UNICEF India@75: Why am I filled with pride?: Pavitra Mohan

This article by Pavitra Mohan appeared on linkedin and was shared with us by Michel Saint-Lot.

UNICEF India recently celebrated 75 years of its existence. Having spent many of my productive years in the organization, I was filled with a quiet pride, and I recounted reasons for my pride.

I remembered a specific event towards the ends of my time in UNICEF India, where we had worked with National Institute of Medical Statistics to identify levels, trends and determinants of infant mortality in India. One of the findings of the study was that India will fall short of achieving MDGs. On the day previous to releasing the report, someone from the ministry called up our representative, questioning these findings. When the representative asked me, I told him that the study is pretty rigorous and we have conducted this with reputed statisticians. He never asked me another question and next day we released the report. And many other times when we had to speak uncomfortable truth, and we never shied away. “We should be like a fly on the skin,” a senior colleague used to tell me.

Another thing that I remember and cherish is that UNICEF is one of the most decentralized organization. At national and state level, we were reasonably free to take decisions and plan projects, as long as they were for improving lives of children and women. “The money that you are allocated in your program is for you to plan and manage as per the state’s needs”, a senior colleague told me when I had just joined.

Equity was reasonably mainstreamed in all of our action, plans and dreams. We were often known and respected not much for funds that we could bring to the table (very small as they were), but for our experience, commitment and ability to dirty our hands. I recollected some of the specific initiatives that I am really proud of, that UNICEF contributed to India as a nation.

 

• In the newly independent India, when India was dependent on importing penicillin, the only antibiotic available in those days. UNICEF India supported government of India in setting up the first Penicillin plant in Pimpri. Can one imagine what that would have meant for healthcare in those days?

UNICEF India also contributed significantly to funding the two big milk cooperatives, Amul and Aarey, at the times when India was embarking on the ambitious white revolution. Rest is, as they say history, and we as a country have been self-sufficient in milk availability since then. That availability is still not equitable, many children from the poorest households still do not receive milk, but that is another story.

In the seventies and eighties, vaccine preventable diseases were responsible for large numbers of deaths and disability among children, despite availability of vaccines to prevent them.

• UNICEF had built a strong global expertise on procuring, storing, transporting and administering childhood vaccines to large populations. UNICEF India used that global expertise to help Government of India to set up the largest childhood vaccination program in the world.

UNICEF Health Officers (many of whom were my senior colleagues - Dr Suresh Joshi, Dr Satish Kumar, Dr Prakash Gurnani. Dr Yogendra, Dr K Suresh, Dr Antony and more), helped the national and state governments to establish the large network of cold chain points, conducted training programs for their government counterparts and monitored the program implementation. Just a bunch of 8-10 officers, and they traversed the length and breadth of the country to undertake this momentous task. Besides, a strong team of communications team joined hands with some of the brightest minds in advertising to launch a behaviour change campaign. One of those minds was DK Bose, whom I later became friends with.

In the sixties, following massive drought in Bihar and UP, UNICEF brought drilling rigs to get clean potable water, a support which later expanded to become the National Rural Drinking Water Mission. The ubiquitous hand-pumps that you see across the rural India, and that are the lifelines of rural families had their origin in labour and hard work of many of our senior UNICEF Colleagues.

• The hand-pump “revolution” significantly expanded access to clean water to millions of families. Its impact on health, women’s drudgery and sanitation is incalculable.

One of the great examples of being responsive to local needs and not driven by a global agenda, is the Guineaworm eradication program in Rajasthan. Traditionally, stepwells have been a significant source of water in South Rajasthan. To draw water, people would need to walk down the steps into water. It was then that the guineaworms dwelling in water would enter the human body through skin. In the nineties, guineaworm disease had become a significant public health problem in Rajasthan. UNICEF set up an office in Udaipur city, and worked closely with SWACH, a government set non-government organization to address this scourge.

• This program that led to elimination of guineaworm over next decade, is one of the most successful public health programs that combined engineering, behavior change, community participation and treatment.

Can you imagine that in the nineties, the program engaged government Ayurveda doctors to remove the guinea-worms from affected people, building on their skills? Many of my senior colleagues, Dr Sanjiv Kumar, Tejinder Sandhu and others were closely involved with the program and I am of course proud of what it achieved.

The same team of UNICEF Health Officers that led the setting up of UIP across the country was then entrusted with using the experiences to expand the package of services from immunization to maternal and child health, in what was called the Child Survival and Safe Motherhood program, one of the neatest package of interventions. The CSSM led to Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) Program, first and second phase, where UNICEF contributed significantly to maternal, newborn and child health interventions across the states.

UNICEF contribution to emergencies has been immense. In the super cyclone of Orissa in the late nineties, UNICEF led the joint UN response, an effort that is fondly remembered even now. Dr Ramani Atkuri, who led the response became a friend for life. Another emergency where UNICEF played a huge role in response, recovery and rehabilitation was Tsunami that hit the shores of Tamilnadu and Andaman Nicobar Islands.

I personally participated in the initial phase, reaching Nancowry islands within 2 weeks, immunizing all children for measles and chlorinating all the wells. Many other colleagues contributed before and after. In Rajasthan, UNICEF also responded to the floods that hit the desert district of Barmer, and UNICEF brought its enormous experience to respond to the crisis.

• I am also extremely proud of the fact that UNICEF supported women’s development project (WDP), in Rajasthan which was a program for women empowerment much ahead of its times. Saathins, the women who empowered women became a strong cadre of women who fought many social evils and systemic failure that affected lives of women.

In the field of school education, UNICEF supported the innovative initiatives to reach the most underprivileged children across the country – from Bihar to Rajasthan through a set of dedicated education officers.

I am sure I am missing many, many other initiatives that influenced lives of millions of children. With hard work, technical expertise and with the best interests of children at heart.

• As an ex staff member, I have nothing but satisfaction and pride, and as a citizen of India, I am grateful.

And I hope that UNICEF in India would continue to put best interests of children, especially the most marginalized, above everything else, and use all its resources and expertise to make this world a fairer place for them.