Interview with UNICEF head Ibrahim Jabr

Ibrahim Jabr has been the head of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Ethiopia for the last three years. He tells IRIN of the change in approach by UNICEF and the issues it faces in Ethiopia. QUESTION: What is the most serious issue affecting children in Ethiopia today? ANSWER: I don’t want to repeat what others say. There is a reality called poverty and there is a reality of 20 plus years of Mengistu [former Marxist leader] where nothing has been done and whatever existed was not maintained. These are the realities that we face every day today. And it is not a stationary thing, it is dynamic. If you don’t move forward you move backwards and poverty does not wait for you. So these are the challenges we face every day. To us we feel that we need to give high priority to two things. One is how can we ensure that services are available and of quality to children in need. Two is how can we change the mode from responding to a disaster to getting ready for it. This is what UNICEF has been talking about again and again and trying to advocate this idea that a drought is like winter in Europe. Europe gets ready for winter. Africa does not get ready for a drought. The third is a lesson learned. We found there are a lot of protection issues that get associated with emergencies. That was not the case before. We found that any displacement automatically exposes women to abuse and violence. Q: What are the main issues for UNICEF? A: We find we need to give importance to the two things which have been a priority for us now for the past two to three years. One is HIV/AIDS, not as a health issue, but as an inter-sectoral issue. And two is malaria. Malaria is not getting the attention and the drum up that it requires. Malaria is still the highest child killer in Ethiopia. We have to make sure we can service that. [We have to] move from focusing on the needs of children to promoting the fulfilment of the rights of children as recently endorsed globally at the UN Special Session on children. There is no hour that passes in this country when somebody will not say HIV/AIDS. I think we have to go beyond that stage. The awareness is there, the action is still not there. Q: What is UNICEF doing specifically on the malaria issue? A: On malaria, this is something where we could never claim to be the only active agent. We bank a lot on the World Health Organisation and the other Roll Back malaria partners, rather than combat malaria single-handedly. But we have a niche for us and we find that UNICEF can service best the fight against malaria by focusing on things that are in the household. Specifically we are talking about how do you protect children under five and women that are pregnant or lactating against a malaria attack. And the technique that has proved to be simple and low cost is called a treated bed net. Q: What personally do you think you have achieved since being in charge of UNICEF? A: I can’t claim fame because I have a wonderful team. We did three things. We have re-established the credibility of UNICEF following a crisis. I think now the donors have much more credibility for UNICEF. They put us to test during the difficult periods and I think we delivered. Every time I time I talk to donors, I always get a positive reply. I am not saying we are complacent. There is always room for improvement. We accept criticism and we like to do better. Also the government and the population feel that UNICEF is much closer to them now than we were four or five years ago and to me that is very important. If we are felt to be closer and delivering what we are supposed to deliver as a development partner, I think we will get much more mileage for our buck. I know people always look at the dollar value. We have gone from a US $15 million organisation in 1996 to a US $42 million organisation in 2001. Q: Where can UNICEF improve? A: We are going to be more strategic than before. We are going to be much more focused than before. To me education, capacity building for a right to knowledge - and that includes the formal and non-formal education - are key to the development of this country. People who have not gone to school should still have a way of coming back into the mainstream, we should find these ways. Also how can we involve the local NGOs and the civil society to be much more responsible in taking a more active role? I'd like to see more children and youth becoming part and parcel of this. Youth today are not the youth of my age, they are seven years more mature. They have their say and they know what they want. Q: How do you measure your effectiveness? A: You look at indicators. Take vaccination coverage today. It is much better than it was six years ago. This is a tremendous effort. It is not only UNICEF helping. We were a major element but not the only element. Two: Look at gross enrolment in schools – a dramatic change over the past three years, but it is not enough. We have not yet reached parity, we need to reach parity but at the same time to increase the overall enrolment. We don’t want to say we want only girls in school. Our mission is everybody in school but coming closer and closer to parity. I think the gap is narrowing, it hasn’t closed but it has changed over the past two or three years in a noticeable way. Three water supply. Much more people are having clean water, accessible and closer to where they live. You cannot imagine how much this affects the issue of what a woman does in a day. Q: What else needs to be done in Ethiopia? A: There are many experiences of partnership, of volunteerism in Ethiopia. The harsher the environment, the more participation you find. The closer it is to Addis Ababa the more passive the people are. We have to promote this idea that it is your business and mine and together we can do it. This is very important. Two. Ethiopia needs a Marshall Plan. Ethiopia cannot achieve what it wants to achieve unless it has a roads network, unless it has electricity, until it has communication means. It is a vast country. The surplus in the west cannot service the shortage in the east. We have to do that. Countries need to get to a critical level of development in infrastructure to be able to roll down the hill and join the others. Q: What more can be done by the Ethiopian government to help facilitate this development? A: I think the government is already on that track but it has to do more in giving the initiative to the people. We are talking about federalism. We are talking about giving authority and responsibility to the woredas [districts] now. This is a unique opportunity to say, this is not empty words. It is deeds. Let's see how you can do it and how we can support you. You see the change now. Before it was the emperor [Haile Selassie] and Mengistu where everything was centralised. So that means people were waiting for things. Q: And the role for the international community? A: I look at the past two years and I see a major shift both in the position of the government and the donor community. The government has become very open to ideas and taking bold steps. I think the donor community has also been encouraging. When good things happen, they encourage the government and this has to continue. I think the donor community has to take a more calculated risk in saying we see Ethiopia as a major development pole for the Horn 10 years from now. If Ethiopia has to become that development pole, it needs these things and we are prepared to invest. To me investing in the long term is this extra step I hope the donor community will do. We are still investing in the short and medium term. We need to invest in the much longer term.