them annually on the progress in implementing this new shift in priorities towards Africa. "UNICEF Activities in Africa" thus became an annual report to the Board until 1988 (see documents E/ICEF/1985/L.6; E/ICEF/1986/L.5; E/ICEF/1987/L.5, and E/ICEF/1988/L.5).

Africa Section Evolution

Along with the drive to materially increase and strengthen Unicef in Africa was, obviously, an effort to bolster the Africa Section within DPFS in order to provide the support needed by the burgeoning activity in the Field. While both regional offices were also being strengthened, the centre of gravity for an All-Africa thrust in Unicef was the Africa Section. A number of events made this happen:

Responsibility: my first task was to clearly delineate our responsibilities towards the field offices with regard to support for the twenty-plus countries facing a major drought. It was evident that EMOPS with its "global" mandate for emergencies and limited staff could not adequately cope with the drought situation in many African countries. At the same time our Section was already dealing with these same countries for their "regular" programmes, much of which had major elements of emergency work, and it made sense to provide the HQ backstopping from the same source.

It was also felt that with our growing capacity in the Section we were in a much better position to provide this support from a coordinated/concerted vantage point, especially that the drought extended into both regions. It was obvious that if this responsibility passed on to our Section, EMOPS could no longer aspire to a bigger role and my friend Jacques Beaumont, with whom I had very good relations, especially from the Indochina era, would be disappointed. It was a rather delicate situation for me. Eventually the decision was made in favour of the Africa Section to become the focal point for the African drought emergency, and it was decided that Vincent O'Reilly, who was the Programme Officer in EMOPS would move to our Section with his secretary Eileen O'Leary.

Staffing: as the programmes, funding and staffing grew in the two Africa regions, so did the personnel set-up in the Section. With much support from our Director, Manou Assadi, as well as other senior managers, the Section acquired additional professional and secretarial staff in order to handle the workload of both regular programmes and emergency operations in the 44 countries we covered. The makeup of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa necessitated qualified staff in both English and French, preferably bilingual. A couple of years into my tenure as Chief of the Section, the staff had grown to twenty, including ten professionals and ten secretaries. It was a quite disparate group with many nationalities, backgrounds and characteristics/personalities so that it was a major challenge to mold it into a single unit with a unified objective. And yet, it happened !!

Office space: the story of the "iconic" Africa Section would not be complete without a description of the major innovation we introduced in NYHQ; that of "open office space".

This happened when faced with the constantly increasing workload and staffing I decided to try the so-called "Japanese management style". When I first broached the idea with my staff, almost all were adamantly against it, citing problems of noise, disruptions, lack of privacy, etc. After many attempts at convincing them I finally agreed that we would try it for a few months and if it did not work we would go back to the existing office and cubicle situation.

At that time UNICEF was in 866 UN Plaza, also called the ALCOA Building, and occupied two of the floors. Africa Section like all other HQ units had a series of offices along one side of the sixth floor, with the secretarial staff sitting outside in the corridors. The drastic change we made was to remove all the partitions between the offices, and between the offices and the corridor, thus creating a large open work space where each staff member could see and hear all the other colleagues. I was quite impressed with our colleague Samir Beida and his team in the Administrative Division (Larry Hirt and Adhiratha) who organized the whole change-over during one weekend.

The placement of the professionals and secretaries was also an innovation. Unicef, like the UN across the street, followed certain out-dated norms which established the office space one occupied by one's grade level, including the number of windows allowed! The new Africa Section threw out this ruling completely. I sat at one end of the open space looking towards all my staff with my secretary at a desk facing mine. This allowed me to see and hear everyone in the Section at all times. All other professionals and secretaries were placed in a variety of locations without consideration of grades, levels or windows. Somewhere I found an old and large map of Africa which was placed behind my desk so all could see it. The effects of the transformation were stunning...very soon everyone at HQ and all field visitors wanted to come and see how Africa Section looked with its innovative seating arrangement !

While it took a while for everyone to get used to the new setup, I was very pleased with the immediate improvement in the performance of the Section as we did away with many unnecessary tasks and were able to speedily communicate with each other and keep each other informed of developments. It should be remembered that Unicef staff did not have PC's at that time and all documentation was typed by secretaries of the officers. It also reduced the usual office chit chat and personal phone calls. Most important of all, this arrangement bonded the whole staff together. A sense of pride and accomplishment pervaded the group, and camaraderie was installed in our work and personal relations. Rarely was such an esprit de corps developed in a major headquarters location.

Resources: as matters evolved both in the field offices and in HQ we also witnessed a substantial increase in regular and special allocations to the Unicef activities centred in Africa. CSDR had started to attract funding (The Belgian Survival Fund was one of the earliest to focus on Africa) and the drought emergency countries were benefiting from additional HQ Emergency Reserve allocations as well as special contributions from many donors. The most important contribution was that of the Italian Government which allocated $100 million to Africa. This was largely due to the tireless efforts and contacts of Marco Vianello-Chiodo. This major infusion of funding was one of the main reasons that propelled our work in Africa to the forefront of Unicef.

Support to Field Offices: other than general backstopping, coordinating technical support, and mobilizing interest and assistance for Field Offices, the Section was involved in budgetary and administrative efforts in the creation of the new offices with full Representatives. Working in tandem with the two regional offices we pushed for increased all-Africa efforts, intra-regional cooperation and especially inter-country exchanges. A noteworthy parallel step was the meeting between the two Unicef Regional Directors (Racelis and Collins) with the WHO Regional Director (Dr. Monekosso) to coordinate efforts in CSD across Africa.

The new organizational arrangements, which did away with the earlier multi-country "area offices", still had to see to it that some of the very small countries (mainly island nations) which could not be upgraded were adequately served by a "twinning" arrangement with a better staffed office close by (viz. Tanzania with Seychelles; Mozambique with Swaziland; Angola with Sao Tome; Senegal with Cap Verde and Gambia; Cameroun with Equatorial Guinea; Madagascar with Comoros and Mauritius).

The Birth of New Countries: while decolonization in Africa was largely accomplished starting with the 1960's, there were still countries not yet completely independent and where various revolutionary and/or other factions were still striving for nationhood. SWAPO in south-west Africa was a party with which Unicef and the Africa Section initiated contact. The Republic of South Africa was still in its apartheid state and the UN embargo prevented us from visiting that country. Yet we were already planning for a Unicef presence in both Namibia and RSA when the situation enabled it. Immediately after Namibia's independence, Unicef set up its office in Windhoek with my colleague Shahida Azfar as Representative. Pretoria was not much later and Scholastica Kimaryo took up her post to serve South Africa. While Eritrea had obtained some regional autonomy, the country did not become independent until 1993 when Justin Maeda became the Representative in Asmara.

Communication and Information: with increasing attention being focused on Africa, both among donors and within the UN circles, Unicef also saw a major shift in its activities and mobilization of resources, public opinion, staffing and programmes towards the continent. Goodwill Ambassadors Liv Ullmann visited West Africa, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi went to East Africa, and my favourite, Audrey Hepburn to Ethiopia and Somalia. I had the pleasure of briefing Audrey on our Africa programmes and helped prepare her first visit. Sadly, I was to meet her in Nairobi in 1993 when she again visited drought victims in the Horn of Africa but a few months later passed away.

Other major events which directly or indirectly placed the spotlight on Africa included "Sports Aid" which raised some $30 million; the publication of "Within Human Reach: A Future for African Children" and "Adjustment with a Human Face" which were guided by Richard Jolly and written largely by Manzoor Ahmad and Andrea Cornea respectively. On a broader front the publication of "The State of the World's Children Report "and its companion, "The Progress of Nations", both mainly worked on by Peter Adamson, helped propagate Unicef and its mission to decision makers around the world.

Other Interesting Events and Anecdotes

PDFS Retreat, PRINCETON, N.J: this was an important event which in many ways helped launch the new "all-Africa concept" in Unicef. I had just returned from my first programme preview in Africa in October 1983 (Kenya, Malawi, Somalia and Zambia) and had begun formulating the outlines of the Executive Board paper on restructuring. The Retreat in November provided us a first internal sounding out of the new vision for strengthening the Unicef capacity in Africa, as well as the Africa Section in NYHQ. Karl-Eric Knutsson, Richard Jolly and Manou Assadi were very supportive and provided useful guidance to us.

ALL-AFRICA Representatives Meetings: the first ever Unicef Representatives meeting from both regions was held in Nairobi in February 1984. While the main focus was on the launching of CSDR and its implications for the country offices in Africa, the discussions on the draft Executive Board paper on Unicef capacity were intensive and very useful to us. The support of the field offices for the proposed restructuring was quite enthusiastic and I believe it helped sway the decision by Grant to approve the document.

A second All-Africa Representatives meeting was convened in Dakar, Senegal in 1986. By then the Board had approved the Unicef Africa strategy and implementation had begun. WCARO was headed by a new Regional Director, Stanislas Adotevi, previously Representative in Burkina-Faso. CSDR was well established as the guiding policy, and the meeting dealt with the newly conceived Unicef/WHO strategic goal of Universal Child Immunisation by 1990. The latter had emanated largely from the 1984 first Bellagio Conference which launched the idea of considerably speeding up the WHO Expanded Programme on Immunisation to increase vaccine coverage of the six childhood diseases to 80 per cent by the end of the decade. It was felt that with its very low coverage (under 15 %), Africa would pose a particular challenge to reaching the established goal. At subsequent consultations with WHO, it was finally agreed that for Africa a general goal of 75% could be accepted for stopping transmission of the diseases.

The 1986 Budget Exercise: an extraordinary event transpired in ESARO when the HQ BPRC (Budget Planning & Review Committee) led by Karl-Eric Knutsson held discussions with field offices on their biennial budget presentations which materially altered the Unicef field structures. Leading up to the meeting in Nairobi, a few factors contributed to this state of affairs:

* the country offices in the region had grown to become well staffed and well funded, and were led by a remarkable array of strong Representatives:

*the annual regional staff meeting was transformed into a regional "management" team (RMT) where the Regional Director (Mary Racelis with her open leadership style), Deputy Director (my colleague from Africa Section Jim Mayrides) and all the Representatives dealt with programme and operational issues leading to effective decisions taken collectively....it reminded me very much of the EAPRO group of Representatives during my time in Hanoi, but with even more business-like and professional style....

* the Nairobi regional office had grown to more than 200 staff members who dealt with regional issues but the majority worked with the large Kenya country programme;

* the perennial Unicef country vs. regional rivalry came into evidence once again. Here we had echoes of the two previous management studies done in 1960 (Mitchelmore) and 1973 (SIAR), both of which recommended strengthening country offices and reducing regional offices to a support and coordinating function. I was reminded of the wise words of the late Arthur Robinson, Deputy Regional Director & Planning Officer in Beirut in 1960, who told me: "Children live in villages, towns, cities and countries; there are no "regional children" !!

After a tumultuous first day Knutsson asked a small group (including Representatives, Jim and myself) to sequester itself and come up with alternatives to the existing structures. Our recommendations to the larger group focused on the transfer of country programme responsibilities from the Regional Director to a Unicef Representative, with a full complement of staff and funds; the abolition of the regional office, or its reduction to include the Regional Director and a small administrative staff dealing strictly with inter-country and regional matters. This met with enthusiastic support from the rest of the Representatives and was adopted as one of the resolutions of the BPRC. It was such an unexpected and revolutionary concept that Karl-Eric had to urgently inform Jim Grant and seek his views. Unfortunately, when the proposal was shared with Stan Adotevi, the newly appointed Regional Director in WCARO, it was rejected outright and Grant decided that with CSDR and UCI as the organizational priorities it was not the right time to undergo such drastic management changes. However he did agree to the transfer of country programming responsibilities from the Regional Director to a Unicef Representative located in the same duty station. This change was eventually approved by the Board and was implemented in all the other regions.

Many of us were disappointed with the decision as we felt we had come very close to finally closing the chapter on the pesky subject of the need for regional offices in Unicef, which had begun in 1960 !!! As it turned out, the positive effect was the strengthening of Unicef programme management in those countries while the regional offices turned their attention to regional and inter-country matters.

The Italians Are Coming !!! among the noteworthy events, as mentioned above, was the dramatic upswing in the involvement of the Italian government in Unicef affairs. The major financial contribution of $100 million was accompanied by many other newsworthy actions. The 1984 Executive Board meeting in Rome, one of the last times the Executive Board was invited to meet outside New York, was in itself a clear indication of the Italian government wanting to play a major part in Unicef and its work. The Board was a historic affair in itself but on its sidelines were a series of high -level meetings between Unicef and the Italian FAI; an audience with the Pope for Jim Grant and a few staff members; a most elegant and memorable official reception conceived and organized by Allegra Morelli on the terraces of the Castel Sant'Angelo ; followed later by the provision of the Innocenti Centre in Florence to house Unicef's research and documentation office. In addition we witnessed a sizable increase in the recruitment of Italian nationals to Unicef....Africa Section got Mariangela Bavicchi and Agostino Paganini ...as well as the procurement of Italian-made vehicles, supplies and equipment.

A Confluence of Major Events & Milestones: Unicef generally witnessed a remarkable period of notoriety and success with the launch of the Universal Child Immunization campaign in 1985 with the goal of reaching a global 80% coverage of under five children by 1990. This was probably the first ever United Nations goal with a specific time-bound framework. It also constituted a major rapprochement between WHO and Unicef and the joining of forces for a global health campaign since the defunct malaria eradication campaigns of the 1950's and 1960's. UCI came on the heels of the widening Child Survival & Development Revolution which had spread around the globe and had become the spearhead of the Unicef programme in almost all countries, but particularly in Africa. An important element of CSDR and UCI was the use of social mobilization concepts and approaches on a scale not seen before whereby many elements of civil society were mobilized to join in implementing the goals of child survival. 1986 was also the 40th Anniversary of Unicef and its celebration added to the other events in thrusting the organization into the forefront of the UN and among the countries of the world.

As a stamp collector, I was happy to see the large number of countries that were issuing commemorative stamps and covers about Unicef. Probably no other period had seen as many countries and stamps issued for Unicef and its activities, especially in Africa. Also the UN had started in 1980 issuing its "flag series" stamps of all its member states, and Unicef benefitted from this programme by having beautiful embossed albums with the flag stamps of each country on an envelope with a description of the country. Many of these are in my personal collection.

The Art of "Summitry": with Unicef now "firing on all cylinders", something excitingly new in Unicef's modus operandi was the advent of meetings between Jim Grant with Kings/Presidents and Heads of Government to discuss CSDR/UCI and other child related matters. While previous Executive Directors had the occasional such meeting, JPG managed to make it a mainstay of his trips around the world to mobilize support for child-related activities. These meetings and the publicity around them elevated the concerns for children to the highest political levels of government in all countries he visited. At the same time it enabled Unicef Regional Directors and Country Representatives to also seek and obtain access to official levels which had hitherto not been possible. The obvious positive result was to increase the visibility of Unicef's work and its relations with countries around the world. All this eventually led to the organizing of the September 1990 World Summit for Children held in New York, and attended by over 70 Heads of State and Government, the largest such meeting until that time. Many will agree with me that this event was probably the highlight of the Grant tenure in Unicef.

One personal anecdote on "summitry": Jim asked me to join his meeting with Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania, during the latter's visit to NY in September 1985. We were ushered into a large hotel room with some twenty chairs lined along all sides. The President sat at one end and JPG and I were seated next to him with the other chairs filled by the President's retinue. After the introductions and general talk, Jim turned towards Nyerere and took out of his coat pocket an ORS packet with the intention of making his usual "spiel" about GOBI etc. Before he could begin, Nyerere burst out into a loud laugh and said : "my dear Jim, you have shown me all these things when we last met!". It was a great ice-breaker and Jim continued urging for the President's support among the leaders of African nations in expanding and reaching the goals of CSDR and UCI.. Nyerere was very supportive and encouraging in his response and we went out quite pleased with the meeting.

UNICEF Takes on the Bretton Woods Agencies: one of the main current issues was the "fiscal adjustment" policies propounded by the IMF and the World Bank to redress the economies of many Sub-Saharan African countries. The negative aspects of such policies came about from the massive reductions of social services which were made in order to balance their budgets. This had a major impact on the health, educational and social welfare programmes in many instances with the resultant adverse effects on children's lives. This presented Unicef with a problem it had not normally attended to with the countries served. At the same time Unicef had not had many dealings with the IMF or World Bank. Under the overall guidance of our in-house economist (and old African Hand ) Richard Jolly, and the support of Denis Caillaux the Unicef Representative in Accra, a series of studies were made in Ghana notably to determine the effects of these adjustment policies on the situation of children and women. Much of the research work was done by Andrea Cornea and Frances Stewart and resulted in the printing of the booklet "Adjustment With a Human Face" which Unicef distributed widely. Eventually discussions with the IMF and the World Bank helped somewhat attenuate some of these situations and a number of countries experimented with solutions to reduce the adverse effects among their children.

The AIDS Pandemic hits Africa: not all was rosy, however, and while so many positive things were going on in the continent, we were all shocked with the rapid spread of the AIDS pandemic as it started around 1986 affecting one African country after another. Eastern Africa was most seriously affected early in this disease's spread, but eventually a large number of countries throughout the continent were also suffering. It became quickly apparent that many of the gains of the CSDR/UCI campaigns would be undermined by the spread of AIDS, and Unicef had to adjust its priorities in many countries to meet this unexpected challenge, while maintaining its support to the main elements of CSDR. The most notable innovations and successes occurred in Uganda, and were widely disseminated in other countries.

The Move to UNICEF HOUSE; first approved by the Executive Board in 1984, the construction of an office building for the exclusive use of Unicef HQ was finalized and we moved into the modern building on 44th Street, between First and Second Avenues in September 1987. The fifteen floor edifice was conceived with modern technological advances, including computer terminals etc .but its floor layouts were typical office and cubby-hole units, with little flexibility in their formations. Africa Section was not consulted about our intended layout and while we complained for a while we were told that things could not be changed because there was a master plan for the building and it followed NY city norms and regulations. In returning to a more traditional office structure and layout I noticed that unfortunately the Section lost some of its efficiency and effectiveness despite having more modern technologies to work with like computers, and sadly some of our esprit de corps and camaraderie.

The ESARO Representatives Management Team Meeting in 1988; a story that remains to be told was this meeting held in Malawi at the invitation of Ken Williams. Because her father was ill Mary Racelis could not attend and she asked me to chair the proceedings. We were all bused from Lilongwe to a resort in Mangochi at the southernmost tip of Lake Malawi. It was a very pretty place but totally isolated and we had the whole hotel to ourselves.

Since I was chairing the meeting, I decided to try an experiment with the organization of the agenda and the meeting hours; instead of the usual 0800 -1200 session, then an hour for lunch, then another 1300-1700 session, I instituted another formula; 0800-1200 session, then a 1200-1600 break, then a final 1600-2000 session, followed by dinner, thus three equal time units of four hours each. The four hour break was meant to allow participants to read the documents, have small group discussions, relax, swim, or play other sports, as well as have their lunch. After the final evening session we all gathered for dinner/drinks since there was nowhere else we could go.

The Representatives gamely accepted my proposed schedule, despite some misgivings, but quickly adapted to the new work methods and we met the whole four or five days with this schedule. In retrospect, all the Representatives and myself agreed that this was one of the most effective and productive meetings the RMT ever had; no one was late for any session, no session went over the time allotted, every item on the agenda was discussed and agreed upon, and yet we also enjoyed our stay and benefitted from the special amenities the place provided us.

Months later, I attended a similar RMT of the Latin America and Caribbean region chaired by Teresa Albanez which was held at the magnificent ski resort of Portillo near Santiago, Chile. When I suggested to her and the group to try this type of schedule, there was a lot of grumbling, then introduction of many changes to the hours and finally it was given up completely and we went back to the usual undisciplined schedule !

African Women & Women in (Unicef) Africa: because of the small number of Unicef offices in the two regions, and the difficulties of working there, very few women staff members had been appointed to international professional posts there. Also we had a very limited number of African women who were in the international professional ranks to start with. As the evolution of Unicef activity in Africa rapidly accelerated, it became an important underlying policy of the organization to increasingly appoint women to international posts as well as to promote African women into senior posts. It helped a great deal that Mary Racelis was one of the Regional Directors and she played a big role in facilitating and promoting this policy. Initially in ESARO , and later in WCARO, increasingly Unicef offices became headed by women. At the same time, there was a big effort from DOP at promoting African women to international professional posts mainly within African countries, although eventually they became more numerous in other regions as well. In my later incarnation as Director of DOP, I continued to encourage and implement this policy with quite positive results.

My African Safari

Travelling in Africa was always an enigmatic experience. This was especially true for inter-country travel within the continent, mainly because of poor infrastructures but also because during colonial times most travel to and from African nations was largely directed towards the European nations which had colonized them. I remember that to fly from Algiers to Casablanca, Paul Audat, Maria Diamanti and I had to fly to Marseille and then back down. Air travel within Africa was also very rudimentary and going from one region to the other was most complicated for Unicef visitors from HQ. In my own case I usually tried to visit offices in both regions whenever I flew from NY to Africa. And therein lie some interesting experiences which I recall;

* Visit to Madagascar...one of my earlier trips was for a programme review in Antananarivo in the company of Mary Racelis and Liz Gibbons. I was astonished to learn that I was the first HQ staff member to ever visit Madagascar! More interesting was meeting Rosemary McCreery, the Liaison Officer who was the only international Unicef staff member in the country. As a junior professional with limited experience, she was The Unicef presence and had to carry out all the duties and tasks required of a "country office", with very little support from a far-off regional office in Nairobi. She impressed us with her organization of the meeting, the relations with senior government officials who attended the meeting and her overall ability to handle a rather complicated country situation. More than anything, this experience was one of the determining factors in our proposal to create independent Unicef country offices in the majority of African nations.

* visit to Yaounde, Cameroun: air traffic from east to west Africa and vice-versa was practically limited to Ethiopian Airways but one had to start in Addis Ababa. In the mid-1980's another option became Air Cameroun which started in Nairobi and flew across to west Africa. After a hectic meeting in ESARO I took Air Cameroun flight to visit the Yaounde office. The early morning flight from Nairobi was half full only and I settled happily into my business class seat wanting to relax and decompress. We had hardly taxied a few minutes before the plane turned back to the terminal. I thought ,"Oh No ! here we have another technical problem and delays!"

An hour later- of course we had no idea what the trouble was- we saw 2 or 3 buses come up to our plane and a large number of male Africans began boarding. So I thought the company had waited for connecting passengers to fill its empty plane. Imagine my surprise when the stewards told us that these were prisoners from Kenyan jails who were being deported to their countries of origin in west Africa (mainly Malian, Senegalese). The men came straight from their jails and were in a pitiful situation. Their body odors were overwhelming the plane's interior. I thought, well maybe because of the delay and this special "load" the plane would fly directly to Yaounde. But no, I was wrong again...the plane made its normal stops in Kigali, Bujumbura, Brazzaville and finally we got to Yaounde late in the evening. "No rest for the weary" turned out to be a most memorable flight !!

*visit to Uganda: after the country review meeting in Kampala, Sally Fegan Wyles took me on a very long Landrover trip to the north of the country where an interesting water cum development project was located. For our return Sally hired a bush plane so we did not have to make the road trip again. As we settled in the plane and started to take off, the young pilot told me rather seriously to make sure my window was closed tightly for the taxi-ing along the air strip. I thought it had to do with wind or air pressure so imagine my surprise when he said it was because the strip was full of cow dung and it would fly in our faces as we drove along the field. Sure enough, by the time we were airborne the entire plane had been splashed with the stuff left behind by the cows !!

*visit to Mozambique: following the ESARO RMT in Malawi, I was to visit Maputo for discussions on their country programme. Marta Mauras, the Representative also hired an air taxi to fly us direct to Mozambique rather than having to take a car to Lilongwe, then fly to Nairobi and from there to fly to Maputo. It was a great idea. As Marta and I boarded the small bush plane, the young British pilot who sat next to me handed me what looked like a pistol. When I asked what it was he replied that we had to have flares since we were flying over RENAMO rebel areas and they often used surface-to-air missiles on overflying aircraft. The flares were meant to divert the heat-seeking missiles away from the plane. Not a very reassuring start, I thought. Then I asked if he had flown that route before. He replied that no it was his first time ever, but he had maps !! Then I asked whether the flares would really do the trick and he replied that the SAM had a range of about 10-12 thousand feet only, so he planned to fly just above that height which was also the limit for his plane! In the end we made the three hour trip to Beira in the north of the country without incident, although for me it was a most anxious trip all along the way.

* trip to Kinshasa: my first visit to the Zaire office at the invitation of Ludo Welffens turned out to be memorable. When leaving late in the night Ludo insisted on accompanying me to the airport and arranged an impressive treatment...no checking in, passport control taken care of, VIP lounge etc. Once we parted I told him that I was returning to NY because it was Easter and we had tickets to go to Lincoln Centre. When the huge Sabena Boeing taxied to the end of the runway I had settled in for what I thought would be a relaxing voyage to Paris, enroute to NYC. As we got to the end of the runway I was sitting in the first row of business class next to the window and saw the plane turn around to line up for its takeoff. Looking out of the window I was thinking to myself ,"I wonder why the pilot is taking such a wide turn" when all of a sudden there was a loud bang and the right wing on my side dipped into the ground,,, the lights went out, and the 300 passengers started panicking. I saw that the plane had gone off the concrete airstrip and was mired in the field around the tarmac. Fortunately nothing else happened although the right wing had scraped the concrete and it could have sparked something that might have exploded the fully fueled aircraft. We were there an hour before the crew managed to alert the airport authorities (it was past midnight and the airport had shut down) and we were told that we would return to the terminal. A small minivan came out and started ferrying 8-10 passengers at a time. Fortunately since I was in the first row I was among those who took the first shuttle. There we were told by the company that we were on our own since they had no way to assist all 300 passengers. I managed to find a taxi and with a Japanese fellow traveler rode back to town. The trouble was that I had no address for Ludo and only knew that he lived in a building with many other foreigners. We found the building finally, but Ludo was not home so I went up and down the stairs looking for anyone who might help. It was past 3 am and quite embarrassing to wake people up but finally an FAO couple told me that Bijaya Malapatti was their neighbour. I woke up Bijaya who paid the taxi and let me stay the night at his apartment as the hotel we had vacated earlier that night was already full and could not take me in again.

By morning we had located Ludo and I spent another day in Kinshasa as the office tried to put me on another flight out to Paris where I had to spend yet another night before finding a flight back to NY.

Naturally Nadia had worried about my delay and as we had missed our concert she received a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Ludo a few days later. What a gentlemanly act indeed !

* trip to Cotonou: after a visit to the office in Benin, I boarded an Air Afrique flight to Paris with connection to NYC. This new airline was the pride and joy of west Africa and was expanding its services rapidly. They mainly leased planes from Air France and so it was implicit that they were well maintained and operated. About two hours into the flight we learned that we were landing in Marseille for "technical" reasons. More than an hour on the ground in Marignan airport we finally were bused to the terminal and placed in one of the closed departure gates. A couple of hours passed and nothing happened, the passengers started getting nervous, then complaining and finally very angry. Suddenly we noticed that a minivan brought the entire crew from the plane to the terminal. An hour later we were informed that the plane had been impounded because Air Afrique could not pay its debts and that we were free to leave the airport but had to arrange our own onward travel. There were no more flights to Paris that day and other connections were not available. An enterprising person suggested we could take a cab to the rail station and get a train to Paris. I decided it was the best option and so rode to Paris, stayed overnight and the next day managed a connection to NY....

* Executive Board Chairman's first field trip to Africa: although it was not about me, this story illustrates the vagaries of travel in the continent. The newly elected Chairman of the Board was to fly to Benin for his first "field" trip to see Unicef activities there. While Thomas Cook's in our Travel Section did the bookings, I was kept informed of his schedule and provided briefing materials to him as well as coordinating with the field offices. The night before his departure I received a copy of his final schedule and air bookings. As I casually looked over the paperwork I suddenly felt a sense of panic: his flights from NY to Paris to Benin had him landing in Benin City, Nigeria, instead of Cotonou, some distance away in a different country and where Unicef had no presence. It would have been a major embarrassment for all of us if it had happened. Fortunately I was able to alert the Travel Section who got to Thomas Cook and changed the Chairman's ticket....What a relief !!!

Epilogue

During my last year in the Africa Section we all witnessed the maturation of many of the elements that had started in 1983-84. By 1988 for the sixth straight year actual programme expenditure had increased in Africa and reached close to 40 percent of Unicef global expenditure. While general resources increased, most of the expenditure came from supplementary funding, emergency, and inter-regional funds. Reimbursable procurement, mainly for immunization, more than doubled between 1986-87. Increased operational capability in the upgraded Unicef offices helped improve implementation.

The growth of staff was equally remarkable as from 1984- 1988 the number of professional posts went from 213 to 536.

On the political front mobilizing for child survival was strengthened at country, sub-regional, regional and continent-wide levels. Thus, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity at its 1987 session in Addis Ababa resolved that 1988 would be" the Year for the Protection, Survival and Development of the African Child".

One interesting new development, agreed upon by Jim Grant and Dr. Monekosso at the 1987 WHO Regional Meeting in Bamako, Mali, aimed at strengthening primary health care within Africa through the use of basic essential drugs, was presented to the Unicef Executive Board. It was labelled the "Bamako Initiative" and consisted of a major infusion of funding from Unicef and other donors in order to enable communities to generate local resources from the sale of essential drugs and use these funds to generally upgrade the poor condition of primary health establishments throughout the countries in the continent. Although it was an innovative and exciting initiative to re-activate the basis of community health services, the proposal was not fleshed out sufficiently and the Unicef Board asked the secretariat to work out in more details its various components and to come to the next Board session with a revamped proposal of a much more limited funding.

Consequently it was decided that a small new unit would be constituted in the Programme Division to concentrate on developing both the concept and the operational aspects of a new Board recommendation for 1989. Thus was born the Bamako Initiative Management Unit, BIMU, and I was asked to head it. It took considerable effort to find and furnish the premises within Unicef House for the group which included initially Dr.Samuel Ofusso-Amaah as the health adviser, Steven Jarret as the Programme Officer, Margaret Williams (my Africa Section senior secretary) as Administrative Assistant and myself. We managed to convince Timothy Boakes to use a section of the second floor of the building where there were no offices at all for our group and to provide us with computers, desks, and other necessities. Soon David Parker joined to help with economic aspects, and we co-opted Cecilia Lotse, from PFO to help with developing the proposal for donors.

We organized field visits to Benin, Guinea, Sierra Leone and other places where some of the earlier pilot activities had been started; we carefully looked at the PHC aspects of the programme; we visited a number of European Institutes of Tropical Diseases (Liverpool, Antwerp etc.) to discuss the thorny issues of "equity" which had been voiced by many Board members. The final Executive Board proposal for the Bamako Initiative we prepared was considerably smaller in funding , but better developed in many aspects, and it was approved for implementation and expansion to other countries, both in Africa, but eventually to other Unicef regions. My post went to Agostino Paganini, my ex-colleague from the Africa Section.

This one year stint as Director of BIMU turned out to be my last organic link with Africa since in September 1989 I was appointed Director of DOP and moved from programming to management as a culmination of my UNICEF career.

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