Between two stools: by Ken Gibbs

Having been recruited by USAID to work in Albania during the Kosovo Crisis put me in an interesting position. 

UNICEF had agreed with USAID that if USAID paid my consultant’s fees, then UNICEF would provide me with office space in Tirana, computer connectivity, and all reasonable transport needs.  Naturally, UNICEF sought to get my services for all and any of their WASH programme needs but as with any loose agreement, the limits were frequently blurred.

 Having worked for 16 years as a staff member for UNICEF, I was seen as probably knowing the basics of what UNICEF did, but as USAID was paying the bills, it was a tight-rope act to keep both UNICEF and USAID happy.  USAID sought to find where the Kosovars were living and what specific needs they had after their flight from Kosovo and UNICEF wanted my skills for any WASH activity that was foisted on Albania that UNICEF wished to support.

There was one time when the UNICEF office felt it imperative that I attend a specific UNICEF workshop which, realistically, stopped me from gathering essential data, but as I wouldn’t have unrestricted transport for the duration of the workshop, I attended.  A few comments about the utility of the proceedings, follow:

“We had a ‘strategy’ meeting in an hotel high above Tirana where we could see the whole city laid out below us, and after a day of rain, the air was clear as crystal.  To get to this place – called Chateau Linza – one has to pass a really imposing building with Roman statues on the front gables, and as I was a little curious, I asked what it was.  It used to be, according to my informant, the Hollywood of Albania where they made – regularly – 14 films per year.  Seems to fit well with the 5-year plans that used to be, but it is now a little weather worn and the gate is firmly closed and locked, and the blackberries are growing through the bars.  No longer do good little growing-up-Communists have to sit for hours in front of the TV absorbing what the authorities feel is what they need to, to keep the system going.

“The meeting itself ?  Well, the first day was all UNICEF staff and indoctrination about the Rights of the Child, delivered in most part by a Xxxxxx who was employed to write the reference text on the subject and who, when asked a question the answer to which is, ‘Yes’, would prattle on for ten minutes.  No.  Not ten minutes, but fifteen.  Used good UN jargon and lost me in the first twenty seconds.

“Luckily, I was sitting next to Christian Clark who used to earn his keep as a cartoonist and who can still produce the most acerbic wit with excellent, simple cartoons.  Difficult for me sometimes to keep a straight face; and I probably didn’t help things by feeding suggestions to him for his cartoons.  Happily, his wife is shortly to produce their first-born (a son, so I am told), and he is hoping to become a house husband as she also works for the UN.  That way, he can continue producing and selling his cartoons but will not have to depend on the income.  This is the emancipation of women, so I am told.  More like the freedom of men !

“The family will not believe this.  I actually went swimming at Chateau Linza.  True, I assure you !  Incredible, yes !  Unexpected, absolutely !  I stayed in for at least 30 minutes and swam about ten lengths; and I am not sick, I can confirm.  Even more surprising is that I didn’t actually bring a swimming costume to Albania so had to buy one which required a very long walk.  I finally found one shop selling the wretched things and chose one.  I didn’t bargain.  It cost $4 only, so when I went into the water, I was fully expecting it to drop off me, or for the colours to run.  No, I came out well clad and didn’t qualify for the wet-tee-shorts competition either; and the colours are substantially as they were when I bought it.  Very fetching it is, too.  Florence, here we come.

“The second workshop-day rather more confused.  Complete with NGOs who were supposed to make creative suggestions for UNICEF which could (positively) influence the strategy being adopted for the next UNICEF planning cycle.  NGOs have a certain constituency (just like UNICEF), and theirs doesn’t always overlap with what UNICEF wants them to do.  Three or four of them were – I have to admit – rather more coherent than most of the UNICEF speakers, and as UNICEF is inclining more and more to preaching and less and less to demonstrating concepts by actually doing things (or paying others to do things), I am not sure that we actually kept their interest.  Time will tell.

“UNICEF invited someone (nameless, I regret, since he was introduced as Mr Mmmmnnttmmccxxll) who felt that he had to interrupt the proceedings to make his contribution – he was far too important to wait for others, and had not been briefed at all – to suggest that the only way in which Child Rights could be observed in Albania is for all kids to have equal access to information about their rights - by UNICEF creating a whole network of cyber-cafés for kids to use.  I’m not sure that all (poor) kids are literate.  The fact that kids who live in remote areas do not even have any electricity didn’t seem to influence his determination; and the fact that one needs the price of a coffee to enter a cyber-café also didn’t seem to make him think again, even though the poorest kids are automatically excluded.  Where does UNICEF find these people, I wonder ?”

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ?