Insights from Outside the Bubble: The Strategy / Detlef Palm

by Detlef Palm

The new UNICEF Strategic Plan is a remarkable document that will fulfil some excellent purpose as a database for child wellbeing and measuring progress; it should not be tossed away lightly.  As far as strategy or strategic planning goes, it should be thrown away with great force. 

You may think that I completely lost it, as the Strategic Plan has just been approved by 40 per cent of the world population, represented by 36 delegations to the Executive Board. 

For readers who have not looked it up: the Strategic Plan consists of (i) The Strategic Plan; (ii) The Theory of Change which is the same as the Strategic Plan but three times longer; (iii) The Integrated Results and Resource Framework, for a total of 171 pages.

Google links us to several thousand people telling us what a strategy is and what a strategic plan. There seems to be some consensus that it is about prioritizing goals and focussing, planning with limited resources and under conditions of uncertainty, being guided by unique business insights to increase the likelihood of success, and considering one’s comparative advantage and how to build on it.  Of interest would be also how the new strategy differs from the previous one, what strategic choices were available, what has been dropped because it didn’t work well in the past, and what is new, and how resource allocations will shift, so that more good can be done than before. 

I have a hard time to detect any of this. The new Strategic Plan is a prediction of what will happen without anyone having had to take any strategic decision. The essence of the new UNICEF Strategic Plan is a listing of a colossal number of higher- and lower-level results, complemented by generic strategies that any aid agency would draw up in an afternoon – such as researching evidence, forging partnerships, strengthening national systems, seeking to innovate and so on. All this is going to be enabled by even faster resource mobilization, reductions in administrative load, better internal communication and a more empowered workforce. In short: UNICEF will do more of the same, and do it better than before. 

At this point, we need details. The Strategic Plan has 18 results areas, 31 Impact indicators, 54 outcome indicators, 95 output indicators and 83 enabling or management indicators. Anyone with a child-related issue on her mind can be sure to find it in the Strategic Plan. UNICEF appears to be focusing on everything. We know how this comes about: every UNICEF specialist wants his area of expertise included in the plan lest his post may be cut. Hence the plan is a huge catalogue of good ideas, but it does not convey a sense of UNICEF strategically concentrating its energy on a few breakthrough results. 

More critical is that all high level results and even many outputs are to be achieved by countries. We know that this dramatically weakens the correlation between an observed result and the reported UNICEF action. We may draft a great child related policy but the national parliament stubbornly refuses to adopt it. Likewise, since these country-results may not only be pursued by governments but also local movements, local academia, local influencers, and many scientists and international agencies, success of the UNICEF plan cannot be derived from looking at an indicator, but only through a story that plausibly explains the significance of the UNICEF contribution. 

This story-telling would be easier if - based on an analysis of what worked and what didn’t - the Strategic Plan would be clear on where UNICEF sees its comparative advantage; where UNICEF adds value; what UNICEF will do to remain the most authoritative voice for children’s rights, or the best ever vaccine-shipper; how to become the coveted go-to-organization that governments and decision-makers want to partner with; what we need to do to be listened to; or how to get invited to the table where the big decisions affecting children are being made.  

For this analysis, UNICEF needs to accept that development happens with or without us, and becomes more aware of its unique role in the international and national context. Does this sound complicated? Here is a purely hypothetical sample statement:

""UNICEF has learned that national policies, priorities and investments for children are formed by a country’s internal political discourse. UNICEF aims to inform this discourse with the best science available and the global consensus recorded within the UN family, and helps to ensure that all sides get a fair hearing. Over the next four years, the organization will therefore move two thirds of its HQ-based workforce to programme countries, and impart knowledge of political science among its staff so they better understand the political and social dynamics of their host country. Thus equipped they can meaningfully contribute to the public dialogue, while pursuing the stipulations enshrined in Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international agreements.""

One more thing: Fifty-six years after UNICEF has emerged as a “peace-factor of great importance” and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Strategic Plan has discovered that it finally “must … include activities that contribute to social cohesion and peace”. It is never too late.

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