Bi-Weekly Update for the Period from 13 to 27 October 2019

Period from 13 to 27 October 2019 Manou Assadi, RIP Habib Hammam It is with great sadness that I advise of the passing of our friend and colleague Manou Assadi in Tehran early this morning. He had been fighting a prostate cancer and had gone to Tehran in the Spring to see members of his family. There was a relapse after which he was not able to travel. The last time I spoke to him he told me that he has had a good life and was contented. He recalled good times as a friend and mentioned several UNICEF colleagues. He passed on peacefully with Farideh by his side. (Continue reading)

Ready or Not Just One Month Until CRC@30 November 20th Marks 30 Years of the CRC

UNICEF Needs Your Help Nicolas Pron and Michelle Siegel November 20th is International Children's Day and it is the 30th anniversary of the CRC.   It's children's day.  It is UNICEF's day. It is a day we all should celebrate the progress of the past 30 years.  We invite all our UNICEF Alumni to help by: Contributing to the historical record by sharing stories about the CRC - see "Call for stories" invitation.   Participating in a national summit or country level event - UNICEF Alumni Network members are asked to contact their local country office or National Committee to offer their support or they may contact wcd@unicef.org to be connected with the relevant office.   Amplifying social media campaign - a social  media pack will be coming.   Attending the event at the UNGA hall - alumni may express interest in attending by sending an email, to the Editors at News and Views who will consolidate the requests and send them on to us.   Read "Call for Stories for CRC30" here

A Century of Work towards Child Rights 1919 - 2019 1919 In the wake of the horrors of the First World War Eglantyne Jebb and her sister Dorothy Buxton found the Save the Children Foundation in London. 1920 With the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Jebb founds the International Save the Children Union. 1923 On 23 February the International Save the Children Union adopts the first version of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. 1924 On 26 September the League of Nations adopts the document as the Geneva Declaration - five specific rights of children and several obligations of adults to children.  The first time such rights and obligations were recognized internationally. (Continue reading)

30th? What about our 60th? Fouad Kronfol While the thirtieth anniversary of the CRC on November 20th is certainly an important occasion for UNICEF, the UN and all nations, let's not forget an earlier milestone in the promulgation of child rights, the 1959 "Declaration on the Rights of the Child". This precursor to the CRC also celebrates an anniversary, its 60th, and it is perhaps worthwhile to at least acknowledge it in passing during the current CRC events.    (Continue reading)

Starting Out  Dave Haxton We are pleased to present our second installment of Dave Haxton's autobiography, A Good Life in a Changing World.  In our last installment we included Dave's period in India. In this installment Dave takes us back to his early years, growing up in Canada and the US.   This section includes Chapters 1 through 3, plus a Foreward. (Continue reading)

Next Week on Instagram Photography by Tad Palac Next week is Tad Palac's turn on our Instagram Channel.  After Tad, we will feature the work of Luis Oliveros.  Visit our current collection by clicking here.    Have some of your own photos to share?  Let our photo editor and curator, Gianni Murzi, know at  eziogianni@gmail.com​​​​​​

From Our Members

Recent Paintings Mehr Khan Click here for the three most recent paintings Click here for Mehr's full gallery

Sunset over the Malacca Straits

Tributes to Nalini Rao, RIP Doreen Lobo / Sree Gururaja / and 3 Sons "She was a dignified, cultured and soft-spoken lady. Her life was UNICEF and her three sons."  Doreen "It was a pleasure to have Nalini in your team - reliable and efficient. She was popular in Programme Division for she quietly managed most desks with calmness and a smile."  Sree (Continue reading)

Screen Every Child for Trauma   Margherita Amodeo California's first Surgeon General, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, has called for screening of all children for trauma before they enter school.  "This involves public education, routine screening to enable early detection and early intervention, and cross-sector coordinated care," she said at a hearing on providing care in schools held by the House Committee on Education and Labor in September. "The opportunity ahead of us is about a true intersection of health care and education." (Continue reading)

Report from Lebanon Habib Hammam  It has been four days of glory for Lebanon. The people have risen against a corrupt political system that does not provide minimum basic services like water and electricity and many other basics. Instead there is a mafia like cabal of collusion between political leaders and big money where government contracts for public services are awarded to crony companies at grossly inflated prices in return for huge kickbacks amounting to tens of billions of Dollars over the past ten years. This has driven the country’s economy to the brink of collapse.  Continue reading

Dialogue and Citizen Participation Paula Claycomb   Paula was interviewed recently on the Rethinking Development Podcast series.  For a little more on Paula's career and a link to her full audio interview click here.

Bill McKibbon's Letter from 2050 Robert Cohen This is a powerful fast-forward vision of climate change from the vantage point of 2050 that manages to be neither dystopian nor utopian – just real and compelling.  I think our work for children – for all the good causes we espouse – needs to be radically recast in terms of saving the planet. The programmatic silos that enabled us to focus on "do-ables"(with considerable success) are on fire or under water as the  Earth's existential crisis demands holistic approaches like the ones outlined in McKibben's masterful article and, increasingly, in the SG's reframing of the SDGs in the context of climate emergency.  Read the letter here

Child Friendly Cities Summit Ute Deseniss-Gros From 15 to 18 October the International Child Friendly City Summit is taking place in the city of Cologne.  The Summit has been organized by UNICEF and Cologne.  Forty different countries will participate. See the announcement here

Germany's First Child-Friendly City  Ute Desiniss-Gros   Weil is the first city in Germany to have won the Child Friendly City Certificate.  This achievement is thanks to the work of the Superior Mayor of Weil, Wolfgang Dietz, and his wife, Christine.   (Continue reading)

Development Studies at York University Niloufar Pourzand Dear friends, this is the programme I teach in - please let me know if you know of potentially interested students.    See the details by clicking here.

AFICS Members Directory Horst Cerni AFICS/NY has issued the AFICS/NY Directory of Members in Summer 2019. (Continue reading) (Download directory here)

Join the Discussion

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Michael Kremer Economics of Poverty Wins the 2019 Nobel in Economics The 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics has for the first time been awarded to three economists whose work has focused on poverty - Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo of MIT and Michael Kremer of Harvard.  The work of Banerjee and Duflo has applied the methodology of epidemiology to poverty alleviation, including randomized control trials of inputs and methods many development agencies take on faith.  This approach has set off some discussion between our members.  Our discussion began with an article published recently by Kiari Liman-Tinguiri and a response by Niloufar Pourzand in which she provided a dissenting view by 15 other development economists.  Tom McDermott then added his own thoughts based on classes he followed a few years ago with Banerjee and Duflo.  We hope others might join in the discussion.

A propos du prix Nobel d'economie 2019 Kiari Liman-Tinguiri "Les essais randomisés, comme méthode, sont efficaces et l’efficacité compte. Ce n’est donc pas une critique mais un hommage à la contribution des lauréats, que de le dire. Mais est ce que ce qui est vrai pour un projet ou une politique publique bien définie l’est aussi pour l’ensemble des transformations nécessaires au développement d’un pays reste une question ouverte." Cliquez ici pour lire l'article complet

The Problem with Randomized Control Trials Niloufar Pourzand You might be interested in the strong critique of Randomized Control Trials promoted by the Nobel Winners.   I think the point or my point at least is that RCT is a technique - not an answer to the power and resource inequality that drives poverty and which won’t change in a big way without much more radical approaches and shifts. And such a focus on one technique can detract from the real struggle. Click here to read the article by the 15 development economists

Testing our Development Ideologies Tom McDermott A few years ago I took an online MIT course on the 'economics of poverty' taught jointly be Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee.  They preach a scientific approach which follows any hypothesis with rigorous testing and a clear understanding that history and culture will lead to differing results from place to place. They push for quick and frequent evaluation of results from interventions in place of the costly and time-consuming 'end of project' or end of the 5 year programme cycles so beloved of the UN.  Click here to read

From UNICEF

Report on Recruitment The report highlights key challenges and opportunities to enhance internal talent acquisition, including among staff under special consideration status, staff on rotation, staff interested in being considered for lateral reassignments, and talent groups.  (Continue reading  and find link to download or read the report)

UNSG Visits Supply Division Out of a total $3.4 billion, UNICEF currently procures $ 1.5 billion annually on behalf of partners, including UN agencies and self-financing governments, for goods and services    (Continue reading)

70,000 Children Displaced in N. Syria Since the start of the hostilities on 9 October 2019, an estimated 130,000 people have fled from areas around Tal Abiad and Ras Al-ain. Most of the 18,000 people living in Tal Abiad town and 11,000 people living in Ras Al-ain have reportedly fled towards Tal Tamer and Hasakeh City.  Read the Ms. Fore's statement here

Report of the Ombudsman The encouraging news is that, in the majority of cases, the issues reported to the Office were addressed informally through mediation, coaching, guidance and active listening. In cases of workplace conflicts, we are actively strengthening our mediation services. Mediation is a proven, effective way to manage conflicts in the workplace, and can help resolve issues amicably and in good faith for all parties as early, and fairly, as possible.  (Continue reading)  There you will also find links to the Ombudsman's report and video

Other News of Interest to Members

Desperate Pleas to release Australian Women and Children Held in N. Syria NY Times Read article here " The fate of tens of thousands of women and children in Kurdish-run detainee camps in Syria has posed a challenge for governments around the world since the Islamic State lost its last territory there earlier this year.  But the chaos and violence that have followed the American pullback have intensified questions about what duty nations have to citizens detained abroad, even those affiliated with a brutal terrorist group."

Have You Visited Our Photo Archives LATELY?

30 Years Ago, 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child From our History Archive - Historic Occasions;

70 Years Ago, 1949 Dick Heyward Joins UNICEF as DED Operations from our Archive - Faces of UNICEF's Past EDs, DEDs, SGs

Please Help Us Build our Photo Archives We want your photos - not just of important figures or major events, but also ordinary photos of UNICEF at work - in the office, in the field, photos of our partners in government, NGOs and other agencies.