Victims of Ineptitude
An Insider's Account of Injustice within the World Health Organization
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
For years critics have said the United Nations and its specialized agencies were in need of reform. But while academics and politicians theorised about it in their ivory towers, we, the international civil servants, struggled on the ground, our jobs made harder by knowing that should we fall prey to any of the ills the critics pointed out, we would have no recourse to justice. And so it was as illustrated in my story.
The experts and advisers sent to the third world countries by the United Nations and its specialized agencies work under difficult conditions giving everything they have got to improve the lives and wellbeing of people living in the worst circumstances on earth. Yet they don’t have statues, streets or grand buildings named after them. Quietly and anonymously they make the world a better place.
WHO’s field staff in particular make more personal sacrifices to furthrt their work, knowing that at any time that sacrifice could be the ultimate one. When such new diseases, against which we have no defences develop, WHO staff invariably become martyrs as in the recent case of SARS. Dr. Carlo Urbani, the WHO infectious diseases expert in
This is a story of a WHO field mission that went horribly wrong costing the lives of two valuable professionals and seriously injuring the writer. But in a wider context, it is about what can happen when an antiquated approach to staff management is applied by a huge organization with so many rules and so little wisdom. The story illustrates, as no dry study can, what can happen when leadership is inadequate, when it is above the law and accountable to no one. It is the fight for justice of one individual against a vast implacable bureaucracy which failed to be compassionate to its long serving staff and their families following a tragic loss. It is about a leadership which instead of trying to motivate and inspire its staff was concerned only with protecting itself from accusation.
What had started originally as perhaps nothing more than a routine case of utterly incompetent driving, had blown up out of all proportion, costing thousands of aid money to have it finally settled by the International Labour Organization Administrative Tribunal (ILOAT) and the Namibian High Court bringing into question the WHO’s entire values and credibility.
Forced to re-examine every credo by which he and his colleagues lived, and which inspired them to make sometimes heroic sacrifices in the course of their duty, the writer continued to demand that the Organization, from the Director General down, treat staff in a manner commensurate with their noble aim.
In telling his personal story the writer raises legitimate questions about staff harassment, professionalism, bureaucracy, unaccountability and the dominance of politics in managing the global public health affairs. He appeals to the conscious of all those who have shuddered as televised images of the flee-bitten children dying of diseases that could, given the will and support of the world , be prevented. ' WHO is mighty in experience to do this if its staff look at our world through the eyes of the least privileged. They have to understand their hopes and fears. As international civil servants we exist to serve them, to help them realise their strength, their potential and their aspirations. Between us we are in a unique position to put into action the world's idealistic plans for fighting global poverty and global sickness. This should be the common purpose that unites us, with all our multi-coloured cultures, languages and creeds, under one umbrella-not greed, corruption or despair. Let us therefore re-dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of that great good under the new leadership of the Director General and Regional Directors. Hopefully they will usher in a new era, one ruled by justice and mutual respect, when staff rights will be honoured and all forms of harassment will finally come to end."
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Victims of Ineptitude
There are many organizations committed to the fight against ill-health, the best known being the World Health Organization, founded in 1948 and funded from the pockets of ordinary people and their governments. Consider the extraordinary battle the WHO waged against smallpox in the 1970’s and won. The latest and probably the toughest challenge so far, is that of AIDS, currently killing millions of people worldwide and leaving behind hords of tiny orphans. The WHO has been one of the leaders in this war which is being waged by its staff of international Civil Servants who take intense personal risks by undertaking heroic action to fight the deadly bacteria and viruses. Those facts and ideas are reflected in this book by a man who travelled for more than two decades in hostile places with scant regard for his own good health and security, in the fight for better health and living conditions among some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.
It comes as a shock therefore to discover that in the writer’s experience, the WHO can be a cold organization which shows little respect for its hardworked staff and considerably wasteful, misspending of its precious public funding to pay for errors and mismanagement. This is a story of human tragedy and massive disillusinment. It will page after page surprise readers of goodwill and reason who will surely find it hard to believe that the administration of such a large outfit with such great responsibility can behave in the way illustrated in the book. This is the saddening picture painted in this book by a long serving and highly placed official who writes movingly from his own experience.
The writer and two valued professional colleagues venture to a remote part of
About the Author
Firdu Zawide was until his retirement, for over 23 years an international civil servant. With great pride he served the World Health Organization in Zawide was born and grewup in Before joining WHO, Zawide served his country as a sanitary engineer for the Ministry of Works, the Awash Valley Authority and the Urban Water and Sewerage Authority. He was a part time lecturer in sanitary engineering at the Hilary Bassett is an award winning, British writer who lives and works in