Discussions at the UNICEF Executive Board can be irritatingly underwhelming. There was the written question by the Swedish delegation about UNICEF’s Theory of Change, for a CPD that is going to be approved on a no-objection basis at the next Board Meeting.
I am paraphrasing for brevity. I am also removing the typical embellishments of UN documents, in which the authors relentlessly confirm to themselves and to their superiors that they are aligned, aware, results driven and focused on the most deprived. Here is the condensed UNICEF response describing the Theory of Change:
If more children survive and thrive with better access to services; and if more children learn; and if more children are better protected from violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect; and if more children benefit from social protection, then more children will realise their rights.
Whatever the paragraph in question is meant to convey, it surely is not a theory. It does not explain how UNICEF money and effort are going to bring about change. Perhaps it was meant to merely add some poetic flair to an otherwise dull board session.
Of course, we all may write gibberish when in a hurry, or when we have a bad day. For this, organizations have bosses, editors and proof readers to catch any glaringly goofy stuff. But trite dialogues have become symptomatic for an organization, where UNICEF offices and staff can no longer say clearly what they are doing, or what difference they make, and where the preparation of public documents is taken as an exercise to arrange a pile of words in new permutations.
Habitual phrase-mongering has been going on for too long. If nothing is done about it, our UNICEF heroes will soon be gazing bleary-eyed at their computers at the crack of dawn, punching keys for ever more redundant pronouncements, while muttering to themselves, Hollywood-style: You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
No greater truth has been written….. for we all signed on ill-formed and ill-equipped to handle the torture of endless tautology.
ReplyDeleteThe freedom of facial expression (blank / incredulous / disbelieving / resigned) ranks highest in the pleasures of being x-unicef!!
Thank you once again, Detleff. Your writing is as brilliant for its brevity and bite as UNICEF's tons of text have become exercises of trifling tedium absent of any sound and fury signifying anything (to dangerously approach some plagiarism here). I fear UNICEF has lost the plot, as the Bard (but not, unfortunately, the Board) would no doubt conclude were he here to witness. UNICEF's once sharp edge has been dulled to butter knife efficacy by unchecked ultracrepidarianism throughout the organisation.
ReplyDelete...and apologies for the extra consonant in your name, Detlef. Take this from someone with double consonants and entirely too many letters in his surname. It is patronymic burden made heavier by the official Swiss spelling with an "ä"
ReplyDelete@Thomas - thanks, I learned a new word!
ReplyDelete