Jim Grant – Promoter Extraordinaire: Ken Gibbs

Jim Grant and I shared an entry year to UNICEF which was coincidental but memorable because I attended one of his first speeches to field staff, in Bangladesh, in May, 1980. It was a lot to take in – not solely because he could speak fluent Mandarin and was much admired in China for doing so.

For those of us who are old enough to remember Mr Grant, he came with enormous enthusiasm, humility and an inclination to use acronyms. Who can ever forget his use of GOBI which I originally thought was a desert but which I very soon learned was “Growth Monitoring; Oral Rehydration Therapy; Breast Feeding and Immunisation”. Perhaps an acronym was useful in this case.

I don’t think Mr Grant was ever to be found anywhere in the world without a sachet of UNICEF prepared ORS which he would whip out of a top pocket and wave around to remind us how important it was for the survival of children. Some wag thought that he might slip a condom into that same pocket to embarrass him. . . . . . . . . .and that same wag was astonished when Mr Grant expanded the acronym to become GOBI-FFF. . . . .where the “-FFF” represented the addition of “Female Education; Food Supplements and Family Spacing”.

When we of the field staff had managed to get our heads around this modification, we were quite concerned that Mr Grant was making a pitch to take over UNFPA and, in Bangladesh where size of family was a major issue for the people, we wondered how we would be able to sell the idea to the Planning Commission – never mind the remote possibility of a condom falling out of Mr Grant’s top pocket.

At the time, I was concerned that the desire to have as many children as possible was shared with other groups as well – for instance it was said that Roman Catholics were enjoined by the Pope to continue to populate the world with – well – Catholics. Earlier this year, the present Pope lost patience with a woman who asked him to bless her dog – tetchily he said that pet ownership is not a viable alternative to motherhood. Given that his predecessor, Pope Benedict was known as God’s rottweiler, dogs do seem to have been problematic to some Catholics. Speaking personally, the more people I meet, the more I like my dog.

Giorgia Meloni and Pope Francis attend a conference in Rome on the declining birth rate

What other groups are there in the world seeking to bias demography in their favour ? And this is at a time when scientists are voicing qualms about global population being limited by agricultural productivity and water resources, not to mention global warming which quickly has risen to centre stage.

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Move on a few decades and focus, if you will, on France and the waning popularity of Monsieur Macron, French President, who is driving through an unpopular change in the age at which one is entitled to retire (and thus when one can start claiming one’s pension). Are these issues connected to population growth, agricultural production, water availability and more, one might ask ?

Well - they are; and seriously so.

If people live longer than in previous years, demographically the group of people who have retired is increasing while the group that pays tax to support the retired group, does not increase. The result is that pensions must reduce or tax on tax payers must increase. That is simple arithmetic. Hence the clash in France where the politicians and the religious elite might appear to have opposing views on the matter. Moving back to the point of this article – children and their welfare – it strikes me that we live in an age where we operate an economic system which is not tailored to resolve the conundrum of an aging population and a rising expectation in the standard of living. Arithmetically, these two cannot co-exist except in the short term, so what is likely to be the solution ? A new economic order ?

Recently, in the UK, some of our politicians felt compelled to attempt an innovative alternative economic model which caused an almost immediate near collapse of the UK economy. So, we are paying for their mistake and continuing to live in a troubled economic environment. Perhaps the idea had merit, but the manner of implementation was woefully inadequate.

Does anyone have the key to a new economic system ?

Guess who continues to suffer by being at the bottom of the age pile ?

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