by Nils Kastberg One of the strengths of UNICEF not least during the Jim Grant era, was the significant delegation of authority and freedom of action given by the ED to the UNICEF representatives at country level. However, while this enabled a locally well anchored development effort, it created a very uneven response in emergency situations. Many representatives felt the “silent onset emergencies” resulting from lack of “development” investment in children, health, mothers, caused more deaths of children than in emergencies. This was an argument I met when joining UNICEF as Director of Emergency Programmes in April 1998. A related argument was that UNICEF should not run after high visibility emergencies, like many NGOs and other UN agencies did, but concentrate primarily on child focused development, even structural adjustment with a human – child – face, as many more children died from lack of development than children who died in emergencies. A number of UNICEF staff, even represen...
Written by and for the former staff of UNICEF