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UNICEF at 75 - Our Next 25 Years (December 2021)

UNICEF at 75 - our Next 25 Years

About our Cover

Children have traveled a long way since 1946.  We in UNICEF were privileged to walk some of that distance with them and occasionally to smoothen their path.  They still have a long path to travel ahead, but they walk with confidence. Let us share their journey with hope and confidence for these coming 25 years. 

We thank Meg Loeks Photography and its Click Community for the background photo used in our cover. 

About this edition of the Quarterly

This is the last of our quarterlies celebrating UNICEF@75. This edition assembles 18 articles that attempt to foretell the issues of children 25 years from now. Perhaps the covid  pandemic and the challenges posed by COP26 raised more fears than hopes for a better tomorrow. 

Some contributors anticipate a rather gloomy future for children, but there are also those expressing hope and opportunities, also driven by growing youth movements. For our last article in this compendium, we secured the contribution of 14 year old Kamala.

As with all of our publications, this edition of the Quarterly is a team effort - not just an effort among members of the editorial team, but also  among the authors who worked with the editors. We sincerely thank everyone who contributed, and we hope that you will continue writing and contributing to future editions.

How to read this edition of the Quarterly

You are reading the online version of the Quarterly. Below you find the Table of Contents, followed by a very short introduction to each of the articles. 

A click on an item in the Table of Contents or on the link in the short introductions will send you to the full article. At the end of each article, you can choose to return to the Table of Contents or to the short introductions.

Here are the links to the September edition (covering the recent 25 years of UNICEF), the June edition (covering the second trimester of UNICEF), and the March edition (covering the first 25 years of UNICEF).

Click here to return to our regular blog: https://xunicefnewsandviews.blogspot.com/

No Dreams - A Poem by Sree Gururaja
What Keeps Me Up at Night by Niloufar Pourzand
Programming Challenges by Sharad Sapra
Confronting Trauma by Rolf Carriere
A Future for Children by Peter Greaves
Hopes for the Future by Horst Cerni
The Horror Show Continues by Ramesh Shrestha
What the World Needs Now? by Kamala Gururaja
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No Dreams

Sree Gururaja contributed a beautiful poem. She insists that it was written while she was having her morning coffee! 


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Children in 2046 as UNICEF Turns 100

Mary Racelis, our  social scientist emeritus, has been actively engaged with the day to day impact of the covid pandemic pandemic in the Philippines where she lives.  After retirement, she  continues to teach and guide research in Manila and works centerstage with civic society organisations on urban issues, and emerging issues affecting children and their families at the community levels. In her article, Mary narrates the successes that were achieved in meeting  the challenges posed by the covid pandemic in the urban impoverished communities. Read to learn about her views and insights on Prospects for 2046 , the 100th anniversary of UNICEF.

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Keeping Calm and Carrying On

Maggie Black is well known as the author who chronicled the history of UNICEF in several publications documenting the beginnings, the evolution  and achievements of UNICEF over sixty years since 1946. She continues to be engaged with social movements, children rights and human development issues. In this article, Maggie shares her ringside views on existing global concerns post covid pandemic , COP26 etc and how CRC will be vital for children in the coming decades. Read to be inspired by her optimism in the role of partnerships including with youth movements and how UNICEF 's continued support is crucial to such movements.

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The Future: a Lamentation, with Songs

Using dark imagery and strong lyrics from great songwriters, Richard Morgan is incensed about the callousness and indifference of many of today's leaders towards children and their future. We do have the instruments, including the Convention on the Rights, and while the world's leaders call once more for change, they fail again to demonstrate that they themselves are changing. Only through Social Justice can a child born somewhere today expect a future worth living.

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What Keeps Me Up at Night

Opting for early retirement, Niloufar Pourzand returned to her alma mater, York University in Toronto to teach and impart her invaluable experience of thirty years in UNICEF work in Iran, Afghanistan, Mali, Indonesia, Barbados, and other duty stations. She continues to be actively engaged with several NGOs, including global women organisations and women's groups in Afghanistan. In her article, Niloufar shares her personal  angst,  concerns and insights on the future given the covid pandemic, the prevailing inequities and worrisome social movements that could adversely affect the rights and wellbeing of children and women. Read her article about the prospects for change and her hopes for a better future for children. 

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Issues for Children -2030 - 2050

Jon Rohde needs little introduction for Jon has been the vanguard of the Child Survival  and Development Revolution with his professional contributions to its evolution , implementation and achievements. In his article, Jon outlines the key challenges that would impinge on the work and directions of UNICEF's priorities in the decades ahead. Jon shares his pragmatism and vision on the future role of UNICEF on specific future human development situations. 

Click here to read the list by Jon Rohde
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Programming Challenges

Drawing on his knowledge and vast UNICEF experience (in India, Bangladesh, OLS, as Representative Afghanistan, and as Director DOC, NY and the Innovations Centre in Uganda) and his insightful observations on the recent covid pandemic, Sharad Sapra shares his thoughts on some of the programming challenges in the next two decades.  The emergency  compelled the exploration of alternative delivery systems, communications channels and people engagement.  There was disruption and breakdowns yet in some situations breakthroughs emerged and new lessons were learnt providing opportunities for change in conceptualising processes and benefits. Read how Sharad builds a case for Build Back Different rather than Build Back Better.

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Child Agency and Participation

Susan Durston is the current Director and Chair of the trustees of Child to Child. In this article she recalls its launch in 1978, a decade ahead of the CRC, and the Maurice Pate Award the organization won in 1991.At the beginning the organization looked to ways in which school children in low-income communities could help other children especially with health messages. She notes that it took the CRC to articulate and enshrine the right to the voice and broader participation of children. Nowadays we have become used to hearing from children and adolescents (mainly the latter) on issues like climate change and COVID, but we are still faced often by tokenism and elitism into policy, an arena dominated by adults. Susan adds that adolescent activism did not start with Greta Thunberg, but that she represents a changing situation in which adolescents and children are more likely to speak out on issues that concern them. Susan adds that child participation has a brighter future and might help the world find solutions that adults cannot.

Click here to read the full article
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Confronting Trauma

For over three decades Rolf Carriere worked in UNICEF and the World Bank on large scale health and nutrition programmes, including in India. He was UNICEF Representative  in Myanmar, Bangladesh and Indonesia, Bhutan  and World Bank’s first Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). In 2005, Rolf became Senior Adviser to the Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), and in 2017 he founded the Global Initiative for Stress and Trauma Treatment (GIST-T). Here he explains the prevalence and impact of the exposure of children and adults to traumatic events and circumstances. With convincing arguments, Rolf makes a strong plea for the need to take trauma treatment to scale, as a lead intervention among mental health measures—much as GOBI was to PHC.

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A Future for Children

Peter Greaves describes the failures at COP26 where even a watered-down final agreement was further weakened at the last minute to call for a 'phasing down' instead of a 'phasing out' in the use of coal.  Peter notes that other important issues were not even discussed, including the needs for significant changes in diet and agriculture. The hope now is that civic action and local initiatives will force governments to take actions they have long resisted.  Meanwhile, Peter asks whether we are so wrapped up with concerns over the SDGs that we are missing the overriding climate crisis.  He wonders whether COP27 next year in Egypt may take us anywhere closer to solving these problems 

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Free us from the Tyranny of Governments

Bernt Aasen thinks that UNICEF has no heart and soul anymore. There is no clear purpose. No clear comparative advantage to other UN entities and child-focused, international NGOs. There is no engine-room, or narrative, that keeps the organization together and gives it a distinct identity. UNICEF should go back and take a fresh look at the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention of the Rights of the Child. UNICEF should reinvent itself, because it should be about “We the people of the United Nations” and “Member States”.

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Hopes for the Future

Horst Cerni sees a hopeful future for his seven grandchildren who live in the US and have good access to health and schooling.  At the same time he notes the more difficult conditions of their cousins who live in the Philippines.  Nonetheless, Horst sees improvements coming there and elsewhere.  He draws this confidence whenever he looks to his 'world changer' daughter who is a teacher and his grandson who wants to work in addressing global issues such as the situation of migrants and civilians caught in war, promotion of the CRC and fulfillment of the promises made at COP26,  Like Horst, his grandson sees sports, the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup as ways of promoting the CRC.  While the future at times may look bleak, Horst believes that the generation represented by his grandson are ready and willing to tackle what comes. Similarly, he believes that UNICEF has proven that it can deal with any situation ahead and will continue to make a difference in the lives of future generations.

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Education and UNICEF in 25 years’ time

Jim Ackers, the UNICEF ROSA Education Adviser; who previously had the same role in ESARO and EAPRO, discusses how he sees education in 25 years’ time, and how he expects UNICEF will be engaging with the sector when it celebrates its centenary. Jim talks candidly about how he sees UNICEF’s strengths and challenges overall, and specifically in education, and the risks going forward if we are to retain, or expand our position as ‘the most important agency in education on the ground in many countries’. Jim will be retiring from UNICEF in a few months.

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The Horror Show Continues

Artifical intelligence, fortified food, robotic teachers, and a loss of social skills. This and much will determine life 25 years from now, according to Ramesh Shrestha. Children will still demonstrate outside the Climate Conference #51. Promises will contrinue to be made and friends will be virtual. Everyone will blame the others for the misery in the world; and little will change in power relations. The show will continue. 

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A Future for Our Children's Children - The Challenges Ahead

Tom McDermott suggests that in trying to look forward it is best to first look back and consider what we could and couldn't predict back then. He then looks at three of the many challenges ahead: disease, climate change, and population, and suggests some questions to ponder under each of those headings. Tom sees the fallout from the current pandemic as a concern that will persist in our thinking for many years, and wonders whether successes in science and technology can overcome our failures to convince people to take care of their own health and that of others. In terms of population, food and services he calls Africa our greatest challenge, but notes changes as well in already populous countries, including rapidly aging populations, declines in food production, and rapid urbanization. In the end, he expresses confidence that our children's children will find the answers we cannot and will not just survive, but thrive.

Click here to read the full article
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No Gloom and Doom

Detlef Palm maintains that the world has become a better place. By 2050, many of the old problems are being solved, and new problems are emerging. Material poverty has been further reduced, and nations will refrain from waging war against each other. The climate challenges will remain, and new culture wars will arise. Increasingly, people - especially the young generations - are at risk of living in a parallel universe. The biggest challenge is to build a world that embraces fundamental and immovable values that keep human kind together as a whole, and to prevent the babies of today becoming the maniacs or extremists of tomorrow. 

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The Brome Lake Duck and Drake Weekly

In this serio-comic article Fouad Kronfol propels us to 2041 and imagines the world as it will have become. 

He then  predicts the changes that will have occurred to UNICEF and its operations as it nears its Centennial  in that new world scenario.   

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What the World Needs Now?

Kamala Gururaja is a politically aware fourteen year old teen who lives in New York City. From an early age she has the talent of "playing with words" in her own creative imaginative way. She is a regular contributor to SAADA (South Asian American Digital Archive), active Girl Scouts member, and committed volunteer in campaigning for the Democrats (Hillary Clinton in 2016 and last year for Biden/Harris). In her free time, Kamala can be found practicing flute, writing for her school newspaper, or reading books! Read Kamala's take on what she sees as the challenges of her generation, for her confidence is reassuring.

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Comments

  1. Paula ClaycombDecember 13, 2021 at 3:17 PM

    Many, many thanks to the editors and all the authors of these articles -- 17 retirees and 1 adolescent. I read them over three batches and enjoyed the diverse styles and viewpoints. I seem to be torn between empathizing with the pessimistic outlooks of, say, Richard Morgan, and the more optimistic perspectives of, say, Detlef Palm. What a great bunch of writers, thinkers and doers. Thank you, everyone, and best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season and 2022.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Horst CerniDecember 14, 2021 at 12:12 PM

    What an amazing collection of articles and each with a different vision of the future. Some don't expect much to change or to get worse (- I certainly hope that Fouad's predictions won't come true!), and some feel that UNICEF will be able to meet the challenges. And of course, there is the problem of overpopulation, as you pointed out.
    Anyhow, I think it would be good if a summary could be made of "our visions" for the new ExDir. Personally I hope that the contact to the IOC will refresh our Agreement for a ceasefire, an Olympic Truce. The next Olympics are in less than two months.
    Thanks for all your hard work.
    Horst.

    ReplyDelete

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