Maureen W. McClure
Thu, 22 Jan 1998 18:53:15 -0500
From: fmethod <
Subject: [Fwd: IRAQ]
This is from a friend, just back from Iraq where she was working through UNESCO to help some teacher colleges. She directs the Global Information Network In Education (GINIE) program which is based at U/Pittsburgh and supported by UNESCO/IBE, USAID, and others. It is an exemplary effort, very low budget and sustained mainly by very dedicated people concerned with education in crisis and post-crisis situations.
See http://www.pitt.edu/~ginie for more information
One of the things she encountered is that it is virtually impossible to get official permission to bring in computers for use in schools, as they are considered "dual-purpose" under the 661 regulations for the embargo. However, computers are easily available in the local marketplace, coming in through various holes in the embargo. As a result, the rogues and outlaws as well as those who are wealthy or well-connected have access to technology and it is likely the military also can get most of what they want, but poor to average kids in average schools cannot, even if outside groups are willing to provide equipment and facilitate connections.
From: mmcclure
The text is a little messy, but it is easier than trying to fuss with an attachment. I can’t speak to the complex politics, but from a humanitarian assistance viewpoint, the people of Iraq, especially the well-educated professional cadre and the children, deserve to have the intellectual embargo lifted soon before the civil professional infrastructure rots beyond repair. Seven years is almost one half a generation.
It is increasingly clear to me that education means far more than literacy, it is the communications needed to build and sustain a civil economy.
The professions, education in particular, are also central to a safe, healthy, creative economy. The professions and their development networks can help provide a delicate balance across necessarily complex identities.
It could be summed in a single telling moment. For the first part of my first meeting in the Iraq MOE, I felt glaringly American. I didn’t mind, that’s who I am. When I talked about the need to work together as professionals, as soon as I said the ‘p’ word, everyone in the room visibly relaxed. (Shows that their English skills weren’t all that bad.)
That’s also who I am, and it would be naive to think of professional identity as unpatriotic, quite the contrary, it is a deep personal commitment to a workable society. Apparently the Iraqis felt so too. The dam broke, the conversations started to flow and there we were, learning from each other, trying to help kids, and trying to be responsible for the next generation that is waiting.
Warm regards,
Maureen
TO: Seth Spaulding, Frank Method
FROM: Maureen McClure
CC: Emily Vargas-Baron
DATE: 22 January, 1998
Some brief observations on the UNESCO/Baghdad mission
I. The success of the UN mission in Iraq is critical.
A. Iraq is a, if not the, leading international policy issue of the moment.
B. The Iraq situation has put the UN as breaking news in the US and internationally through CNN almost every day since October. This has to be a rare, if not unprecedented media event.
C. This extraordinary visibility rules out UN failure as an option.
II. The contribution of UNESCO/Baghdad to the success of the UN mission in Iraq is critical to its stature and visibility as a key UN player. An analyst at FAO told me how important it was [for UNESCO] to address the terrible impact of the ‘intellectual embargo’ in Iraq.
Quck illustration. Each Friday in Baghdad, hundreds of booksellers bring blankets of pathetic books to sell. Outdated medical texts, engineering, foreign languages. The streets were packed with men carefully picking through the rubbish searching earnestly for the occasional treasure. I saw for the first time a different kind of starvation.
A. The UN’s passionate commitment to decency is reflected in UNESCO’s efforts there. UNESCO/Baghdad’s mission is making an important and unique contribution to UN efforts in Iraq. Its emphasis on world heritage focuses on the ‘generational trusts’ of intellectual and cultural capital.
Its commitment to a continuing presence through its unique system of national commissions allows it to act a special bridge between classical humanitarian assistance intervention (food and medical supplies) and transition to a sustainable civil state.
This transition can no longer be assumed, as many market economies worldwide are now growing ‘rogue,’ outside of the tax systems needed to pay for a stable civil infrastructure of education, legal, transportation and public health systems.
The economic borders of Iraq are porous for rogue commercial goods. Alas, many of the country’s most qualified professionals cannot afford them. Teachers are earning about US$10 per month. Surgeons work as UN drivers at night. Meat costs between $2 and $3 per kilo. I bought five cans of canned goods from Jordan, some bread and two one-half kilos of coffee as gifts for UN hosts. It cost me $13. Computers are available for $800-$1000. Gosh, for $500, they could have network computing.
B. The UNESCO/Baghdad office staff is managing the extreme complexity of the situation for both interagency and governmental cooperation on too few resources and too little backstopping. This is understandable, since UNESCO is just beginning to decentralize to support sensitive states.
The office may be the poorest of the UN offices in Baghdad, but it is clever, sometimes maddeningly so. For example, they hired a Jordanian firm to carry UNESCO-related people on the long road from Amman to Baghdad in large comfortable vans. When I expressed concern that on my return to Amman I was an American woman traveling alone without an escort in a van with no UN markings through an area with occasional bandit activity and through the border, the reply was "Believe me, madam, this is the best way."
The driver was a civil engineer who spoke English fluently, and seemed to have a nephew at every stop. ‘Ameriki’ he announced as I gritted my teeth.
The responses varied, but were inevitably polite. When we encountered a very dangerous freak snow and ice storm on the desert, he managed superbly, saying that after driving in the mountains of Bosnia on business before the war, he was well-prepared for whiteouts. He also drove on two hours of sleep and fasted throughout the trip for Ramadan. I returned safely, without incident.
C. UNESCO/Baghdad has been planning and supporting responsible intellectual capacity building in Iraq through investments in the ‘education economy’: furniture and chalk factories, professions training, educational communications networks, and world heritage. They need much more support. For example, Iraq has been called the cradle of Judeo-Christian civilization, and is the home for many important Biblical sites.
The office is very concerned that the weakened economy has led to looting of priceless antiquities by government workers responsible for security at major sites. They are currently seeking $15,000 to fund a small project to use a digital camera and the Internet to record and track priceless antiquities. Photos of missing objects would be displayed on the Internet to discourage the growing illegal trade.
III. UNESCO has a unique contribution to make in what I call ‘sensitive states’ and are often highly visible in the media. The UNESCO offices in BiH and Iraq appear to exist on an administrative shoestring, but with more ‘personality’ and ‘style’ than most UN agencies and NGOs. When I was in Sarajevo in October, Colin Kaiser, the UNESCO representative, gave me the best political context briefing that I had received in two years from an ‘international.’ There were many very good people working in BiH, and his ability to situate education within the ultra-sensitive political context of the middle cantons of Bosnia and Herzegovina not only was very helpful for my mission, it was an important story that needs to be heard
by many others.
Recommendations for UNESCO:
Build on strengths.
1. The UN has to be seen as the successful champion of civil nation-states against ‘bandit economies’ unwilling to pay taxes for public responsibilities. There are few options for nations in twenty-first century faced with supporting civil states or being controlled by paramilitary economies.
2. UNESCO has a central role in promoting core education values for civil nation states: enlightened self-interest, generational trust and world heritage.
3. UNESCO’s commitment to intellectual, communications and cultural capital places it in an increasingly central role within the UN because of the growth of an information-based international economy that uses telecommunications.
4. UNESCO has ‘personalities’ well-suited for sensitive states, both in the field and in management. Field people need rapid response support and backstopping in return for visibility for fund raising. Field people should be invited to Washington, Paris and Geneva to tell UNESCO’s story to funding constituents. UNESCO Washington, Paris and Geneva people need to visit sensitive states to learn how they can improve the chances for a successful mission.