Next Week's Ex Board - A Serious Challenge to UNICEF Policies by 'Friends of the Family" with Comments by Kul Gautam and Detlef Palm

The letter below indicates that an important coalition of delegations plans to challenge a long list of key UNICEF policies - many of which have formed important parts of our past work and current commitments.


Be sure to read the letter carefully, as well as the important comments by Kul Gautam and Detlef Palm.

From Kul Gautam

I had no idea about this controversy brewing at the UNICEF Board.

The composition of the "Friends of the Family" Group reminds me of a similar "unholy alliance" of like-minded groups nurtured by the delegation of the Holy See (and some Islamic states and "pro-life" NGOs) at the time of the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children in 2001-2002. It derailed the negotiations of the outcome document of the SSC for many months, and I had many sleepless nights contending with it. At that time the Bush (Jr) administration tacitly supported such a group. But we were always able to craft a compromise language to defuse the crisis after much deliberations and haggling informally.

I see that the "Friends of the Family" group comprises largely Muslim countries aided and abetted by the Russian Federation & its henchmen in Belarus & Nicaragua. So it seems like a more broad-based group than the one in 2001-2002.

I hope Henrietta Fore has some really good and skillful colleagues handling the negotiations. Usually, in such a situation, you also need a couple of very skillful Board members to help the Secretariat. Luckily, the Board Chair (from Lithuania) and Bureau members are from countries that are not part of the "Friends of the Family".

While UNICEF should be adamant on the rights-based approach, non-discrimination, and championing for the marginalized and disadvantaged groups, I hope it treads cautiously on issues of "sexual orientation and gender identity", leaving that to other UN agencies to handle. In the past, we always found a way to navigate controversial issues by saying something to the effect that "UNICEF will collaborate with all sister UN agencies in areas agreed at major UN conferences, treaties and conventions, but each agency acting according to its own mandates". That way we could have our cake and eat it too.

Hope Henrietta Fore's last Board is a congenial Swan-song session which I believe she richly deserves it to be.

Kul


From Detlef Palm

The letter below was apparently sent in preparation of the UNICEF September Board meeting, where the new UNICEF Strategic Plan 2022-2025 will be discussed on the 8th September.

Whether or not you read the Strategic Plan, we all may have views about the below letter by the ‘Group of Friends of the Family’. The issuance of the letter – beyond the specifics of its complaints – begs different questions. UNICEF has spent about 33% (one third) of its total 2020 expenditure in the countries belonging to this group, which is a major constituency of UNICEF’s work. Should the often very large country offices, which one would presume were involved in the preparation of the Strategic Plan and who should have ample knowledge of the local views, not have checked with their partners, or at least sensed some of the controversies? Should the remarks by Russia in the June Board, where the draft Strategic Plan was discussed, not have been a forewarning of this dissent? I believe we see a dilemma – between (on one hand) the concept of a strategic plan where everything becomes a priority and which aims to set the global UNICEF direction, and (on the other hand) what we know as the country programming process where UNICEF helps governments to implement national priorities for children. I would be interested to hear from our members, including those from the countries of the group of friends of the family.