In Aeternum, July 2009 Download PDF - Queen's College ...

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In Aeternum - July 2009
Profile on past parent Ian Howie
Queen’s is fortunate to have a vast
number of its current students, Wyverns
and parents achieving extraordinary
results in many different and interesting
areas. In this edition we have decided to
profi le another of our key groups, past
parents.
Is it all a matter of luck? Getting a job,
that is, although luck can apply to many
forks along the road. You make endless
applications, covering many possibilities.
For some you may even be shortlisted
and interviewed. For most there will be
a thank you for applying and perhaps a
message of good luck. But, fi nally, there
will be an offer. It may not be the very
one you were hoping for, but nonetheless
you accept and you are on your way.
For me, joining the UN could have been
like that but having been an exchange
student in the early sixties, I made a
commitment to things international, to
“...walking and talking together“ as my
personal step towards global peace. The
UN was the obvious destination, but how
to get in?
My lucky break came when I was
working in Papua New Guinea. In
Moresby I gave a speech on behalf of
a government minister and afterwards
was asked by a representative of the
International Labour Organisation (ILO) if
I would go and work with village people
in rural Bangladesh. The opportunity to
work for the ILO under the umbrella of
the UN was, for me, a dream come true.
I spent three years in Bangladesh
supporting the efforts of rural
cooperatives to translate agricultural
progress into social transformation.
Because farmers work during the day
our health and literacy programmes were
initiated at night. At dusk we would drive
through the paddy, be poled across a
river in small boats and then taken by
rickshaw to our chosen destination. The
men and women would gather separately
following the completion of prayers at the
mosque, the evening meal and seeing
the children to bed. The men gathered in
a tea shop and the women, in a friend’s
house. We dialogued using traditional
entertainment (village singers), open-air
meetings and our trained ‘change’ agents.
Amidst the poverty, the disease, the
awful catastrophes and the corruption,
our interaction with local people was
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incredibly enriching. I soon began to
appreciate their dignity, their skills and
their humanity. At the same time my
own education into the intricate and
sometimes baffl ing workings of the UN
as part of the broader aid debate, began.
After Bangladesh, assignments followed
in Sri Lanka and Kenya. In each case the
target audience was different (factory
workers, plantation labourers, trade
unionists, managers and government
servants) but the implementation model
was basically the same. “Go directly
to the target audience, listen and learn,
talk in a language all can understand, be
culturally sensitive, determine what will
make a difference and build a strategy
into the work of a local institution.”
In 1990 I joined the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) as
Representative in Ghana. Now I was
responsible for a multi-million dollar
5-year programme. Measurable results
were called for. Sizeable numbers of
staff were involved as was the quantity
of equipment and supplies. I had many
opportunities to travel throughout the
country to assess the challenges and
prioritise the issues. Our team was
then well placed to negotiate with
governments, advocate for change,
search for additional funding and evaluate
the feasibility of our programme.
After West Africa came a fi ve year
assignment as UNFPA Representative in
China (with the additional responsibilities
of North Korea and Mongolia), followed
by 7 years in the HQ offi ce in New York
as Director of Human Resources. For my
fi nal posting before retirement at the end
of 2008, I was keen to return to the fi eld,
this time to Viet Nam.
In the course of my UN career I have
dealt with many challenging issues. As
a UNFPA Representative I was at the
centre of debate on how best to balance
population growth rates with socioeconomic
development. For example,
in China and Viet Nam, should couples
choose the timing, number and spacing
of births (as they do in Australia) or must
they restrict their fertility to one or two
children as part of their social contract
with the state? International agreements
said the former; the Chinese and
Vietnamese said the latter.
Ian Howie pictured during a Mission he led
to the Ha Giant province, Northern Vietnam.
Seated with him are: (left to right) Duong Van
Dat, National Programme Officer of the UNFPA
Vietnam Country Office, Mr Vuong Mi Vang,
Chairmain of the People’s Committee of Ha
Giang Province; and Dr. Tran Chi Liem, Vice
Minister of the Ministry of Health of Vietnam.
I found that most governments
are deeply interested in issues of
abortion, sex ratios, boy preference,
adolescent fertility, contraceptive choic oice,
unwanted pregnancies, ‘healthy births’,
demographic transition, the environment vironme
and population ageing all of which iimpact
on people’s lives, notably the he poor poo and
dispossessed.
So, what can you conclude ude about the
UN’s role in development? ent? Certainly,
in fi nancial terms it is an increasingly
i
marginalised one. Basically ica four agencies
deliver the bulk of UN as assistance -UNDP,
UNICEF, WHO and UNFPA. N But even
their share is minimal wwhen
compared
with the international banks, ba the aid
agencies of wealthy governments, ov the
contributions of the Gates te and Buffet
foundations and other international
nte
NGOs.
To achieve greater effi ciency cy and delivery
of services, the UN needs to o bring b all
the programmes under one umbrella, umb
to aim for inter-dependency rather ther
than supporting a range of small selfserving
agencies. Like a miner’s light ht in
a tunnel, I believe the UN can show the
way for bigger players, most notably
governments. I have been keenly involved
in efforts to transform the UN. If my
contribution to that process has helped
provide people with choices where
previously they had none, then my fork in
the road has proved rewarding.
Ian Howie, Adjunct Professor, RMIT
University