Let there be no overstatement: my life lessons did not start in the United Nations, that is not where I became a public officer. Neither is the UN my Omega. After the UN, life continues, and I am always learning. I suspect I will be learning until something happens to my brain, most likely for lack of oxygen. As I described earlier, my employment as a public officer had essentially 4 stages.
I. Foundational lessons
Stage one: Teacher (seven years)
This was my first employment as a public officer, from where I left with several lessons, but the most important are two:
teaching is a profession that exercises human emotions profoundly, it was the beginning of my massive experience with emotional intelligence[1].
teaching is one of the most noble and fulfilling professions in developing human capacities. But if my experience, and that of colleagues more brilliant than I, was anything to go by, then the teacher will forever remain as poor as a church mouse. It is more than a profession, it really is a calling.
Stage 2: Junior diplomat (seven years)
That is when I started to travel abroad and to enjoy the exposure: to the 2 Congos, Senegal, Seychelles, Tanzania, India, North Korea, France, for the Anti-apartheid conference chaired by a Lionel Jospin, and served in the Embassy in Ethiopia (for Ethiopia, AU and ECA). Lessons:
When you look at your country, it helps to consider it in the international context, to understand relations between and among nations, and many times also to interpret more cogently domestic politics.
There is no better way of looking at how your country is faring than from outside.
It pays to conduct any business in a diplomatic way: do not cut a rope if you can untie it; that way, you can reuse it.
For you to win, it does not necessarily require that your adversary lose all. If you insist on winning 100% (zero-sum game), in the longer term you (your future generation) are condemned to be the actual losers. Metaphorically: you do not need to extinguish one light bulb for the second one to shine. Both shining reinforce each other exponentially: 1 plus 1 becomes, not 2, but 11.
Stage 3: Nine months as a non-accredited free-lance translator for the OAU, precursor to the AU.
Unico: the more languages you know, the better. There is a lot that is lost in translation.
II. Lessons in the United Nations
Stage 4 and last: United Nations (High Commissioner for Refugees): 32 years, the core of this article.
When I joined the UNHCR, I knew little of the international system. Being an international civil servant was the best position from where to observe said system and to start building an opinion about its complex workings. My opinion in this article is designed to incite the African international civil servant reader to do more than just sail along in the system, but to reflect on the proposition of values that are presented as international, and get these values to respond/talk to the African values. In other words, international values should not invalidate African values, because this tendency to invalidate us has been the basis of perpetuation of Africa as merely a source of wealth for the global North. What are the African values? Those that are defined by the concept of uhutu (ubuntu): I am because we are. In other words, I am because others were before me, because others surrounding me are, because others after me will be, because of me. For us, collective values surpass individual(istic) values.
It is in the corridors and fields of the United Nations that I learned the most. I lived and dealt with diplomats, delegates, national and foreign NGOs, big country envoys, endless international conferences and meetings, other programmes and funds of the United Nations organization, and diverse governments, right from the beginning in Tete, Mozambique.
I learned that the UN system, including UNHCR, has a huge e-library. Nobody pushes you there, but you lose much by not visiting[2].
I met a Head of office who explained to me that we were all part of a Secretariat of the person of the High Commissioner (personal authority and accountability, pyramidal structure). And the significance of international civil servant, for which I received a booklet[3] when I was appointed international. I made a point to read and re-read as I left behind the town divided by the Zambezi River for my first international job.
Part 1: At the service of the UNHCR
In this article, I exclude the lessons I already shared on each of my stages. I now focus on the ones that were more emotional to me, very personal and which affected and fashioned my outlook on things international, those that changed my philosophical outlook.
Cote d’Ivoire:
I observed for the first time the management of a refugee situation (Liberian refugees) in villages, there was no talk of camps. A complex set-up but one that allowed us to respond to the needs of refugees and of the equally poor populations. In a manner that social protection was exercised by the local community itself, based on existing cost-effective, culturally-adapted and self-managed stystems. While camps are more schematic in dealing with both headquarters oversight and donor countries, these are not the most effective ways of getting refugees accepted. In fact, the camp is the beginning of exclusion of refugees, as if belonging to another Continent.
Angola:
A country at war, it has provided me with lessons that are difficult to describe. Apart from flying between government and UNITA zones, I also travelled by road from Luanda to Mbanza Congo via Negage and Songo, to receive returnees from Zaire. That road trip alone between opposing military forces is already a story and half. On one such a long voyage, I was exposed to a fellow female officer in a surprising fashion. I was travelling in my mental world, until on the return leg, the female colleague exploded on me with tears, on how I did not notice her suffering, I did not understand the suffering of her people in Burundi (the year was 1993 and I did not know anything about being Hutu or Tutsi, neither had I heard of these ethnic groups until I went on to serve in Tanzania right after). Frankly I did not know how to deal with personal dramas, let alone identify a drama from what was said, or not said. At that time, I had little emotional intelligence for women.
Tanzania:
With so much talk about protection inside UNHCR, yet with so many protection failures, this was the first time I understood that protection is not provided by UNHCR but by governments, with UNHCR expected to monitor its quality to ensure observance of international standards. Unfortunately, governments tend not to be able to articulate the protection issues adequately and systematically relations tend to remain sour. Why? Non-involvement of other national competent Ministries seems(ed) to be the issue.
Geneva:
Racial micro-aggressions: this is where I was surprised by subtle expressions of racism often delivered in a polite manner by some of my own European colleagues. I resented that and at times I was combative (right reasons, wrong place, wrong audience). I made clear to anyone that I did not see Europe as any special place. Unfortunately, there is racism and a sense of differentiated entitlement, which at that time went all the way from recruitment to placement, to promotions. African staff in need of placement were perceived as the problem of the Africa Bureau rather than that of their employer. A few times I had to reason with myself: I was not employed by the Africa Bureau, but by the High Commissioner. Meaning that he could have very well decided to send me to Argentina or Germany instead of Kinshasa, where I landed next. Unfortunately, the issue had only aggravated with time. And with the division of the Africa Bureau into three non-communicating Bureaux, what I would say would be speculative; still, claiming to have known how the system worked, my speculation from outside might well still be correct.
Congo-Kinshasa:
This is where I saw Humanitarian Coordination become a huge machinery that required money to impose itself. So, it proceeded to place itself as intermediary through control the humanitarian financing (the CERF). A whole process was built around consolidated appeals, good donorship[4] and the like. With UNHCR long accustomed to autonomous way of raising funds, we (I still feel like I belong) took long to understand the need to build external alliances, and suffered for that.
Kenya:
I had the opportunity to visit Little Mogadishu of Nairobi (Eastleigh) and discovered the excellent work of local NGOs undistinguishably delivering training on small urban-relevant skills such as housekeeping, catering, etc to urban refugees and the urban poor Kenyans that had migrated from the countryside. Local NGOs were more effective in penetrating where big camp NGOs could not. I also visited Mlolongo on the Athi River Road, where Rwandan, Congolese and Burundian refugees had been fully accepted by the communities around, and were exercising professions such as carpentry, vehicle repair, etc. We (I) did not realize until then that many refugees were living a tough but dignified life outside the humanitarian programme. Refugees are not helpless unless we insist on programmes and ways of delivering that render them so, and unless we confine them to camps.
Sierra Leone:
In the many most quiet moments of my retirement, I reminisce and chuckle on the recurrent pleasant mental image I have retained of a gentle lady called Marjon Kamara and a gentleman called George Okoth-Obbo for suggesting that instead of moving into a Representative position in Liberia, I consider spending three more years as Deputy Representative. And another gentle lady Liz who gave me enough elbow room to exercise management and self-management. Kenya was a complex programme that gave me the opportunity to exercise my managerial and supervisory skills. The transition to Sierra Leone was violent, with extremely little to do, but one that gave me the opportunity to introspect and realize that
one may not wish to rush to becoming a Representative. Most probably one is not even destined to be one. At least I never saw it as an entitlement. It is not a government career where you have a right to climb into Directorship, after years on the treadmill, if you see what I mean. Representation is complex, it is about:
diplomatic tact,
human resources understanding and tact, emotional intelligence
protection commitment,
solutions vision,
operational efficiency and innovation.
3. I started to understand why some representatives were not necessarily good managers, neither of people, nor of finances, not even of refugees. Some failed to manage relations with governments (either they please governments in the extreme or just antagonize in the extreme).
4. Personal workplans: My itinerary between Sierra Leone, Niger, Geneva bis and Chad gave me plenty of time to experiment and improve personal performance, by translating my job assignment into personal workplans. I l;earned in the process that it ought not be about achieving all of it. It is said, and I believe, that 80% of our success comes from just 20% of our effort and the other 20% of success is all we get from the 80% chunk of our efforts. One needed a point of reference for self-assessment, as it is lonely up there in the position of Representative. I took this practice forward to the rest of my career[5].
Niger:
Staff welfare: working in Niger and Chad gave me a measure of the importance and value of staff welfare. Staff willing to prove their merit were ready to go to Aballa, on the border with Mali, on the way to Bani Bangou. Having travelled to these places, I understood the discomfort of travel and work in the 48Celsius hot sand. Same situation in Eastern Chad. Some female colleagues were just willing to travel as many times a week as necessary. At one point I was returning to Niamey from an uncomfortable voyage in the company of my Regional Director (Valentin Tapsoba) and the Director of the Africa Bureau (George Okoth-Obbo), and we crossed one such colleague going to the field for the night. I politely suggested to my two bosses that we give our comfortable vehicle to the Field Officer and we ride back to Niamey in her hard-top. That was graciously accepted, and that has marked very positively the perception of all staff about my attitude to their welfare! I tried to carry this spirit along with me for the rest of my representation functions. It is highly mobilizing, if you know the sandstorms of Niger!
Geneva bis:
We (the Bureau) dealt with intractable residual refugee situations in West Africa, way after the conclusion of repatriations to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire: In Ghana, Guinea, Benin, Sierra Leone, there remained refugees that would only accept resettlement as the only solution to their situation. For some reason or due to some form of messaging, long-term refugees viewed resettlement as their entitlement. And the fact that we (UNHCR and IOM) process resettlement cases has been conflated in the minds of the refugees with the capacity that UNHCR possesses but does not exercise, to determine who resettles where (especially America, the eld-dorado). In that wishful misinformation, telling refugees that it is governments that provide resettlement opportunities, was like telling them that it is governments that provide protection, in an environment where those same governments harass refugees. We were very weak on messaging and information management.
UNHCR attached little value to regional organizations. I witnessed it in Geneva and experienced it later in Nigeria, where I was also appointed Representative to ECOWAS, and presented my credentials. But my accreditation was perfunctory. Lost opportunity because we could have explored ECOWAS policy positions such as the freedom of movement and settlement in the ECOWAS space as a solution for refugees coming from that ECOWAS space. The lack of time to imagine refugee solutions in environments where regional protocols provided a favourable platform. Regional integration lacks the integration of refugee issues, as an important part of the regional demographics that cannot be ignored. It would have been about innovative ways of formulating refugee solutions for which the SADC, EAC, ECCAS, ECOWAS and other regional political organizations offer avenues.
Nigeria:
UNHCR-IOM. Awkward battle between organizations that receive most of their funding from the same donor. Maybe while recognizing the similarities of situations and consequences in many cases, migrants and refugees ought not to be conflated in terms of doctrine, and this needs repeating. Maybe that is why the Refuge Global Compact[6] fares much better than the Migration compact[7], which, even in its presentation website shows African migrants marching towards the Mediterranean, subliminally and unwittingly revealing the bias of the Compact as its very construct: control African migration to the global North. In my own understanding, it is an impossible task, because humanity has always been defined by migration in all directions. Looking at Africa, there actually is more horizontal migration than the politicized and criminalized migration to the North. I am partial to the UNHCR compact for obvious reasons, but (or and) I am also logical.
I start from that point to explain to myself that the undiplomatic warfare between UNHCR and IOM is pushed by outside forces that have compelled IOM to associate itself with the UN, and it is funded to control movement of people, instead of making migration a positive factor of international human relations. By working with UNHCR, the conflicts are inevitable because of divergent ethical and human values. I believe that those are the roots of the conflict between the two organizations. Pitting the two organizations to work together in the absence of commonalities and not expecting conflict is illogical.
Part 2: Beyond and Above UNHCR
Were my readership in need of reminding, I hasten to say that everything I write is: my lived experience, my opinion, my principle that only commits me and no other person, close or remote, friend or adversary, or any person in whichever capacity. Still, I left with very strong perceptions and emotional experiences that can be source of reflection for the younger fellows working for the United Nations. Being a UN staff is a publicly appreciated prestige that stays with us for the rest of our lives. Yet, the long parcours with the United Nations has brought back to my conscience that I am an African first, and a UN officer secondly.
As far as I learned, with all the instrumentalization that it is victim of, the United Nations remains the best world organization, the pillar of international relations. I take it that like me, every retiree is proud of having served in that UN. The operative word being SERVICE. I am proud of
One can go on and on. As a Treaty-making machinery, a global convener, the UN has no par.
As an organization primarily invented to prevent wars, particularly those wars that affected Africa most recently, such as the war against apartheid and racial segregation in Southern Africa. Then the UN peace-keeping missions: UNAVEM in Angola, MONUSCO in DRC, MINUSMA in Mali. These never had any peace to keep and eventually governments resolved their wars one way or the other. Many African governments have requested some of these UN missions to leave (Chad, Mali, DRC). More recently, the UN was unable to prevent, or was used as a pretext to enable unnecessary and destructive wars in Libya, in Iraq, in Syria, in Palestine. Of course, there are successes, but these seem more of exceptions than the rule. Mozambique comes to mind.
It is this International Community that I came across as an international civil servant. I was flabbergasted that countries existed that felt (and still feel) entitled to exceptional treatment and deference, they feel they are above the fray (us) when it comes to the application of international rules they convinced us all into adopting and live by. That attitude of superiority has demarcated a Global North from a Global South. With for example different attitudes towards the International Criminal Court: some powerful countries, such as China, USA, Israel, Russia, India, have not subscribed to the Rome Statute. We cannot fail to note that 3 of them are the most important permanent members of the UN Security Council. Moreover, the US has entered into agreement with each member of the ICC to shield its citizens from ICC jurisdiction, in fact, from any jurisdiction outside of their country, even if they were to commit crimes of war.
We are all held to the democratic standards promoted and defined by countries that are permanently waging war, biggest sellers of weapons, unconditional supporters of Israel in its pursuit of an agenda of elimination of the Palestinian people. Crimes have and continue to be committed in the name of democracy.
We are expected to be disciplined by an international order dominated by the use of sanctions as a tool of submission to the will of the powerful. Arbitrary sanctions have come to disfigure the entire concept of order, let alone “international” and we wonder who this international community in the end is, and if we are part of it, what our condition might be.
All these events have damaged my belief in a cohesive international community. An international community that allows too many one-sided double standards and genocide in 2023, wants me to believe and live by their democratic values? Tell me another story to take me to sleep! Sorry, the international community is not a community of values and aspirations. It needs demystifying, unpacking and repackaging. Are the international rules applicable to some and not to others? Who defines the rules of the game and who gave the power to whom to define those? We still look to the United Nations. Where else?
Notice that Africa has thrown itself in the run to a veto seat at the United Nations. Veto for whom and against whom? I argued in an earlier article that we need to reflect before we run for a permanent sit or two in the UN Security Council[13], in the same way as we need to reflect better what we want out of the reparations against slavery[14]. Let us stop parroting what others only say to please us! And let us remember: Rwanda was sitting pretty in the Security Council when the 1994 genocide was taking place. So?
Would making an African country permanent in that club offer any better solution to African problems?
Would it help prevent a war against the Palestinians that a member of the Security Council is enabling and fueling?
When the whole of Europe descended on Tel Aviv to signify support for the genocide of a people systematically since 1967 robbed of their land?
Would it end the endemic war of aggression against the peoples of Eastern DRC?
Why do we persist in fixing a system that lives on our resources and on ensuring that we remain in a permanent lower position? The veto is not the solution, in fact it is part of the problem. So, as far as I can see, President Ruto ought to stop deluding us that we can reform the World Bank and the IMF.
My mind says that standards that are not universal should not be forced on us. And if they are universal, then there should be no exceptionalism: the EU should not feel entitled to call Burkina Faso to account for 100 persons that were killed in confrontation with terrorists, while the same EU sends its President to go and comfort Netanyahu in his quest for the elimination of Palestinians. Burkina is no part of the EU. So far, they have killed more than 12,000 people, bombed schools, refugee camps and hospitals on excuses that there were tunnels and command centres! Why is the EU finding the government in Burkina derelict, but cannot shout at the publicized bombing of all these places in Gaza?
I am sure many African international civil servants are having to battle with this stark contradiction and dichotomy, this unfair double-standardized system. We still want to be held by codes of conduct that we fervently want to believe in, to prevent chaos, but we can see others applying relativity to the standards initiated by them, while holding our neck to their rigor. That is unfair to us.
It is clear that if this is the international order, Africa has no future in it. If we are to have one that is also fair to us, we need another type of leadership at the level of each country and at continental level, to imagine and negotiate with the global North. Someone change the international relations of power! We need to believe in an international community, in an international system, a project for which the UN was created and remains central.
Africa, the famous absent, leaders with feet of clay
Our leaders wake up! It is said that a slave who does not revolt or attempt to be free deserves no pity. Revolt is not about declaring war, but about vigorously and systematically negotiating for a better and fair international order. For a fair share of what is primarily ours.
We also seem to remain paralyzed: I have read an existing policy on Mozambique by the EU, and if you care to look for Mozambique in the Council for Foreign Relations of the USA, you can read with me their policy towards Mozambique[15]. What about for once Mozambique raising its head, formulating and handing them a policy (what does Mozambique want from its relations with yyy country in the next xxx years and how does Mozambique intend to get that which it wants) towards the EU, China, Japan etc. Instead of waiting until JICA defines what relations it will have with Mozambique, let us own our space and tell the guest where to sit in that sovereign space. The rest of the world has a plan for Africa and Africa has no plan for the rest of the world!
I am again onto President Ruto, whom I thought was breathing fire and almost convinced me that we have finally landed a great leader for a great Kenya and beyond. That is the same Ruto that goes to Germany to negotiate employment for 200,000 Kenyan youth[16]. While others come to Kenya to establish their regional headquarters, so good Kenya is: Google, Microsoft, etc. That the youth should look for employment abroad, I have no issue with. That they should enjoy the protection negotiated by their government on their behalf, that is expected of a responsible government. But that a government push the youth out, and in these proportions, that is quite a different event, antithetical to the great airlift of Kenyans to America on a massive scholarship programme[17]. What about investing in creating those jobs at home? Has he seen the treatment of Africans living in Ukraina when the population of Ukraina was fleeing into neighbouring European countries?
It is all happening now, in this month of November 2023. Another leader, Debby of Chad, is allowing one more European army into Africa, ostensibly to control migration to Europe far from European borders (confirming and conceding that Europe has defined its borders as expanded all the way to the Southern fringes of the Sahara Desert, in the Sahel). Ostensibly, that army will be providing humanitarian assistance (militarization of the humanitarian). As a matter of fact, Hungary, that never had any relations with Chad, has suddenly woken up to the opportunity to celebrate an agreement with Ndjamena for the stationing of its army in the country[18]. Ostensibly to combat immigration. Sorry, but to reach Hungary from Africa, one would have to pass through Greece/Italy, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, at least. Is that not very unlikely? The same Hungary that is Islamophobic, now interested in working in a Muslim country! “come to my country with your army to prevent my people from going into your country”. Did Chad seek any reciprocity, allowing it to station a unit of its army in Hungary, even symbolically? Like, “you station 200 soldiers on my territory, allow 20 of mine in yours, so we can tighten the escape routes to catch the few who escape the net”? It would be the beginning of reciprocity...
Plus that war-legitimizing word: terrorism. Terrorism is a word that is overused to terrorize us (repetition intended) into accepting foreign forces, the seeds of foreign occupation, an imperialist design of expansion, domination and renewed exploitation. Our leaders are taking us to these ignominious paths! I say again:
A slave who does not revolt or attempt to be free deserves no pity. Thank you Natalie Yamb.
Jose,
Tete, November 2023
[3] chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://icsc.un.org/Resources/General/Publications/standardsE.pdf
[16] https://www.citizen.digital/news/ruto-i-am-flying-to-germany-tonight-to-organise-jobs-for-200000-kenyans-n331608
[17] https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/john-f-kennedy-and-the-student-airlift
Comments