UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund)

Global Governance That Works

Richard Jolly

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317747734
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

This book provides an in-depth analysis of UNICEF's development and operations, whilst exploring the significance of UNICEF's achievements and the reasons behind them.

UNICEF is one of the best known organizations of the United Nations system and the oldest of the UN's development funds. It is also the part of the UN which consistently receives support from all countries round the world, including the United States. This book brings out the wider reasons for UNICEF's success and popularity, setting them in the context of UNICEF's evolution since 1946 and drawing lessons for other international organizations. The book argues that, despite its problems, international action for children, built substantially on non-economic foundations, is not only possible, but can be highly successful in mobilizing support, producing results and making a difference to the lives of millions of children.

This will be of great interest to all scholars of international organisations, development, human rights and the United Nations system.

1 The vision of two early giants, 1946–60

• The birth of UNICEF

• The attempt to close down the organization

• Should UNICEF have been continued?

• Collaboration but not integration

• Conclusions

UNICEF was created soon after the end of World War II with the title of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. This expressed the founding objective of the organization, which was to provide emergency relief through finance and support for children who were victims of the war. By this was meant the children of Germany, France, and other war-torn countries of Europe, but also of Japan and China. Poland, Greece, and Italy were also among the main beneficiary countries.¹

In this concern with the human tragedies of war, UNICEF was following in well-trodden steps. Within the UN, UNICEF was taking over from the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which had been set up in 1943 and ran until the end of 1946. UNRRAs purpose was to help war-devastated countries of Europe and Asia, and in 1944–46 it had distributed nearly US$4.5 billion in support, employing some 15,000 international and 35,000 local staff. Funding for UNRRA was provided mostly by the United States.

However, it became clear that UNRRA was not being successful at pacifying tensions between Eastern and Western European countries. Being the largest donor, the United States also came in for most of the blame for mismanagement and waste. Despite its initial successes, UNRRAs days rapidly became numbered with its failure to be perceived as acting in a non-political manner. However, the crisis was far from over and the stage was thus set for a new agency, UNICEF, to be created and to take over those parts of UNRRA’s functions related to children.

The birth of UNICEF

The birth of UNICEF on 11 December 1946 was far from a foregone conclusion. It owes much to leadership from three remarkable and powerful individuals: Herbert Hoover, the former American president; Maurice Pate, an American businessman who later was appointed as UNICEF’s first executive director (see Box 1.2); and Ludwik Rajchman, a persistent and irrepressible advocate for global health (see Box 1.1). Hoover, a Republican, had been asked by President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, to lead an advisory mission in order to assess the needs in the war-torn countries, drawing on the former’s immense experience feeding the hungry during and after World War I. Although 73 years old, Hoover embarked on a 50,000-mile world tour of 38 countries in an un-pressurized aircraft, completing the mission in 82 days. He gave speeches everywhere, including to the newly founded Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), but saved his most memorable lines for an address to the American people broadcast from Chicago:

Of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the one named War has gone. But Famine, Pestilence and Death are still charging over the world. Hunger is a silent visitor who comes like a shadow. He sits beside every anxious mother three times a day. He brings not alone suffering and sorrow, but fear and terror. He carries disorder and the paralysis of government. He is more destructive than armies; not only in human life, but in morale. All of the values of right living melt before his invasion and every gain of civilization crumbles. But we can save these people from the worst—if we will.²

UNICEF did not stand alone in its concerns for children. International support for children had much deeper and longer roots—although most of these were of the twentieth century, not before. The Save the Children Fund (SCF) was launched in 1919, in the aftermath of World War I. The inspiration came from the experiences of a pioneering British woman, Eglantyne Jebb, who in 1913 had gone to the Balkans to administer help and supplies on behalf of a private charity, the Macedonian Relief Fund. The suffering—“the shivering” in her phrase—of so many abandoned and distressed children awakened in her a determination to establish some more permanent response. While the guns were firing and the war continued, any such relief was made virtually impossible by the jingoism of the press, preoccupied with the troops and ignoring the sufferings of civilians. As the guns went silent, however, Jebb seized the opportunity, created the SCF and less than a year later formed the Save the Children International Union in Geneva.³

It took a few months for the new organization, UNICEF, to get organized, but by January 1947, Maurice Pate, who had been appointed executive director, had set up an office in Washington. Box 1.2 gives more background on this remarkable man and his leadership, but here let us note that within a few months, he had assembled his core team, built the beginnings of a network in Europe, recruited many staff (including many from UNRRA and the former League of Nations), and had operations underway. Within eight months, programs had been approved by the new UNICEF board for support in Albania, Austria, China, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Yugoslavia (and later Bulgaria)—an indication of the geographical spread of the needs of the time.

UNICEF’s early programs focused on the provision of powdered milk and the establishment of feeding programs. By mid-1948, the new organization was providing rations for 4.5 million children to eat a daily meal in 30,000 locations in 12 countries.⁴ Soon after, the rehabilitation of local dairies was added to its objectives, and UNICEF provided expertise and equipment for sterilizing and pasteurizing milk as well as for turning surpluses into powdered form. It also provided equipment and supplies for rural health centers, units for maternal and child health services, and training for child care personnel.⁵

In addition to nutritional needs, UNICEF soon responded to the health needs of mothers and children, including vaccination against typhus and TB, but also penicillin against syphilis. It had also taken over from UNRRA in supplying vehicles, sprayers, and insecticides for the control of malaria, typhus, and other vector-borne diseases. This, too, rapidly expanded and by mid-1951, some 30 million people had been tested and 14 million vaccinated, making this the largest “coordinated onslaught against communicable disease” that the world had ever seen.⁶

UNICEF also expanded geographically. In April 1948, it sent two distinguished public health experts on a three-month mission to assess the situation in 13 countries and territories in Asia, including Burma, Ceylon, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore. Given the population of 450 million children in these areas, it was not obvious what UNICEF could usefully do, but a variety of health and nutritional needs and lists of assistance were identified. As Maggie Black summarizes, “they were pinpricks of assistance compared to the scale of the problems. But they were useful pinpricks.”⁷

UNICEF then moved into Latin America. Initially UNICEF had concentrated on Europe, then on Asia, but with some fundraising efforts in Latin America.⁸ However, this effort soon led to complaints. Board members from the latter region pointed out that infant mortality rates in their countries were nearly as high as those in Asia and asked for support. Soon experts were dispatched to assess the situation and in 1949 the UNICEF board allocated $2 million for projects in that region. Although disease control against malaria, TB, yaws, and syphilis were the largest items, support also covered school feeding programs, milk conservation, and scholarships in social pediatrics. Halfdan Mahler, much later to become director-general of the WHO, was employed as one of the field staff members of UNICEF. A UNICEF office was established in September 1949 in Guatemala City, where Nevin Scrimshaw, then a new graduate in nutrition, and later one of the world’s distinguished nutritionists, had established the Institute of Nutrition for Central America and Panama (INCAP).

The attempt to close down the organization

By 1950, the post-war emergency in Europe was nearly over and UNICEF offices were closing down. The question was raised about terminating all UNICEF operations. Notwithstanding having already embarked on programs for supporting health in Asia and Latin America, there were strong feelings on UNICEF’s board that the organization should not continue. This was the outspoken position of the United States and also of Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, as well as South Africa and China. The main donors were also supported very strongly by the four permanent specialized agencies of the UN—the International Labour Organization (ILO), FAO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and vociferously by WHO—all arguing that except for emergency relief, all of UNICEF’s activities were already covered by their respective agencies or by some other part of the UN. As Yves Beigbeder explains, “the four agencies wanted to replace UNICEF by a subsidiary intergovernmental body within the UN proper, a program-making and coordinating committee consisting of the executive heads of the UN and agencies concerned, and an ‘administrative unit’ to direct the campaign for ‘contributions and other functions.’ UNICEF was in fact to be liquidated as an autonomous, separate agency.”⁹

Box 1.1 Ludwik Rajchman, UNICEF founder and first chairman of the board

Ludwik Rajchman, more than any other individual, was the founder of UNICEF. He had the vision of creating UNICEF from the remnants of the UNRRA in 1946, and persuaded the UN secretary-general to appoint Maurice Pate as UNICEF’s first executive director. Rajchman was the inspiration behind many of UNICEF’s early initiatives, including developing BCG (antituberculosis) vaccination programs and expanding them into Africa, Lati...