XUNICEF News and Views

 “I was just thinking….”, said Annelore one day towards the end of last year. Whenever I hear those words, I know there’s something special or problematic coming up; but on that occasion it was an idea that turned out to be very special. “Let’s go to Bali in February and see it properly”, she said. So, instead of having a big party for a landmark birthday and other anniversaries, we decided to go to Bali …and for a month, no less. No point in going all that way for a week’s holiday. We love to travel and had not been on a major trip since before the pandemic. Bali would be extra-special: apart from Annelore’s birthday and our 44th wedding anniversary, it would be approximately 50 years since I first visited Bali as a young UNA-UK volunteer attached to the UNICEF office in Jakarta. We had also stopped over briefly in 1979 on what was a home-leave/belated honeymoon trip. In those days, mass tourism in Bali had not yet developed, even in 1979. In 2013 we had taken part in the XUNICEF ...

What was your last assignment with UNICEF? Representative in the Dominican Republic 2004 to 2008 including - for my sins! – the last 12 months as the Acting Resident Coordinator. After retirement I also served as Acting UNICEF Representative in Honduras and Ecuador.

by Tad Palac Back in early 2004, the DR had been chosen as one of the seven countries for the MDG Needs Assessment Exercise, the initiative involving Prof. Jeffrey Sachs. It was one of the things that persuaded me to apply for the post of Representative in the Dominican Republic (DR). Having worked on UN Reform for several years from within UNICEF and been very involved in many UN Reform and the MDGs matters, I reckoned that the posting would very interesting and challenging: if anything were to happen with the MDGs, then the DR must surely be among the countries where it would happen! Little did I realize that just over two years later it would lead to what ended up being some of the most extraordinary and exciting days of my career in UNICEF. No pre-visit publicity, please ! The SG visited the DR for just two days in August 2006, in response to a long-standing invitation from President Leonel Fernandez. The focus was to be the country’s work on the MDGs which President Fernandez had...