XUNICEF News and Views

"What`s the matter with me, I don’t have much to say" Bob Dylan I used to try to change the world. Make it better. Make governments and societies adhere to Human Rights, Women`s Rights, Child Rights. That was at a time, I still thought these Rights were natural laws. It was before Yuval Noah Harari taught me that these rights are just stories very clever human beings have made up and are trying to make everybody believe in. They are like all religions, invented by people with very strong convictions and beliefs. They are not a scientific finding like; - the planet is round or - the law of gravity.

What was your last assignment with UNICEF? Regional Director LACRO, retiring in 2016, but with a comeback as RD a.i. for 16 months in 2019-20. One of my achievements was to chance the name of the office from TACRO to LACRO.

by Bernt Aasen To most people, Panama is associated with the Canal. For those interested in sport, maybe also the boxer Roberto ``Mano de Piedra`` Duran comes to mind. Music-lovers may think of salsa singer-songwriter Ruben Blades, while old people following politics - and young people interested in history - may think of Manuel Noriega. 

By Bernt Aasen We used to say the Country Program (CP) is the heart and soul of UNICEF, but not anymore. Today’s CPs are prepared and governed in ways that have reduced them to an instrument to ensure Country Offices have an approved budget. So, what`s the problem? The organization has no heart and soul anymore. There is no clear purpose. No clear comparative advantage to other UN entities and child-focused, international NGOs. There is no engine-room, or narrative, that keeps the organization together and gives it a distinct identity. There is just more money. Most likely, not because UNICEF is getting better, but, simply, because the world became richer. More money makes the organization bigger, but not necessarily, more relevant. The problem is that UNICEF is about to become just another UN organization, just another UN bureaucracy. So, what`s the solution? Well. It is not HQs’ Strategic Plans. They are too diluted, too inclusive, and too general, because in good democratic tradit...

Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), 2002-2005 Bernt Aasen and Dr. John By Bernt Aasen Introduction OLS had started up in 1989 as a humanitarian program, based on a tripartite agreement between the UN, the Government of Sudan (GoS) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and Army (SPLA). It had a Southern Sector (SS) managed from Nairobi and Lokichogio in Kenya servicing areas controlled by SPLA and a Northern Sector (NS) run from Khartoum, which covered the north and towns in the south controlled by GoS. The Southern Sector was headed by the UNICEF OLS Chief who also was UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for the South. With Amb. Vraalsen, UN Special Envoy, and Dr. John in his meeting room at New Site . By 2002, the Southern Sector was an oiled humanitarian aid machinery which included the UN, predominately UNICEF and WFP, and some 30 international NGOs with more than 600 staff in sub-offices and camps in SPLA controlled territories. No NGOs were involved in the NS and UN agenci...