UNICEF – Working through our Heads or our Hearts? : Jim Ackers

 by Jim Ackers

Jim Ackers,
Regional Education Adviser,
UNICEF ROSA

I joined UNICEF on a full-time basis in May 2003, just before the Iraq war – the source of so many of our current problems. But I had my first taste as a consultant in 2001 in Kenya after working for DFID there. When invited to join UNICEF as a consultant I jumped at the chance. My task was to assess the impact of the drought on Northern Kenya - before global warming was seen as an existential threat.

I loved the work, not least the field visits and long conversations with the UNICEF drivers – always bringing contextual realities to external perspectives. With DFID I had been based in the inspectorate working directly with Kenyan government colleagues. DFID was an exemplary development agency at that time – work was well planned, well-resourced and rigorous, and the aim was to achieve results at scale through what was emerging as a ‘sector wide approach’. In Kenya this included constructing national teacher training and textbook systems and programmes.

The UNICEF consultancy unfortunately did not lead to further UNICEF work due to funding constraints. When I asked UNICEF about longer term prospects I was told that it would be very difficult as men from donor countries were over-represented. My many applications to UNICEF over a year or so, usually met with no response but I never gave up,. It was ironically only after I had accepted a tenured post at the University of London Institute of Education in 2003 that I got a call from the UNICEF Global Chief of Education, Cream Wright. ‘Are you interested in Chief of Education in Nigeria?'  My family and I discussed it. My wife also had a good teaching job in the UK. But the kids had grown up in Senegal and Kenya and by now Africa ran through our veins.

 
A very respected educationist visited me while I was still considering the offer. His advice was: “UNICEF is a really nice organization, but it thinks with its heart and not its head.’ But I saw an opportunity to help UNICEF Education take a more strategic direction. Cream was pushing for the new Fast Track Initiative, which later morphed into the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). He also saw the need to work through sector wide approaches to ensure coherence and impact and how UNICEF could use its comparative advantage and convening power to place itself at the centre of the FTI agenda. Cream’s other really critical contribution was to secure long-term thematic funding from the Norwegians. The success of UNICEF in Education ever since has largely been predicated on Cream’s skill in negotiating these two game-changing deals.

When I first arrived in Nigeria in 2003 UNICEF was dispersed between a floor in the Sheraton and another building in town. I was Chief of Integrated Growth and Development – a legacy of days when some thought Education and WASH were more closely aligned than WASH and Health.

Discussion with village leaders in Northern Nigeria about how Islam supports girls’ education. 

My Nigerian colleagues were the liveliest I have ever worked with! So much fun! Initially much time was consumed with the UNICEF British Airways ‘Change For Good’ programme. More than $ 1 million was invested into one school which air hostesses loved to visit. But the effect of focusing on this one model school was that children from the surrounding schools all wanted to join Kuje School. No other school could emulate Kuje as they lacked the resources. One of my team was the de facto Head of Governors of the school. My team loved visiting the 100 ‘child friendly schools’ dotted around Nigeria. But I persuaded them to focus on working with Ministry counterparts to influence the national agenda. I also wrote the Strategy for Accelerating Girls Education in Nigeria, which later morphed into the largest DFID funded Girls’ Education project in the world. In my next position as Chief of Education in Tanzania I also weaned my team away from up-lifting visits to so-called ‘child friendly schools’, where children clapped and sang when you visited. I boringly shifted our focus to sector analysis and planning and being a major actor at the national level and we helped the Ministry construct a national in-service education system.

 
After Tanzania I started my mini career as a Regional Education Adviser, firstly at ESARO, then EAPRO and now ROSA. My work focusses on ensuring that all children come to school and that they learn. Cream Wright’s legacy has ensured that UNICEF is now the education partner in most developing countries. GPE has expanded and UNICEF is the grant agent or Co-ordinating Agency in many countries. Being a regional adviser in these three wonderful regions has been such a privilege. I have seen UNICEF at its best in terms of strategic thinking; and also in terms of our contribution to humanitarian situations, not least in places like Somalia and Afghanistan. I remember with sadness, but also admiration, colleagues who have died in so doing.

A community constructed school in Eritrea
where the semi nomadic people had expressed
commitment to their children’s education. 

We must continue to be the global agency that touches hearts, but must also maintain our comparative advantage as the UN agency for children. Aspiration can displace strategic thinking. Bridging the digital divide can help bridge the learning divide. But all children must have foundational skills and connectivity for on-line learning to become a public good. New partners and innovation have critical roles to play but government is the primary duty bearer and must govern such processes. We must not sacrifice the urgent needs of the current generation for future dreams, but we must not stop dreaming of a better future. These are the tensions that my brilliant team and I have been struggling with at UNICEF ROSA. As I near retirement I feel so honoured to have had the privilege to contribute to making the world a better and fairer place for all children, hopefully through both my head and my heart.

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