UN International Children’s Emergency Fund Analysis

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Table of Contents

Introduction
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF)
Recommendations
Conclusion
Reference

Introduction

UNICEF is one of the well-known health care organizations providing health care and empowerment to children and women. This paper presents the nature of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund and the legal and ethical system of the organization. It has reached out to all countries in the world distributing essential items to the children. This paper presents the weakness and strengths of the organization along with recommendations to revise the functions of the organization.

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF)

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, which is well known as UNICEF is an international health care organization established by the United Nations general assembly on December 11, 1946. The prime objective of the organization at the time of establishment was to distribute emergency food and health care to all children who have been suffering from the after-effects of the Second World War. Now it grants developmental assistance to children and mothers who belong to the developing countries, placing it in headquarters in New York City. “UNICEF is the world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries. The organization supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation and AIDS.” (Khan, 2009, UNICEF seeks outside help for mobile strategy, para.4).

It is spread throughout the world, working in around 190 countries and it provides to children and mothers essential articles such as life-saving vaccines, medicines for children and mothers affected by HIV, nutritional supplements, and things that are necessary for education and shelter. UNICEF receives contributions from governments and private well-wishers and it makes use of this money to fund the different projects for the welfare of children throughout the world. It actualizes the objectives through its agencies and various non-governmental organizations.

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre was established in 1988 to strengthen researches on various issues related to children and to facilitate children’s rights throughout the world. It works with a focus on various areas like child survival and development, basic education and gender equality among children, HIV/AIDS, and children, child protection from abuse and exploitation, policy advocacy, and partnership for the welfare of the children communication for development. It uses different methods for the smooth implementation of its programs. It implements the programs through its agencies and NGOs. The different strategies for the actualization of the projects are a collection of statistics and monitoring, evaluation, situational analysis, etc.

Ethical system and legal system of UNICEF

UNICEF established an Ethics Office in 2007 to meet the highest standards of ethics and staff are instructed to strictly follow the ethical system. The establishment of this system focuses on the cultivation and nourishment of cultural integrity and accountability. “UNICEF’s Ethics Office oversees a comprehensive Ethics Program, which includes protection from retaliation, financial disclosure, and the general promotion of ethical behavior through staff learning activities.” (Abdi, 2008, p.2). UNICEF has initiated a number of steps to bring higher standards of ethics to the organization; financial disclosure and whistleblower are some of the examples for such steps. Principal advisor is in-charge of ethics-related issues and he is responsible for formulating, reviewing and dissimilating policies, increasing awareness on ethical standards and required behavior of UNICEF staff members, controlling and managing the financial disclosure program, leading staff with a focus to ethical behavior and standards and promoting the ethics within UNICEF. “The terms of reference for the Ethics Offices of all United Nations funds and programs are outlined in the Secretary-General’s bulletin (ST/SGB/2007), including the collaboration among the Ethics Offices under the guidance of the United Nations Ethics Officer.” (Report on the accountability system of UNICEF: Ethics office, 2009, p.19). The accountability system of UNICEF is another step to meet ethics in all its dealings. This accountability system helps achieve better results through the system for children and women with a view of humanitarian development.

There is a well-established legal and regulatory system for the functioning of UNICEF. The legal system promotes the formulation of policies for the protection of children from abuse and exploitation. The executive body of UNICEF consists of positions such as the chairperson, the first vice-chairperson, the second vice-chairperson, the treasurer, and other elected members as per Article 6 of the GSA Constitution. Twenty-one members are included in the executive committee and this committee is responsible for conducting general meetings and making sure the well running of parliamentary procedures, conducting emergency sessions, proposing agenda for the global meetings, publication of relevant information in time, publishing an annual report on the initiatives and results and conducting annual sessions. The UNICEF senior management is responsible to reveal the annual report of the initiatives and results to the member states and the information on all the activities of UNICEF is accessible to the public. Two policies have been formulated, namely, whistleblower and financial disclosure to make sure that the organization’s work is ethical and moral.

Strengths and weaknesses of UNICEF

Every country has benefited from the committed work of UNICEF. Some of the strengths and weaknesses of UNICEF are given here. The strengths include: it has become a long-term presence in 190 countries working for the welfare of children and women. From the time of establishment, it began to grow and it has become the best international health care organization working for the right and empowerment of children and women. It was successful in framing the strategies suitable for local situations. Since it is an international organization, the strategy framed from one point of view may not be applicable in all cultures. Therefore, it started to make localized strategies to be applicable everywhere. The approach of UNICEF is action-oriented and it is effective in attaining the objectives of the organization. Another merit of this organization is that it works with the collaboration of different governments in various countries. Therefore, it is easy for the organization to frame policies in the interest of the people. The immunization program is one of the relevant contributions of UNICEF in defense of children’s health care. UNICEF is a leading agency for the protection of children’s health, working with humanitarian perspectives and it facilitates the inter-agency processes and works. It is successful in fundraising through receiving contributions from governments and private donors and other multiple sources. It strengthens the partnership with the governments, nongovernmental institutions, and civil society, and supports the nongovernmental institutions to actualize its projects. Now it has an image among all countries and every country attempts to enhance the projects of UNICEF. It is an authoritative organization that works for girls’ education, fighting against HIV among children and women. It responses immediately to the needs of the children and the external communication and advocacy are very systematically framed. Accounting, evaluation, and control systems are very effective and there is an improvement in the supply of essential things for the welfare of children and women.

Some of the weaknesses that can be observed in its functioning are: UNICEF has a self-image worldwide and at the same time there is distance inaccessibility of the common people. There has been a diversification of partnership with various governments, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society and it has formulated its strategy for the partnership but at the same time, the strategies of partnership are restricting the scope of the partnership. Even though there is a strong relationship with the government, it is not willing to work according to the government’s suggestions. There are a number of staff and bureaucrats working in the organization. The human resource is not made use of well and it can be observed that staffs are being appointed uselessly and thereby the financial loss is very high. Failure in reporting takes place sometimes. Local agencies have to collect the outcome and results of projects and sometimes there are manipulations in the reports. The accurate system of accountability of UNICEF is hampered due to the irresponsibility of some of the regional managers. They are not responsible and accountable to the result of their work. Human resource management becomes a problem since there is no timely recruitment and the incidence of staff’s burning out.

Recommendations

“Recommendations on UNICEF’s urban child program draws attention to a limitation of many development program, the tendency to focus action on readily observed problem symptoms to the neglect of more difficult and intractable causes.” (Korten, 1990, Symptoms versus causes, para.1).

“UNICEF has a potential requirement for a consulting firm/individual to develop an overall internal and external mapping of the mobile telecom industry and recommendations to contribute to UNICEF’s strategic direction and organizational framework required to engage mobile technology as per the technical specifications outlined in 2(d) and 2(f).” (Khan, 2009, UNICEF seeks outside help for mobile strategy, para.3). A diversified mechanism between DEID and UNICEF should be developed to make sure a good communication and dialogue. CO should use the means to collect information and data form unapproachable and inaccessible areas and there should be focus to improve reporting and monitoring of the entire process. There should be a multidisciplinary evolution system to identify the improvement of the functions of the organization. Cross-sector synergies should be conducted to hand over the exact information. There should be a focus on the monitoring of the programs and there should be provisions to know whether essential information is provided to the management and the operations are conducted in the desired and expected way.

“CCCs should be revised, especially the timeframe, which is not adapted to slow onset crises and protracted conflicts. UNICEF should continue to improve its early warning and preparedness system by strengthening OPSCEN and EMOPS Geneva, creating an ERT, boosting its surge capacity and developing standard operational procedures. UNICEF should strengthen RO’s and EMOPS’ roles in their guidance role to CO.” (Grunewald, Barr, Toscanno, & Gades, 2005, Recommendations). UNICEF should proceed with the work of protection of the children who are suffering from the after-effects of war since a number of children are still in the chaos created by war. UNICEF should become operational where it does not find the partner to work and the places where the organization has no accessibility. “Global database of mobile costings and services, that mobile providers can update as needed, and that UNICEF can look at a global level to ensure coherence across country and regional programs.” (Khan, 2009, Key tasks, para.3).

UNICEF is the best international organization that provides health care to children and women in the world. It is well structured and its functions are organized well to make reach the care of this organization to the children throughout the world. It has been successful in its activities and at the same time there are a number of weaknesses also. The recommendations will certainly help UNICEF to improve the quality of the health care provided to all children and women for their empowerment.

Conclusion

This paper presents the nature of United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund which is an international health care organization working for the protection and welfare of children and women. The ethical and legal systems of the organization are well defined and organized. The strengths and weaknesses of the organization and some of the recommendations to improve the functions of the organizations are summed up in this paper.

Reference

Abdi, O. (2008). Office of the executive director: An effective ethics office. United Nations Children’s Fund. Web.

Grunewald, F., Barr, E., Toscanno, A., & Gades, A. Base de donnees d’evaluation: Evaluation report: 2005 global: Joint UNICEF- DFID evaluation of UNICEF preparedness and early response to the Darfur emergency. UNICEF. Web.

Khan, M A. (2009). UNICEF seeks outside help for mobile strategy: Key tasks. Mobile Marketer: The News Leader in Mobile Marketing, Media and Commerce. Web.

Khan, M A. (2009). UNICEF seeks outside help for mobile strategy. Mobile Marketer: The News Leader in Mobile Marketing, Media and Commerce. Web.

Korten, D C. (1990). Symptoms versus causes: Observations and recommendations on UNICEF’s urban child programme. Environment and Urbanization, 2 (2), 46-57. Sage Journals Online. Doi: 10.1177/095624789000200206

Report on the accountability system of UNICEF: Ethics office. (2009). United Nations Economic and Social Council. Web.

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