The March 2021 Quarterly - Our First 25 Years and the People Who Made UNICEF

Plans for the March 2021 Quarterly are finally coming together.  Thanks to the many suggestions we received from our readers and our editors, we are able to lay out more concrete plans.  Our inbox for suggestions and comments, however, is still open and we welcome your thoughts.

Our March edition will include three sections.     WE NEED YOUR HELP in all three areas:

* moments in the history of those first 25 years - events, photos, videos

* beneficiaries - what we know of the beneficiaries of UNICEF assistance;  some like Audrey Hepburn returned to help others, some went on to leadership roles, but what about others who stayed in touch.  Did you stay in touch with any of those beneficiaries of our programmes who you met during the years you worked for UNICEF?

* UNICEF's people and characters we knew - the weird and wonderful characters who made UNICEF work in those early years. We need your recollections of the people who brought you to UNICEF, helped you get started, mentored you.  This includes not only the major figures, but the friends, colleagues, supervisors, and others who got you started.  We hope this will include funny, poignant, personal reflections on those who came before you.

We are looking for your contributions - personal reflections, memoirs, articles, photos, and quotes.  

Length - please not more than 1,000 words.  

Deadline - 1 March 2021

On Thursday 28 January the News and Views editorial team met with the team planning the UNICEF 75 year.  In addition to the Strategic Concept paper they shared and we posted last week, the team has promised to send us more detailed documents soon. It was clear from our discussions that the team is looking forward to working with XUNICEF during this year and beyond.  

Both UNICEF and XUNICEF teams believe much of the focus this year should be on country-level activities.  UNICEF does not plan on any single 'big' event, but rather a series of smaller actions and events spread through the year.  This works well for us at News and Views, as we hope to keep a focus on UNICEF@75 both through our four quarterlies and the weeklies.  

We hope that our XUNICEF focal points and members in 32 countries will be active with UNICEF country offices and national committees.

Both teams see the need to tie together UNICEF's stories through past, present and future.  We will need to consider current priorities in the light of their roots.  

Several current UNICEF themes of interest to the UNICEF 75 team on which they would like our help, and we ask YOUR HELP include:

* COVID - UNICEF's role in epidemic preparedness and response.  Looking back to the development of laboratory, research facilities, and institutes of public health, such as those in Thailand and India, how did UNICEF help their early development? 

* Vaccines - given UNICEF's current role as the supply arm of COVAX, what is the history of UNICEF's work on vaccine development, procurement and distribution?  How did UNICEF's investments for vaccine production pay off later in various countries - India, Iran, etc.  

* Supply and Logistics - the history of UNICEF supply work both in Geneva and later in Copenhagen.  How did we become the world's major supplier of vaccines, medicaments, and drugs?

* Private sector - UNICEF's involvement in the leather (shoes for children in Europe and Palestine), dairy, water pumps and other local industries come about?  How has that led to an investment strategy for both small local producers as well as major national producers?

* WESS - early attention to appropriate technology, handpumps, tubewells, latrines - how did those early investments lead to stronger national systems.

* Youth - this is one where we really need your help.  When and where did UNICEF begin investing in youth? There were the youth parliaments, programme advisory teams of young people, and even vocational training, but when did UNICEF first get really involved in programming for young people?

Please help us put this edition together. 

This is our history, our UNICEF, and our chance to remember and celebrate.