XUNICEF News and Views

Marco’s funeral took place on Wednesday 19 July in Saanen, a small village in the Swiss Alps The Saanen church, from the 17th century, was full of family members and friends. The ceremony was jointly presided by a Swiss Protestant minister and a Catholic priest from Cameroon. The ecumenical mass was celebrated in English, French, German and Latin, as per Marco's request. It well reflected Marco’s values and life as a “citoyen du monde”. Marco’s daughter, her husband and several friends took the floor to express their love and friendship. His son-in-law read a text from Marco’s book (under soldier) and mentioned that Marco considered his work for Unicef as his greatest achievement and especially the funds he raised for Unicef immunization programme. A quintet played Vivaldi to remind the audience that Marco was born in Venice. At the end of the ceremony, most of the participants accompanied the family to the nearby church cemetery where Marco’s ashes were buried next to Angelika. ...

With many thanks to Nathalie Vianello-Chiodo, Marco's daughter, here is Marco's memorial card.

Marco Vianello Chiodo was born in what in Italy is called " a good family".But instead of taking lucrative jobs that his family connections offered hm in the private sector. he decided to become a diplomat, to serve the cause of better international relations. He had many important posts, Strasbourg, Vienna, ( where he met and married the love of his life, Angelica, Grenoble ( where his daughter Nathalie was born), Brussels Caracas, Frankfurt, Barcelona, Colombo, and then he come to Rome, to work in the new Department of International Cooperation. It was a golden moment for the Italian ODA. A campaign from the Italian Radical Party obtained a resolution from the Parliament, that obliged the government to rallocate 1% of the GNP. A new Department was created in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Marco joined that new branch. From all sides. the political parties, the private sector, ngos tried to get the money now available. Marco distinguished himself with his inborn stric...

Marco visiting Pisa during the Viareggio Reunion 2009 I have known Marco since the first day I joined UNICEF in 1985. I have had the opportunity to work with him when he was the director of PFO and I was the Comptroller and when we were both Deputy Executive Directors. Marco and I had many interesting discussions over the years. We could strongly agree and strongly disagree but we always respected each others views and continued to be good friends.  After he retired and later I retired, we continued to have regular contacts via email and I-messages. One day some years ago, he told me that as a relatively young man, he worked as the 1st secretary at the Italian Embassy in Venezuela which also covered Trinidad and Tobago and he visited the islands regularly. He told me about people he had met which had made an impression on him. Luck would have it that I knew one of the people he mentioned and I was able to get them in touch with each other via email. It was only a few months ago, wh...

Yes, a tall UNICEF giant Marco Vianello Chiodo has left us. What an emotional shock and a sad news not only to his daughter Nathalie and his family but to all of us his former UNICEF friends and colleagues. I personally did not have the privilege to work with Marco as during all my UNICEF years I never worked at Headquarters. I had however the opportunity during missions at Headquarters to meet with him and participated in meetings which he also attended. We met also during his field visits in regions and countries where I was posted. Marco was the architect of the Italian Government contribution of US 100 million to the Universal Child immunisation programme. I recalled that I was in Rome attending the annual meeting of the International Development Society (IDS). At the request of Mr. Grant who also was participating in the meeting I met with Marco to review the draft agreement covering this donation. In that meeting I expressed disagreement of some clauses that were not in line wit...

  On July 19 last year, I visited Marco in his villa in Cetona, a small village tucked in the lower Tuscany hillside. We had the most pleasurable time together swimming in his pool and talking about the times when we were together in UNICEF.  Two episodes come to my mind.  I was working in Zanzibar archipelago as the head of an Italian medical team and in charge of a children vaccination programme, EPI or Expanded Programme of Immunisation, in the islands when, towards the end of my four years contract, I was asked to meet in Rome Ambassador Claudio Moreno who at that time was the Chef de Cabinet of  Minister Francesco Forte, the head of the FAI, Fondo Aiuti Italiano. I knew Ambassador Moreno from my time in Mozambique where he was the Italian top diplomat there. I went to his office at the Foreign Ministry to find that the Ambassador was not alone. A towering two meter plus, elegant, Italian diplomat was looking down at me with smiling inquisitive eyes, trying to ga...

Our favourite Venetian is in a Gondola in the Grand Canal leading to Heaven ! MVC, as we called him in  UNICEF, was partly or wholly responsible for ; obtaining $100 million from the Government of Italy to help children, especially in Africa, making Italy an important partner to UNICEF in its global mission, getting the Innocenti Centre in Florence to become an outpost of UNICEF for child related research, the agreement of the Govt of Italy to host the memorable 1984 Executive Board meeting in Rome, encouraging the recruitment of more Italians as UNICEF staff thus improving its personnel diversity, making the Senior Staff Review meetings more pleasant with his colorful  "Doodles", speaking his mind on issues, big and small, exchanging with colleagues on limericks that he liked, writing his Memoirs and sharing copies (both Italian and English) with us, having a UNICEF greeting card printed with one of his Doodles, and finally, helping me to obtain the Italian nationality ! The...

Editor's Note: Marco Vianello Chiodo was a man of many talents.  Among those talents was his ability to write.  The best known of his books was "Under-Soldier" in English and "Sottosoldato" in Italian.  In chapter 1 of Under-Soldier, Marco introduced himself and tells of his early years.  In addition to his books, Marco contributed two articles to News & Views - Benvenuta UNICEF! - How the UNICEF Florence Center Came to Be and  The story behind the Italian Funding of UCI .   Below the Amazon summary of Under-Soldier we reproduce Chapter 1 - "The Beginning" letting Marco describe those early years in his own words.  Summary - The book's title is taken from the rank that the author had at age seven when his playmates - all older than him - were kings, presidents and generals, and found that the rank of soldier was still too high for him. Rather than a reason for humiliation and consequent insecurity, this demotion has trained the author since...

From Nathalie Vianello-Chiodo Thank you very much for the lovely and touching words. They bring tears to my eyes. Dad was indeed a very special man. I am sure he would be very touched and happy to be remembered by the big Unicef family that he loved so deeply and brought him many joys. He always said that it was the most beautiful and rewarding job he ever had. Dad passed away on the 9th of July after a brief illness. He was diagnosed mid May with a malignant and very aggressive bile duct tumor. He passed away very peacefully 7 weeks later in his beloved house in Saanen surrounded by his loved ones. He ended his beautiful and very fulfilling life very gracefully and fully alert. A gentleman till the end. With my kindest regards, Nathalie Note : Funeral is now confirmed for Wednesday, 19 July at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Saanen (Gstaad) Switzerland. From Mehr Khan Williams It is with great sadness that I learned of Marco’s death yesterday.  Marco was my boss for many years and after h...

The FAI, the Italian Assistance Fund, was created in 1985 for the duration of two years with a capital of 2,000 billion lire. The FAI was headed by the Socialist economist and former Finance Minister Francesco Forte. His was to adopt development initiatives in some thirty countries chosen among those most in need and politically closest to Italy, and Parliament had ordered, on the initiative of the Italian Communist Party, to work in particular for women and children. I decided to offer Francesco Forte a UNICEF partnership. I explained that with a mandate of two years only he would not have the time to create a structure that knew what to do about women and children, that he could not afford to do nothing, and that UNICEF could do things with him, prepared by mutual agreement and of course giving FAI maximum visibility. I told him about the intention of the U.N. Secretary-General to launch the campaign for universal child immunization by 1990. If he decided to support it while it was s...

UNICEF was founded in late 1946 as the "daughter" of UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency, established to help European countries that had lost the war, or had been victims of it, to get back on their feet after the disasters of the conflict. In 1947 it was decided that UNRRA had finished its mandate, but that the care for children should continue under the auspices of UNICEF, which continued to work in Europe until the countries had recovered. UNRRA had a significant capital of properties and money, and when it was decided to put an end to its activities in Italy everything came under the authority of an International Affairs Administration, headed by Senator Lodovico Montini, brother of the future Pope Paul VI, under the auspices of the Italian Ministry of Interior. Montini and the Prefect Saint-Just di Teulada, who became the first president of the Italian Committee for UNICEF, could have used the funds to finance childhood programs in Italy, but chos...