In her chat with Sree Gururaja Janet Nelson raises the conundrum, "human rights or development, which comes first?".
Throughout her UNICEF career , over two decades in New York and Geneva, Janet was instrumental in building partnerships with NGOs and mobilizing their efforts for children. Starting with the World Summit for Children. Janet took the lead in establishing close collaboration and securing 'buy-in' by NGOs . This effort became the keystone of UNICEF’s advocacy strategy for influencing the World Conferences of the 1990's and beyond. After her stint in Headquarters, Janet served as Deputy Director in the Regional Office in Geneva. Upon retirement, Janet worked as a consultant to UNICEF and UN Country teams. She also served as Vice President of Arigatou International. (Viewers will recall that Rebeca Rios-Kohn in her recent Quick Chat talked about Arigatou and her own work as Director of Arigatou's US offices). Janet recently gave up her role with Arigatou, but continues in her work with other NGOs in Geneva.
In this chat Janet talks about her active and substantive engagement with issues pertinent to the Human Rights Council, the Child Rights Committee and the French NGO - International Movement ATD . Her focus is on children living in extreme, inter-generational poverty.
The interview is a ‘must see’ for all concerned with the 'push-back' on human rights underway in many countries today and the impact this will have on the lives of children and their families. We look forward to hearing your views on the points Janet makes in the Quick Chat. Please add your thoughts using the Comments section below.
Throughout her UNICEF career , over two decades in New York and Geneva, Janet was instrumental in building partnerships with NGOs and mobilizing their efforts for children. Starting with the World Summit for Children. Janet took the lead in establishing close collaboration and securing 'buy-in' by NGOs . This effort became the keystone of UNICEF’s advocacy strategy for influencing the World Conferences of the 1990's and beyond. After her stint in Headquarters, Janet served as Deputy Director in the Regional Office in Geneva. Upon retirement, Janet worked as a consultant to UNICEF and UN Country teams. She also served as Vice President of Arigatou International. (Viewers will recall that Rebeca Rios-Kohn in her recent Quick Chat talked about Arigatou and her own work as Director of Arigatou's US offices). Janet recently gave up her role with Arigatou, but continues in her work with other NGOs in Geneva.
In this chat Janet talks about her active and substantive engagement with issues pertinent to the Human Rights Council, the Child Rights Committee and the French NGO - International Movement ATD . Her focus is on children living in extreme, inter-generational poverty.
The interview is a ‘must see’ for all concerned with the 'push-back' on human rights underway in many countries today and the impact this will have on the lives of children and their families. We look forward to hearing your views on the points Janet makes in the Quick Chat. Please add your thoughts using the Comments section below.
Thank you Janet and Sree for a very interesting conversation on the NGO’s work and their role in development and child rights and human rights. It felt as if we were setting in one of UNICEF HQ conference rooms and taking about issues so important and relevant to our daily work. Janet you spoke about “poverty” and “environment” which made me think about the country of my birth, Afghanistan. The current environment for children especially girls and women has become extremely small and claustrophobic. Their rights to education beyond six grades and work outside their home has been taken away from them. Single mothers who previously worked to support their kids are now unable. Hence, starvation has returned to the county. Children have lost their basic right to food/nutrition, education and basic health among others. Steps are taken backwards instead of forward. Our UNICEF colleagues are once again deeply involved in Emergency Programming, and I thank them for that. Development, human rights, child rights have once again been placed on the back burner. I can not imagine how situation is for children and people with disabilities, the area of my work at UNICEF. I hope you (Janet and Sree) don’t mind me making these points. I am very happy to hear you both. Much love!
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