Six Reforms for a New UNICEF Business Model: Detlef Palm

The world has moved on and UNICEF lost its voice in favour of jargon. The organization lacks focus and is pulled down by its bureaucratic weight. If anyone is able to describe UNICEF’s current business model, it would be due for a major overhaul.

Before we proceed, we need to remind ourselves of some significant shortcomings of present practices. Readers of my column know most of them, but here is a short selection:

• Money is allocated to country programmes regardless whether the authorities are serious about improving the wellbeing of children, or not  [a], [b], [r].
• The Country Programme Document (CPD) doesn’t describe the distinct roles and commitments of UNICEF and government.
• Not every problem requires UNICEF engagement; dealing with everything causes the loss of focus.
• Support to several hundred minor interventions cannot be aggregated into meaningful results. Reports are at best anecdotal [c].
• Nobody has an inkling about the value for money that UNICEF offers [d].
• Many communications and internal documents and guidance are full of repetitive, hollow and sometimes surreal babble that cannot cover up the lack of meaningful content [w], [e], [f], [g], [h].

A New Business Model

Here is a hypothetical UNICEF business model. It can address several failings of the current system.

• UNICEF maintains a permanent presence of a representative and analysts in all but high-income countries. A presence may also be established in high income countries that wield financial or political influence. UNICEF screens the situation of a country in relation to organizational goals, advocates as necessary, and scans the horizon.
• UNICEF bundles expertise and resources around ten aspirational but specific and measurable global goals related to children, that are to be achieved by countries. Such as ending child marriage, or use of key parenting practices by first-time parents. Following an initial transition period, one goal is replaced by a new or different goal every year.
• UNICEF establishes the relevance of the goals and eligibility for assistance for concerned countries. To be considered for assistance, governments need to demonstrate significant measures of their own to address the issue.
• A multi-year country programme is negotiated and agreed between UNICEF and the government, for a limited selection of goals. The CPD contains the commitments of government and UNICEF.
• UNICEF prepares an annual update of global progress towards the ten goals. The report plausibly explains the UNICEF contribution to what happened in the concerned countries.
• For emergencies covered by appeals, UNICEF presents itself as coordinator of humanitarian aid.

Naturally, many variations of this proposition are possible, and you may have better and more radical ideas. However, this exercise points towards six reforms that are necessary to put the organization on track.

1. UNICEF Must Understand that Development is a Political Process

Fifty years ago, it was accepted that the lack of knowledge and capacities were the main causes of underdevelopment. Today, any country can access knowledge and capacitate its own people, if it really wants [i]. For much of the time, most staff thought that UNICEF should stay away from politics and concentrate on saving children’s lives. Politics was seen as evil interference with someone’s good idea [k].

By now, with the Taliban takeover, ongoing violence by a number of governments against their own people, and the rise of populist or nationalist movements, it should have dawned on anyone what most significantly prevents development:

• A self-serving, uncaring, incompetent, corrupt or despotic governing elite.
• A badly run, misinformed, non-inclusive or misguided political process.

No doubt, history is full of abusive governments which do not have the welfare of their people on their mind [l].

UNICEF must acknowledge that it is normal for any society to have disagreements, about the financing of health care, how to reduce unemployment, immigration policies, the inclusion of ethnic minorities, or how to provide electricity to the poor [m]. Leaving no child behind implies costs for the national budget, to which the majority has to agree. The political process is about finding a compromise between the diverse ideas and different preferences of people. Ideally, a lively public discourse helps that all voices are heard. UNICEF can enrich the public debate pointing at the universally agreed values and conventions, data, science and evidence, and side with the excluded and marginalized.

UNICEF needs to internalize that government provision of services is a matter of choice and that development and societal problem solving is a political process. Staff must be able to identify the forces that work for a solution for children or against it. The absence of political will must not be deplored, but analysed [n].

• UNICEF must transform and enable its workforce to understand and describe the political context, both in terms of overall governance of the host country and in relation to specific child deprivations, as the most important determinant for change.

A few online courses in political economy for selected staff will not do the trick. It requires a shift in the organizational mindset, and a new approach to analysing the causes of underdevelopment.

2. UNICEF Needs to Have an Opinion

According to latest UNICEF guidance, the Situation Analysis of Children is prepared by country offices as a consensus document, together with government. Exclusion must not be analysed as a result of discriminatory practices; any so-called ‘sensitive’ issue cannot be mentioned.

I never saw a UNICEF document analysing the amount of political will. I do not even want to imagine a joint UNICEF-Taliban analysis.

Muzzled by UN reform, CPDs show a disturbing lack of honesty and insight into the causations of why a country is making progress or not. The adequacy of government efforts to address specific child deprivations is never appraised, though it is the most important determinant for progress and for a decision about the type and amount of any needed assistance.

While current guidance has it that government commitment could be evidenced through accession to a convention or published policy, it must meanwhile have crossed every practitioner’s mind that anyone can declare a priority without making it one. Lip service has been paid a hundred times, when governments declared child nutrition to be priority, then adopted a nutrition policy written by UNICEF, which – with UNICEF help - was followed by a nutrition strategy and eventually ended with a nutrition action plan drafted by UNICEF, for which national budget allocations were never found. This is a colossal waste of time and resources, and a cover-up of the lack of real commitment.

UNICEF experts must neither be taken for a ride, nor asked to betray their convictions. A dishonest analysis creates more damage than good, and is likely to give legitimacy to inept or shambolic regimes. Instead, UNICEF should candidly assess the national effort in respect of its seriousness, consistency and sustainability, such as the preparation of relevant laws, allocating budgets and incurring expenditure for the cause, holding consultations with stakeholders and encouraging a lively public discourse about the issue.

I now can see the worried faces of many UNICEF staff. Do not worry. The Committee on the Rights of the Child prepares good analyses all the time. Its observations and reports are a good starting point.

• UNICEF must be ready, in terms of analytical capability and outspokenness, to candidly assess a government’s willingness and disposition to address specific children’s issues.
• This opinion should be made available and referred to in relevant communications.

3. A Real Strategy

A strategy is akin to a business plan; it is meant to provide directions and focus, and bundle energies for the greatest possible effect. It explains how the organization will position itself, allocate its resources, transform its workforce, improve its operations and measure its own performance. UNICEF’s current strategic plan is not strategic, and no significant decision seems to have been taken [o].

Given the many organizations, institutions, movements, donors, think tanks and experts engaged in finding and promoting development solutions, the UNICEF strategy must be clear about the unique, inherent characteristic that sets UNICEF apart from the rest. There is no point in UNICEF trying to construct schools, teaching nurses, or demonstrating the value of a latrine. These are important contributions, but many NGOs, institutions or companies – often contracted by UNICEF - deliver them more effectively and efficiently [p]. One could discuss whether UNICEF is mainly a high-priced money handler who coordinates and distributes money [q].

The distinguishing feature – and value proposition – of UNICEF is being an agency of the United Nations system. It implies access to governments, access to data, being grounded in conventions and internationally agreed standards, and authority to pass judgements based on global experience. The strategy must explain how UNICEF will leverage its authority. Most important appears to be the fostering of the political consensus for a country’s own investments in the welfare of its children.

The allocation of resources to country programmes should depend on the disposition and demonstrated readiness of a country to pursue necessary reforms, as appraised by UNICEF. Criteria should be described in the strategy, and adjusted in light of experience. Candid and thoughtful assessments are likely to increase the confidence of donors to entrust their money to UNICEF.

The strategy must unambiguously differentiate between the results to be achieved by countries, and the role that UNICEF plays in helping countries to achieve them. UNICEF’s own performance measurement should centre around the concept of value for money, inviting questions such as: What difference did the UNICEF presence and so many million dollars make in the country?

A selection of ten measurable goals (as proposed in the business model) seems to be appropriate to guarantee focus, given that some may not be relevant for certain countries. As a rolling plan, replacing one goal out of ten each year, the strategy allows a gradual shift in response to national progress, emerging priorities and global situations. It also avoids the typical organizational upheaval once every 5 years when 170 pages of text and endless tables with hundreds of indicators have to be crafted, without saying anything new [r].

At the global level, UNICEF provides an overview and highlights of past year’s progress on each of the goals of its strategy, and suggests to substitute one existing goal with another one. The report should allow the executive board to judge whether support provided by UNICEF was worth it, in light of progress made by the countries. The Executive Board would have something meaningful to review, discuss and approve.

With such or similar strategy, the administrative clutter could be dramatically cut. UNICEF staff can concentrate on the substance, and plan and report back on their tactical moves to quicken the national response. Global annual reports become focused and provide a snapshot of overall progress for the ten strategic goals.

As with any strategy, it will invite debate and dissent. There will be those who argue for their own priority to be added to the pile. Some will contend that it is not fair to allow people to suffer first from a badly managed government and then from the absence of aid. A strategy, by definition, cannot be a plan where anything goes.

For humanitarian situations, UNICEF will assume the role of coordinator of aid and logistics, channelling funding to – often local – organizations that work on the ground.

• The UNICEF Strategy must position UNICEF within the larger development and humanitarian community, and build on UNICEF’s unique characteristics.
• The Strategy must bundle organizational energies and resources. It should guide organizational improvement measures.
• The Strategy describes UNICEF own performance measurement, with a focus on the value and significance of UNICEF support considering progress made by countries (and globally) towards selected goals.
• The disposition of a country vis-à-vis the wellbeing of children should be a consideration when offering material financial and technical assistance.

4. Repurpose the CPD

Country-led development happens when a governmens invests a country’s resources into the future of its children. It does not mean, as the so-called UN reform wants us to believe, that a government can demand aid for whatever it deems fit or tell UN agencies what to do.

The CPD should become what it originally was intended to be: an agreement between a government and UNICEF.

The CPD should include a section by government, outlining how it has begun to pursue one or more goals relevant to the UNICEF strategy, and current government’s plans and commitments to move forward. UNICEF would provide its own assessment of the adequacy of government’s efforts including relevant budgets, popular support or objections, and possible bottlenecks or risks. The observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child are key and should be emulated.

This is followed by the type and amount of assistance UNICEF will offer. The monitoring section of the CPD describes how UNICEF will assess whether the government reform effort remains on course, and what type of lesson UNICEF can distil for sharing with countries in similar situations.

Where, in UNICEF’s opinion, government has not shown sufficient efforts of its own, goals will not be included in the CPD. The UNICEF resident team can advise what Government has to do to avail of UNICEF financial or significant technical support.

• The CPD should be turned into an agreement to pursue indicated reforms outlining the (i) course of action and investments by government and (ii) the financial and technical support by UNICEF, based on UNICEF assessment of the adequacy of government’s efforts.

Board review of individual CPDs would not be required. The CPDs are a consequence of the rolling Strategic Plan, for which UNICEF provides an annual update for decision.

5. Financing the Universal Presence

UNICEF maintains a permanent presence of a representative and one or two analysts (such as a data expert/ statistician and a political analyst) in all programme countries. They constitute the core team. They continue to screen the situation of a country in relation to the goals of the strategic plan, collect data on the situation of children, analyse political trends in favour or against children’s rights, advocate as necessary, identify emerging issues and assist in CPD preparation. They are the child rights lobbyists.

A core team may also be established in high income countries that wield financial or political influence. Its role is to influence the country’s foreign and aid policies, as well as policies that may have a direct effect on the wellbeing of children in other countries - such as harmful tourism, ethical supply chain, cybercrime or others. National Committees (Natcoms) continue to raise private sector resources and remain in charge of general advocacy with the public. Natcom experts are integrated into the regional and global UNICEF professional network. Natcoms and core teams belong to the same office and identity [s].

The core teams represent the core function of UNICEF, and should be financed by core resources. They may require a small budget for data work, surveys, research, and consultations.

For many donors, the universal presence may better explain the need for non-earmarked resources than a woolly and utterly unconvincing call for flexible resources. For 150 countries, a global budget of 300 million per year should be sufficient. This universal presence may cost less than 5 per cent of UNICEF’s revenue.

Given the sharper organizational focus of UNICEF, HQ offices will be allowed to right-size. Many so-called headquarter functions can be exercised from the comfort and excitement of country offices.

Countries with large Other Resource allocations, including failed states, do not require Regular Resources for their operations. Since the traditional resource allocation formula no longer applies (see section 3), sufficient Regular Resources should be available for all country-based core teams and HQ.

• UNICEF should establish a universal presence through core teams consisting of a representative, a data specialist and a political analyst.

6. No More Twaddle, Please

I am aware that each business group – including the UN development community - has its own code to communicate quickly and efficiently. But I remain stunned by the ignorance by which UNICEF publishes documents, such as those read by the Executive Board or those put online for public viewing, that rattle off meaningless empty rhetoric. Everyone knows that endless blather originates from a combination of pompousness and having nothing important to say [t].

To be fair, UNICEF fundraising appeals or emotional interest stories are generally very good. But as soon as one seeks more information in annual reports or discussions of strategy, one ends up with more questions than answers. Going into technical documentation – such as board papers – one sometimes may begin to worry about the sanity of the author. If a writer insists over and again that UNICEF will be more evidence-based or gender-aware than ever before, he simply insults the intelligence of its readers and demonstrate that they have lost touch with the real world [u]. When a CPD says that the proposed programme is risk informed without mentioning a single risk, one can tell that the office has no idea what it is talking about [v].

Phrase mongering is worse in internal guidance documents. Low-grade guidance is demotivating and breeds carelessness. Country office  annual reports are topping it all. I often wonder where the professional pride has gone [w].

I am not talking about spoken English, nor do I refer to English Grammar or the choice of vocabulary. These can be easily fixed with little effort. I still recommend to anyone to work on their writings. It is not as difficult as you may think. But what matters is the clarity of thought, the logic of an argument, the analysis of a situation, and the importance of an action or result.

Many reports, documents and guidance are simply superfluous. We need reports that plausibly explain the contribution that UNICEF makes to the wellbeing of children [d], [x],

• UNICEF should cease meaningless phrase-mongering and the circulation of documents and texts that do not add value.
• UNICEF should embrace a culture where platitudes and repetitive ramblings are not tolerated

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Epilogue: If UNICEF wants to lead, UNICEF must move against the flow. You may think that the above propositions are not feasible or will make no difference. You may hold that UNICEF must oblige with current UN reform dogma. You may argue that the Executive Board will never agree, that the Nordics won’t like it, nor the African or Asian delegations. So far, the Board seems to agree to anything that UNICEF is proposing. And if you don’t like my approach, tell me yours.

Also recommended: Rethinking UNICEF (2020), and the Universal Mandate (2020)

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Detlef can be contacted via detlefpalm55@gmail.com 

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