MY LIFE WITH THE UN - ARTICLE 5

REPUBLIC OF ZAMBIA

I was posted to Zambia in 2000. For the third consecutive posting, I worked with three Representatives: Seyi Bajulaiye, Ahmed Gubartalla and George Okoth-Obbo. Zambia is memorable to me because this is where I start feeling that I am becoming a serious middle manager in the organization, as I will prove to you below. In Zambia I saw and worked in two very different refugee programmes:

1. one that had been in existence for a long time and there seemed to be no prospect for a solution other than local integration: the settlements of Mayukwayukwa (1966) in Northwestern Province and Meheba (1971) in the Copperbelt, both housing Angolan refugees and lately Rwandan refugees as well of the great Lakes Crisis of 1994, who had crossed all the way from Eastern DRC into Angola and to Zambia. That was an iconic protracted situation. The Lutheran World federation (LWF) had been all along the privileged partner in these two settlements. It is because of the success of these settlements that President Nyerere invited the LWF to help establish settlements for the 1972 Burundi refugee influx in Mishamo, Ulyankulu and Katumba. Thus was created the Tanzania branch of the LWF, called Tanganyika Christian Refugee Service (TCRS) that for a long time was once more a privileged partner of UNHCR in Tanzania.

2. And there were two influxes, one in the North, one in the West in 2000:

• an influx of DRC refugees in Luapula Province, requiring the opening of a Sub-Office in Kawambwa, and a Field Unit in Mporokoso. That was the result of the invasion and brief occupation of Pweto in DRC by Rwandan forces, sequel to the Great Lakes crisis, proving once more how deep and far-reaching was the Rwanda crisis in the region.

• and a new influx of Angolans also into Western Province in 2001 and the opening of a Sub-Office in Mongu. The Nangweshi refugee camp was beyond the mighty Zambezi River, and to reach the new campsites we procured a sturdy boat operated by experienced Zambians in the area.

That was the first time I had the service of a woman driver, always well-manicured. One day we travelled between Meheba and Mayukwayukwa by the back road, traversing a famous Black Forest. And the foreseeable happened: a tire burst; the driver said she could not change the tires. Which then I had to do. Once upon a time! Apart from the traditional refugee operation and its dynamics, the following important events remain memorable to me as a/the Snr Programme Officer in this stage of my career:

• Refugee statistics: My first time to comprehend the importance of statistics to the credibility of operations was when a report was sent from Zambia to headquarters on the influx of 50,000 Angolan refugees in Luapula Province. Lockstep, Geneva sent a five-person support mission that went to Luapula and came back to Lusaka 3 days later to say they had seen no more than 2,000 refugees from that influx in all villages visited. That cast a serious challenge to the credibility of our reports, with immediate consequences on the way Headquarters responded to our subsequent requests for support. I then understood that the accuracy of statistics, or a demonstrable effort to be accurate, was central to operational and public credibility, to our credibility as refugee experts. A lesson I took a bit too seriously to Geneva, to Niger and everywhere else I was posted after that.

• Solutions: The Zambia operation, old as it was, challenged our mandate as a solutions agency. Aware of this, the organization conceived, financed and executed a programme called “the Zambia Initiative”. It was designed to affect both refugees and host populations, through a local integration solutions approach that would also benefit the local rural economies. The effect of which would be a local integration of refugees who had lived in Zambia for long. It was embraced by the refugees, by the local population and the government. Still, it was unsuccessful in its promises. What killed it was a hijacked ownership. It ended appropriated by a consultant sent by Headquarters who understood (or cared) little about refugees but understood much about ambitious government officials. Once more, with serious credibility consequences on the organization, on the part of the donors that financed it. I personally did raise some flags through the reading of reports and projects, on the way the process was conducted and managed, and if I had known better, I would have made more vigorous noise. In the meantime, I was already on my way to another posting. Jumping from posting to posting has many advantages careerwise, but it has also a soft and vulnerable underbelly of continuity of initiatives such as this.

• Full seniority: In Zambia I decided I would read and experiment with the entire Chapter IV of the UNHCR Manual, and in my role as Snr Programme Officer, the space existed for me to take the initiative to confront it with ground realities: I made sure I could not claim ignorance of principles and procedures of programming. I found it easy to detect the incongruences between instructions and field practicability. I started a few draft proposals by way of feedback, suggesting modifications to Chapter IV that my Representative also understood and shared with Headquarters. Some of them were incorporated.

I also initiated a draft procedure matrix of what I called then preventive audit. I did not know that I was entering a territory the organization had not yet experimented with, and which it would only adopt seven years later: Risk Management, risk register/matrix.

Francois-Reybet Degat and Henry Nordentoft are two UNHCR colleagues that descended on Lusaka from Geneva to take us through a two-week drill of new planning procedures, the beginning of results-based management: collective, inclusive needs-based planning. We concluded the training with a real joint planning session led by UNHCR and involving UN Agencies, NGO partners, Donors and the Government. I later benefitted from a follow-up training on how to prepare and orchestrate joint planning that took place in Geneva nine months later. That, together with my own efforts, made me a reference person in programme planning and training. By the time I left Zambia in 2003, I was confident I was a good middle manager. Confidence helped me in Geneva, my next post (and my next story) because I discovered that Switzerland was a new micro-aggressive environment.

Lessons

Never work in Zambia without visiting the Mossi-oa Tunya (called Victoria Falls by some British colonial fellow who lost his way in the African forests and claimed to have discovered, and gave it the name of his queen in faraway England!!) on the Zambezi River between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Climbing the management ladder. One needs to know and master the details of one’s functional area. Or you will be at the mercy of your juniors, if they know that your being boss was just a stroke of good luck. They can and do put banana peels on your path. Several tried until they realized I could manipulate all programming financial and management systems and reports. It was good to start from the bottom as a P1 (except for the money).

I learned never to accept to be part of an anonymous crowd in the organization. By finding a niche and investing myself in it, I became a person-to-go-to whenever certain programme areas were discussed. This was the secret of what I consider a personal success in my career.

• Never in my years with the organization have I applied for a position that I did not get. And never have I applied to more than two positions at a time.

• I always tailored my ambitions to what I could deliver efficiently and to satisfaction.

Jose, 26 May 2023