Fouad Kronfol: My Friend, Manou Assadi-Baiki 1933 - 2019

MY FRIEND MANOU ASSADI-BAIKI, 1933-2019

This is a personal and heartfelt tribute to the one who was the oldest and longest friend and colleague I have had in our respective careers with UNICEF.

Manou and I went back to almost sixty years of friendship starting with our beginnings as young and junior staff in UNICEF, he in Tehran and I in Beirut. Over this period there have been many permutations in our respective lives, travels and careers, but we maintained that closeness throughout.

Funny, but I met his wife Farideh before actually meeting Manou; she was visiting Beirut and we met at a dinner party at mutual friends of the Iranian Embassy. I knew of course of Manou but was delighted to meet Farideh first and to learn more about her husband.

Manou was a couple of years older and he joined UNICEF one year before me, in 1958. When we met at a regional event in Beirut around 1960, we immediately bonded as we learned the commonalities in our respective lives; we were both from Iran (though I was born there I had a Lebanese passport), both had attended the American University in Beirut; both had studied in the field of agriculture; both had started in UNICEF in the General Service category (there were no alternatives for local staff at the time); both occupied programme and supply posts; both dealt with certain countries in our respective area offices (he covered Iraq and Iran, while I covered Jordan and Saudi Arabia); both of us were pushing for better recognition and remuneration for professional work done by nationals (we became known as the "Young Turks"), until UNICEF finally agreed to the establishment of the National Officer category in mid-1960's and we both got promoted to the new level along with a number of colleagues in other offices; both of us furthered our professional careers during the tenures of Maurice Pate and Henry Labouisse. While many consider the 1980's as UNICEF's "golden years", by the time Jim Grant took office in 1980, Manou and I had over twenty years of experience in the Organization.

It is interesting how our two careers took off also with a lot of commonality; Manou's first international post was in Nigeria, a year or so before I transferred to Cairo; his first Representative post was not long in coming when he went to Pakistan, while I was appointed to Sudan, both of us among the youngest in UNICEF at the time. When I became Chief MidEast section in Programme Division and then went to Viet Nam as Representative, Manou transferred to NYHQ and became Director of Programme Field Services Division. Soon after that Jim Grant transferred me back to NYHQ as Chief of Africa Section and I worked under the direct supervision of Manou. In fact, while I was not too happy to return to NY, the most positive aspect of the post was the prospect of working together with Manou. His support and backstopping was essential in the major developments that emanated from that period in relation to UNICEF and its operations in Africa.

Manou then became Director of Personnel and was instrumental in me getting the post of Deputy Director of Programme Division, and thereafter that of Manager of the new "Bamako Initiative" Unit at HQ. When Manou retired in 1989, I took over DOP from him and thus followed in his footsteps in this major change in our professional work, ie. from programming to operations and management. When Manou came back briefly to HQ to help with the 1990 World Summit of Children, we continued our friendship and professional relations. I was indebted to him for the outstanding work he did in transforming DOP to become one of the best run divisions at NYHQ at the time. This, I believe, was probably one of his most important contributions to the overall development of UNICEF .

But Manou was not only an able manager and leader; he maintained throughout his career a steadfast concern for the UNICEF field establishment and the support it needed from HQ; he was always keenly aware of the need for increased staff and at higher levels from developing countries; he pushed for and got UNICEF to improve its gender balance (as DOP Director he set up the first task force...chaired by Eimi Watanabe...to analyse and develop an organization-wide plan to increase women in professional posts to one third of the total, an objective which was achieved during his tenure); he mentored and helped numerous younger staff members in his two positions as Director of Programme Field Services and of Personnel.

Then there is the personal side of Manou; my wife Nadia always maintained that Manou was one of the handsomest and most elegant men in UNICEF, and together with his wife Farideh, made one of the best looking couples in UNICEF. Manou loved and was very good at cooking and most dinners at the Assadi's enabled their guests to taste his exploits in the kitchen. He was a fun loving person, with a wonderful sense of humour. He was able to diffuse a tense moment with some totally anodyne remark...I remember many a time when we came out of long and tortuous meetings in HQ and Manou would tell me, "lets go to the men's room and do something really important !!!"

After retirement Manou took a special interest in gardening. I remember when we stayed with them at their Bethesda home how he took great pride in showing me around the garden and explaining to me the different flowers and trees he was growing.....grinning that after all both of us studied agriculture !

Rounding out his character was the erudite Manou who loved and was eloquent in reciting Persian poetry. In Washington he joined a group of Iranians who met regularly to read and discuss poetry by Hafiz, Saadi, Khayyam and other noteworthy Persian poets. He told me that these sessions relaxed him enormously and furthered his knowledge of his national culture. Another activity that was important in his life was yoga and meditation which he did together with Farideh.

These and many other aspects of our long standing friendship are deeply etched into my memory. I cherish them dearly as elements of our close relationship over almost six decades.

I pray that God may bless his Soul and that he rests in Eternal Peace. Amen.