Two Mexican teenage girls at their school. Investing in education for teenage girls in Latin America is regarded as the way forward for them to become future drivers of sustainable develpment in their societies. Credit: UNFPA LAC

By Estrella Gutiérrez
CARACAS, Jul 11 2016 (IPS)

Latin America’s teenage girls are a crucial force for change and for promoting sustainable development, if the region invests in their rights and the correction of unequal opportunities, according to Luiza Carvalho, the regional head of UN Women.

“An empowered adolescent will know her rights and will stand up for them; she has tools for success and is a driving froce for positive change in her community,” Carvalho told IPS in an interview from the regional headquarters of UN Women in Panama City.

Adolescent girls and boys will have a leading role in their societies when the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development has been completed, she said. One of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is gender equality. Investing in today’s girls will have “a great transformative impact in future,” she said. “Investing in education and protection against violence are important tools for fulfilling the potential of teenage girls and young women,as wellas for promoting gender equality” -- Luiza Carvalho.

The world today has a higher proportion of its population aged between 10 and 24 years old than ever before, with 1.8 billion young people out of a  total population of 7.3 billion. Roughly 20 percent of this age group live in LatinAmerica and the Caribbean, Carvalho said.

According to data given to IPS by the regional office of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), 57million of the region’s 634 million people are girls aged between 10 and 19, living mainly in cities.

The theme for this year’s World Population Day, celebrated July 11, is “Investing in Teenage Girls”, on the premise that transforming their present situation to guarantee their right to equality will not only eliminate barriers to their individual potential but will also be decisive for the sustainable development of their countries.

Women Deliver, an international organisation, has calculated the benefits of this investment in financial terms. For every additional 10 percent of girls in school, national GDP rises by an average of three percent; for every extra year of primary schooling a girl has completed, her expected salary as an adult grows by between 10 and 20 percent.

This is fundamental because, as Carvalho pointed out, “lack of economic empowerment, together with generalised gender discrimination and the reinforcemet of traditional stereotypes, negatively affects the capability of women in Latin America and the Caribbean to participate on an equal footing in all aspects of public and private life.”

Luiza Carvalho, regional director of UN Women for Latin America and the Caribbean. Credit: UN Women LAC

That is why “investing in education and protection against violence are important tools for fulfilling the potential of teenage girls and young women,as well as for promoting gender equality,” she said.

Teenage women, she said, “are an especially vulnerable group who face special social, economic and political barriers.” Their empowerment in the region may come up against difficulties such as unwanted pregnancy, forced early marriage or union, gender violence and limited access to education and reproductive health services.”

As an example of these obstacles, the regional director of UN Women said that a Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) study of women aged 15-49 years in 12 countries of the region “reported that for a substantial proportion of these women, their first sexual encounter had been unwanted or coerced.”

Carvalho stressed that “early marriage or union imposed on girls is a major concern in the region, and it significantly affects the exercise of adolescent girls’ rights developing their full potential.”

“It is a form of violence that denies them their childhood, interrupts their education, limits their social development, curtails their opportunities, exposes them to the risk of premature pregnancy at too young an age, or unwanted pregnancy and its possible complications, and increases their risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections, including HIV (human immuno-deficiency virus),” she said.

It also increases the girls’ exposure to “becoming victims of violence and abuse,” Carvalho said.

In Carvalho’s view it is very positive that all the countries inthe region have established minimum ages for marriage in their laws, but on the other hand, the laws fix different minimum ages for boys and for girls, and in certain cases such as pregnancy or motherhood, girls may legally marry before they reach the minimum age.

In Latin America, far from diminishing, teenage pregnancies have increased in recent years, due to cultural acceptance of early sexual initiation. As a result, the region ranks second in the world for adolescent birth rates, with an average of 76 live births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 years, second only to sub-Saharan Africa.

Furthermore, 30 percent of Latin American teenage girls do not have access to the contraceptive care services they need, according to UNFPA. Sexual and reproductive health face especially high barriers in this region because of patriarchal,culture, the weight of conservative sectors and the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church.

In Latin America, indigenous teenage girls, together with their rural counterparts, are the group most discriminated against in terms of opportunities and access to education. Credit: Rajesh Krishnan/UN Women

In contrast, the region has a good record on education. Over 90 percent of its countries have policies to promote equal access by teenagers to education. Ninety percent of teenage girls have finished their primary school education, although only 78 percent go on to secondary school, according to UNFPA.

The greatest educational access barriers are faced by rural and indigenous teenage girls, who have difficulties for physical access to some education centres. In the case of indigenous and Afro-descendant girls, this is added to inappropriate curricula or the absence of educational materials in their native languages (mother tongues). 

Carvalho highlighted as a positive element that education laws, especially those that have been reformed recently, “have begun to recognise the importance of establishing legal provisions that promote and disseminate human rights, peaceful coexistence and sex education.”

However, she regretted that “direct connections with prevention of violence against women and girls are still incipient.”

In her view, the school curriculum plays an essential role. Including contents and materials “related to human rights and the rights of women and girls, non-violent conflict resolution, co-responsibility and basic education about sexual and reproductive health,” will potentiate more non-violent societies, inside and outside of the classroom, she said.

Carvalho quoted a 2015 study carried out in 13 Latin American countries by UN Women and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which concluded that education systems are failing to prevent violence against girls.

“This is something that must be improved, because it is in the first few years of early childhood that egalitarian role modelling between girls and boys can occur and lay the foundations of the prevention of violence, discrimination, and inequality in all its forms,” she emphasised.

Carvalho said changes should start with something as simple as it is frequently forgotten: “Girls, teenagers and women are rights-holders and entitled to their rights.”

If girls are given “equal access to education, health care, sexual and reproductive education, decent jobs, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes, sustainable economies would be promoted and societies, and humanity as a whole, would benefit,” she concluded. 

Edited by Verónica Firme. Translated by Valerie Dee.

A teenage mother and her toddler in Bonpland, a rural municipality in the northern province of Misiones in Argentina. Latin America has the second highest regional rate of early pregnancies in the world, after sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Fabiana Frayssinet
BUENOS AIRES, Jul 8 2016 (IPS)

In plain and simple language, an Argentine video aimed at teenagers explains how to get sexual pleasure while being careful. Its freedom from taboos is very necessary in Latin American countries where one in five girls becomes a mother by the time she is 19 years old.

“For good sex to happen, both partners have to want it and this is as much about being sure they want it, as about being in the mood or ‘hot’ with desire,” said psychologist Cecilia Saia who made the video “Let’s talk About Sex” (Hablemos de sexo), aimed at adolescents and preadolescents and posted on social networks.

The video was produced by Fundación para Estudio e Investigación de la Mujer (FEIM – Foundation for Women’s Studies and Research) as part of a Take the Non-Pregnancy Test campaign. It was also distributed to teenagers so they “would be able to take free and informed decisions about becoming mothers and fathers.” “Keeping children in the education system or bringing them back into it would be effective interventions to prevent teenage pregnancy. In the same way, creating conditions within the education system to ensure that pregnant teenagers or adolescent mothers can continue their education, would be another intervention with a positive impact” - Alma Virginia Camacho-Hübner.

During the campaign, teenagers of both sexes were given boxes similar in appearance to pregnancy test kits, containing information about teenage pregnancy and the myths surrounding how it is caused, as well as condoms and instructions on how to use them, Mabel Bianco, the president of FEIM, told IPS.

The campaign was broadcast on YouTube and other social networks, with candid messages in the language used by adolescents. “This meant we could reach a large numbers of 14-to-18-year-olds, an age group that such campaigns usually find hard to reach,” she said.

According to FEIM, in Argentina 300 babies a day, or 15 percent of the total, are born to mothers aged under 19.

“This percentage has shown a sustained increase over the last 10 to 15 years, and the proportion of births to girls under 15 years of age has also risen,” Bianco said.

Argentina exemplifies what is happening in the rest of Latin America, which is the world region with the second highest teenage fertility rate, after sub-Saharan Africa. The national rate in Argentina is 76 live births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 years, according to United Nations’ demographic statistics.

In order to call attention to this problem and to the general need to promote the equal development of women, Investing in Teenage Girls is the theme of this year’s World Population Day, to be celebrated July 11.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) states that one in five women in the Southern Cone of South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) will become a teenage mother, in an area where over 1.2 million babies a year are born to adolescents.

“Early pregnancy and motherhood can bring about health complications for mother and baby, as well as negative impacts over the course of the lives of adolescents,” says a UNFPA report about fertility and teenage motherhood in the Southern Cone.

The report says that “when pregnancy is unplanned, it is a clear indication of the infringement of teenagers’ sexual and reproductive rights and hence of their human rights.”

Alma Virginia Camacho-Hübner, UNFPA sexual and reproductive health adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean, told IPS that teenage pregnancy has implications for individual patients, such as maternal morbidity and mortality associated with the risks involved with unsafe abortions, among other factors.

Prematurity rates and low birthweights are also several-fold higher, especially among mothers younger than 15.

For health services, the costs of prenatal care, childbirth, postnatal care and care of the newborn are far higher than the cost of interventions to prevent pregnancy and promote health education.

“For society as a whole, from a strictly economic point of view, in countries that enjoy a demographic dividend, early motherhood represents an accelerated loss of that demographic dividend,” Camacho-Hübner said from the UNFPA regional headquarters in Panama City.

This is because “instead of increasing economic productivity by having a larger economically active proportion of the population, a rise in early motherhood causes a rapid rise in the dependency ratio, that is the proportion of the population that is not economically active and requires support from family or society,”she said.

The Southern Cone study found that dropping out of school usually preceded getting pregnant.

“Therefore, keeping children in the education system or bringing them back into it would be effective interventions to prevent teenage pregnancy. In the same way, creating conditions within the education system to ensure that pregnant teenagers or adolescent mothers can continue their education, would be another intervention with a positive impact,” Camacho-Hübner said.

In her view, teen pregnancy and motherhood are an issue of inequality which mainly affects women in lower socio-economic strata.

“It is teenagers from the poorest families and with the least education, living in underprivileged geographical regions, that are most prone to becoming adolescent mothers,” she said.

“Becoming mothers at an early age reinforces conditioning and the inequalities in the process by which teenagers who are, and who are not, mothers, effect the transition into adulthood,” she said.

“The main consequence of pregnancy is the interruption of schooling, although in many cases they have already dropped out by the time they become pregnant. But they do not go back to school afterwards because they have to look after the baby,” Bianco said.

“This makes for a poorer future, as these girls will have access to lower-paid jobs and will be able to contribute less to the country’s development. On the personal level, they will have to postpone their adolescence, they cannot go out with friends, go dancing and other typical teen activities,” she said.

Federico Tobar, another UNFPA regional adviser, said that “in addition to strengthening health, education and social services, there must be investment to promote demand, with interventions to motivate young people to build a sustained life project.”

“This involves incorporating economic incentives as well as symbolic remuneration, and also concrete childcare support for teenage mothers so that they can finish school and avoid repeated childbearing, which is frequently seen in these countries,” he told IPS.

Among other positive experiences, Tobar mentioned the Uruguayan initiative “Jóvenes en red” (Young People’s Network) which includes returning to school and work, and promotion of sexual and reproductive health.

“I believe it is important to invest in the education of teenage women, including comprehensive sex education and the capacity to decide whether or not they wish to have children. It is not a question of eliminating all pregnancy in adolescence, but of making it a conscious choice rather than an accident,” Bianco said. 

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez. Translated by Valerie Dee.

The First Lady of Kenya, Governor Ali Roba and the Executive Director of UNFPA, Dr Osotimehin, in Mandera County. Credit: UNDP Kenya

By Ruth Kagia and Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 9 2015 (IPS)

Mandera in northeastern Kenya, has often been described as “the worst place on earth to give birth.” Mandera’s maternal mortality ratio stands at 3,795 deaths per 100,000 live births, almost double that of wartime Sierra Leone at 2,000 deaths per 100,000 live births.

But Mandera also demonstrates what can be achieved with strong political leadership and strategic partnerships. Just under a year ago, on December 2, 2014, we were part of a team from the United Nations, World Bank, charities and the Office of the President of Kenya that undertook the two-hour flight to Mandera to determine what could be done to address this critical development bottleneck.

Minutes before take-off, news came through that 36 Kenyans had been brutally murdered in Mandera by the Somali militant group al Shabaab.

No official briefing could have better highlighted the challenges of the task ahead. Rather than acting as a deterrent, it strengthened our resolve and we continued with our journey.

Marginalization combined with internecine conflicts, pockets of extremism, poor human development and cross border terrorism have trapped so many of Mandera’s people in poverty and misery. In addition, women and girls are subjected to cultural practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage, which contribute to high school dropouts and complicate delivery.

The government has been focused in its resolve to change the narrative in Mandera and in other historically disadvantaged parts of Kenya. The introduction of free maternity services, for example, has increased the number of Kenyan women giving birth under skilled care from about 40 to 60 per cent since 2013.

Together with the government, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Kenya mobilised private sector partners to develop innovative strategies to improve maternal and child health, especially in the six counties with the highest maternal and child health burden: Lamu, Isiolo, Wajir, Mandera, Marsabit and Migori.

On October 13, we launched a Community Life Centre in Mandera with the technology company Philips. The centre, equipped with solar lighting, fridges, lab and diagnostic equipment, will provide better healthcare services for about 25,000 people.

UNFPA Executive Director Dr Babatunde Osotimehin has given a very clear message that UNFPA must help the hard to reach and the most vulnerable. With this resolve, UNFPA, together with the World Bank, UNICEF and the World Health Organization, supported by the Ministry of Health, mobilized 15 million dollars to improve maternal, child and adolescent health services in the six counties in March 2015.

These efforts were given a major boost on November 6, 2015, when Kenya’s First Lady H.E. Margaret Kenyatta handed over a fully-kitted mobile clinic to Mandera. The First Lady launched the Beyond Zero campaign in 2014 to reduce maternal and child mortality in Kenya.

Dr. Osotimehin flew in from New York for the event, and was joined by the ambassadors of the European Union, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

The First Lady said: “For too long, the prospect of childbirth in Kenya, to thousands of women, has been tantamount to a death sentence. No one should die giving life.”

Dr Osotimehin said: ‘‘When we invest in strengthening the health system from the community to the facility, when we invest in strong referral systems and complementary basic services, we save women’s lives but we also underwrite our future as humanity.”

Maternal health is a perfect illustration of the fact that the process of development is multi-dimensional. Poor maternal health affects women, their children and their communities. It affects nutrition, human development, population dynamics and it undermines the quality of the labour force.

When you improve maternal health, you create healthy families, strong communities and strong economies.

Like the tentative steps of an infant beginning to walk, these may seem modest achievements in the face of the significant challenges in these remote counties. The counties require structural changes which can lead women out of poverty, eliminate gender inequalities and build stronger health systems.

The partners’ grit and the commitment demonstrated by the government together with leaders like the First Lady and Mandera County Governor Ali Roba give reason for optimism that these challenges can be overcome.

Improving maternal health is not only achievable, it is a goal worth reaching.

(End)

Excerpt:

Each year, 16 million girls aged 15-19 give birth. 50,000 of them die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. And 95 percent of those births occur in developing countries.

Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa lead the world in this department, with 80 and 120 births, respectively, per 1,000 adolescent females in 2009. But young girls’ bodies are not ready for childbirth, and getting pregnant before the age of 18 is a risk to both mother and child, as a UNICEF report, “Progress for children”, has shown. In fact, childbirth is the leading killer of adolescent girls in Africa.

Better access to and more effective use of contraceptives would help prevent 272,000 maternal deaths worldwide each year, according to a recent Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study. But in ensuring that girls can access and know how to use contraception, education is key, despite various cultural challenges that educating girls often faces.

Studies have shown that keeping girls in school improves their sexual and reproductive health. A recent released report by Save the Children shows that the higher a mother’s level of education, the lower children’s under-five mortality rate.

Laura Laski, chief of the sexual and reproductive health technical division at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS that some families “believe that more education will not contribute to what (young girls) would…become later in life”.

Cultural barriers

Winifride Mwebesa, senior director of family planning and reproductive health at Save the Children, told IPS about cultural barriers in Sub-Saharan Africa. “Very often, poor families find themselves obliged to marry their children. The tradition has been that as soon as the girl menstruates she needs to get married because you don’t want the shame of having a pregnancy in the house before she is married.”

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), in the developing world 90 percent of adolescent pregnancies are those of married girls.

Early marriage is a problem in Sub-Saharan Africa because it’s rooted deeply in the traditional values of the community. “Over 30 percent of girls in developing countries marry before 18 years of age; around 14 percent do so before the age of 15,” said Laski. Then, community expectations that girls soon have children prevents them from going to school.

In Latin America, early marriage is not as big a problem as in Sub-Saharan Africa. The report “Jóvenes y derechos” by Family Care International shows that in Latin America, factors related to a higher rate of teenage births have more to do with poverty, sexual abuse, absence of parents, culture and education levels.

María Faget, regional consultant in Latin America and the Caribbean for Family Care International, told IPS that “sexual context is still something not in the open”. Talking about the topic with parents or friends is difficult, and there is a reigning culture mandating that “young people do not need or should not be looking for contraception”, Faget explained.

Efforts in this region focus on providing “friendly services” and a welcoming environment for young people because sometimes, confidentiality is a problem. “These services are open and many times they are opened within hospitals and so young people do not go because they are afraid they are going to meet people, people they know,” said Faget.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, “friendly services” are also trying to be implemented. They include the training of  health personnel to provide accurate information to young people without interfering with their own values.

Education as the foundation

In both Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, the solution is strongly linked to the improvement of girls’ education.

Mali is a clear example. The percentage of female attendance in primary school between 2005-2010 (latest data) was 55 percent. But this number falls to 24 percent in secondary school, according to UNICEF data.

The number of girls in school is very low and the teenage pregnancy rate is extremely high – 190 births per 1,000 women – as the “Countdown to 2015 report” shows. The number is even higher than  the Sub-Saharan Africa average of 120 births per 1,000 women.

Often, families won’t take their girls to school because they are so far away . But Save the Children is working to build community schools there, as well as to create a girls-friendly environment –  also important in a family’s decision to let girls go to schools. “We build community schools that are friendly to girls, that have separate latrines,” Mwebesa told IPS.

Family Care International was part of a plan called Plan Andino para la Prevención del Embarazo en Adolescents (Plan Andino to Prevent Pregnancies Among Adolescents) that worked in six countries: Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Perú, Venezuela and Colombia.

Of those countries, Colombia has seen major improvement. “Colombia has made enormous effort in  friendly health programs,” explained Faget. In 2010, it launched an important communication campaign, “Por el derecho a una sexualidad con sentido,” that had a strong rights component.

Organisations agree that in these reproductive health and sexual education programmes, including young people’s voices is critical. After all, youth are the bridge between health and education systems and what is really needed.

Save the Children relies on youth participation to help develop materials related to sexual education. “We may have an idea of the content that needs to be in, but the format has to be decided by young people,” said Mwebesa.

Family Care International also believes in the importance of youth involvement, because youth can shift attitudes and they can have a big impact in changing culture, explained Faget.

In addition to keeping girls in school, young people need to have access to family planning and receive age-appropriate sex education, which Laski descrbied as “comprehensive sexuality education (where) girls and boys are educated about not only about their sexuality but (also) about…relationships and how to protect and promote human rights”.

A number of people line up at the Kanungu Health Center IV, Uganda to access family planning facilities. Courtesy: Tadej Znidarcic/UNFPA

By Mantoe Phakathi
Kanungu, UGANDA , Jun 29 2012 (IPS)

It is midmorning at the Kanungu Health Centre IV and the queue of patients grows as more people start to arrive for treatment at this rural facility more than 400 kilometres outside the Ugandan capital of Kampala.

Most are here to access family planning services, while some are waiting for cancer screening.

Generally about 100 patients a day visit the health centre. But today there will be four times as many.

“We see an average of 400 people a day when the doctor from Kampala visits once a month,” says nursing sister Kwesiga Muteisa.

There are mostly women in the queue here, although some are accompanied by their partners.

“Those who come with their husbands are served first to encourage male involvement in family planning,” says acting district health officer sister Rwabahima Florence.

She explains that it also serves as an opportunity for men to undergo HIV counselling and testing, and to learn about other methods of family planning not commonly practiced among Ugandans, like having a vasectomy.

The increased number of patients who visit the health centre are a testament to the success of the voluntary health team (VHT). Three years ago, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in collaboration with the Ugandan Ministry of Health and the Kanungu District Local Government, created the teams. UNFPA funds 95 percent of family planning services in this East African nation, while the government provides the remainder.

VHTs consist of volunteer members from the community who are trained in family planning in order to encourage the practice in their areas.

They conduct home visits and educate people about family planning, distribute condoms and refer patients to health facilities for more information and services. Each VHT is assigned to 25 households.

Voluntary health team member and pensioner Babwicwa Mark beams from ear to ear, satisfied with the number of couples who have now embraced family planning in the Kanungu district.

While the country’s 2011 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) states that the contraceptive prevalence rate at national level is 26 percent, it is 41 percent in Kanungu.

“I motivated some of the people to come to the facility for family planning services,” says Mark. “Most people in my area did not believe in contraceptives, but after a lot of education they realised they’ve got nothing to fear.”

Making Ugandans aware of the need for family planning is vital in a country with the world’s third-highest population growth rate: 3.2 percent.

“People in the communities listen better to the VHTs than the health workers, because at least they know them better than us,” explains Saturday Nason, a nursing officer and VHT trainer at the Kihihi Health Centre in the Kanungu District.

Ugandan women give birth to an average of six children, according to the DHS, a 0.5 decrease from the 2006 average of seven. Nason attributes this decrease to family planning awareness.

Although 26 percent of the Ugandan productive population of 15 to 49-year-olds use modern family planning methods according to the DHS, myths and cultural beliefs still stand in the way.

Women are often subjected to pressure from men to produce more children. “The biggest challenge is that while many women want to adopt family planning and have fewer children, their spouses insist on more,” says VHT member Nyakato Peace, a mother of three.

While the majority of women IPS interviewed at Kanungu Health Centre IV want an average of four children, the majority of men want seven or more. Twesigye Chrisente and her husband, Niwagaba Savio, are an example.

The mother of four is satisfied with the number children she now has, but Savio wants seven and is threatening to marry a second wife if she insists on refusing to have more.
“I only have a brother and sister and we’re not respected in the community because our family is small,” says Savio.

“I don’t want this to happen to my children.”

Chrisente, on the other hand, argues that their income is barely enough to provide for the needs of the children they already have. Both husband and wife are subsistence farmers with no steady income.

The couple had to undergo counselling at the Kinaaba Health Centre II in Kanungu District before Savio agreed that his wife could get a contraceptive implant. It will prevent her from falling pregnant for three years while Savio ponders whether or not to have more children.

While Chrisente is assured of not having any more children within the next three years, the situation is not so easy for other women on different types of contraceptives. Peace says that once women experience the slightest side effects from contraceptives they tend to discontinue them, and this inevitably leads to unplanned pregnancies.

“When it comes to side effects people prefer to discuss their problems with fellow women instead of returning to the health centre to seek advice,” says Florence. “That’s why we need people in the community who can give advice.”

The DHS reported that the use of modern contraceptives increased from eight percent in 1995 to 26 percent in 2011, showing increased demand for family planning services. However, there is a serious shortage of services in the area.

The VHTs complain that pills and female condoms are not available in Kanungu.

UNFPA assistant representative Dr. Wilfred Ochan says that there is a 41 percent unmet need for family planning in Uganda. He attributes this to inadequate funds and poorly skilled health workers.

“However, we’ve made progress because it’s the first time we’re seeing a decrease in the fertility rate in this country,” says Ochan.

As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Friday the appointments of two of his most senior officials, he has also broken new ground in his global search for a new team: an advertisement in a British weekly calling for applicants for vacant high-ranking jobs in the Secretariat.

Sussana Malcorra of Argentina has been appointed as the secretary-general's new chief of staff. Credit:UN Photo/Mark Garten

But the ad in the current issue of the Economist is confined to only four senior posts in the Secretariat: the under-secretaries general (USG) for public information; management; economic and social affairs; and general assembly and conference management.

“Advertising available posts in the Economist is not new,” Samir Sanbar, a former assistant secretary-general and head of the department of public information, told IPS. “But advertising USG posts is new.”

“A decision to advertise USG posts seems to be a move in the right direction, as long as the final decision remains really with the secretary-general, who is the only accountable official selected by the Security Council and elected by the General Assembly,” said Sanbar, who has served under five different secretaries-general.

Although the advertisement gives the impression that Ban is being transparent in his appointments, he has named several new officials without recourse to advertising, including the two he announced Friday: Jan Eliasson of Sweden, a former president of the General Assembly, as the new deputy secretary-general, and Sussana Malcorra of Argentina, the former USG for Field Support, as the new chief of staff.

At a press briefing Friday, Ban said his four USG appointments (spelled out in the ad) will be “open and public nominations”.

However, a former senior U.N. official who served under Kofi Annan was sceptical of the ad, even though he said it was the right move.

Speaking off the record, he told IPS, “Why the selectiveness (in advertising only four of the posts)? Why not others, like (the USG) for the Office of Disarmament Affairs (ODA) and even the USG for Political Affairs?”

He questioned why the posts of deputy secretary general and chief of staff were also not advertised.

“This is – as far as I know – the first time USG posts have been advertised and it is to be welcomed as a transition towards transparency and open competition for the second tier jobs in the United Nations,” he said.

“It will hopefully replace the back-room horse-dealing among great powers and regional groups for key slots where interest groups and not genuine talent was the determining factor,” he noted.

The downside is the delay in getting this process under way and the gap between the departure of the old order and the arrival of the new, with negative consequences in the U.N. administration, he added.

The secretary-general has so far announced several new appointments – both USGs and assistant secretaries general (ASGs) – without recourse to any advertising.

But he did write to the 193 member states asking for nominations for some of the vacant posts prompted by his decision to ask all senior officials to resign if they have completed five years of service.

Ban, who began his second five-year term in January, has said he wants a new team of officials to work with.

The three criteria for appointments are merit; gender, with preference being given to women provided they have the right qualifications; and geographical balance.

The USG posts that will fall vacant (and not advertised) include the Office for Disarmament Affairs, the special representative for children and armed conflict, head of political affairs, and the special adviser for prevention of genocide.

Sanbar told IPS that it was generally felt that the secretary-general should have the discretion – and the wisdom – to select his team from as wide a geographical and political representation as feasible.

“I recall when serving on the U.N.’s Appointment and Promotion Board in the late 1980s representing the staff we asked the then- Personnel Director Kofi Annan (later secretary-general) to advertise more widely externally available posts and to invite more participation from all regional/cultural backgrounds.

“And when I chaired the Board (which Annan later abolished) from 1993-1997, we particularly focused on (advertising in) the Economist, the Financial Times and using U.N. Information Offices for relevant regional media, hoping to attract the attention of more young intellectuals worldwide,” he added.

Historically, successive secretaries-general have been under pressure either from major donors or the big five powers – the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia – for some of the plum posts in the Secretariat.

And virtually all secretaries-general have caved in to outside pressure.

Asked if the advertisement was a cover for appointments already decided, Sanbar said, “Even if it is maybe in certain cases a cover for some appointments already decided, the momentum generated by such an open process could help break down long- imposed barriers.”

Like any new precedent, he said, it could be either a liberating card to strengthen the hand of the secretary-general or a wild Joker card that could be used by others to tie his hands.

“It depends on who would be the dealer – and whether it turns out to be bridge or baccarat,” said Sanbar.

Meanwhile, Ban also announced last week several new ASGs: Kate Gilmore of Australia, as one of the two deputy executive directors of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA); Sima Sami Bahous of Jordan as assistant administrator and director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States at the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP); Jens Wandel of Denmark as UNDP assistant administrator and director of the bureau of management; and Ayse Cihan Sultanogu of Turkey as UNDP assistant administrator and director of the Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

(END)