Humanitarian Organization Analysis of United Nations International Children Emergency Fund - Case Study Example

Humanitarian Organization Analysis March 16th, 2016. United Nations International Children Emergency Fund: UNICEF The burden of needy children SOS Children’s Village USA, (n.d.) findings, globally, about 153 million children from infants to teenagers are either partial orphans with one parent or total orphans. Of these, 17.9 million are orphans following the demise of their parents after being overwhelmed by the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the majority are from Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. More than 7 million of the 153million children have had a chance to be enrolled in institutional care globally, that means other children still have not been able to access such care. Additionally, one in every five children in developing nations (SOS Children’s Village USA, n.d.) suffers from severe malnutrition and is severely underweight. Overall, more than one billion children lack at least one of the basic necessities such as sanitation, food, and water. In 2011, statistics show that about 19,000 children under five died each single day. Further, about 22 million children have been displaced due to natural disasters or violence and forced to escape their homes and are supported as refugees in various countries. Significantly, about 1 billion children are citizens within countries where armed conflicts is a norm, and about 67 million children of school going age have no access to primary education. Currently, in general there are many children who have undergone various form of torture globally with domestic violence being common with about 20%-60% children suffering from domestic violence being reported globally (SOS Children’s Village USA, n.d.). Realizing the dangers that children and teenagers are exposed to that comes as a result of being orphaned, HIV/AIDS, violence, domestic violence, disaster stricken areas and other calamities, this essay will critically focus on the UNICEF and its roles in supporting children in need and teenagers, evaluate its sponsors, its challenges and evaluate its strengths and weakness. UNICEF italics stand for United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. UNICEF has been in spotlight for over 70 years serving the children and working to ensure every child all over the world feels wanted, and cared for. Among the many roles that UNICEF undertakes, one of them is to promote children’s wellbeing and their rights. Currently, UNICEF works in 190 nations with the ultimate objective of spreading and translating the roles in saving the child within their actions, with a special interest in reaching excluded and vulnerable children, and ensuring all children globally benefit from their programs (UNICEF, 2016). During development, children can be exposed to various forms of stressors that may cause long-term or short-term suffering and affect their lives in the long run. Stress is defined as the connectivity of a person with his/her environment, and where the environment can be said to be exceeding his or her resources or demanding or putting the person’s life in danger (Schwarzer, Schulz & Berlin, 2001). According to the Center for Disease Control (2014), stressful life events predispose children to a life plenty of vulnerability and affect their growth and development. Some of stressors that children face include domestic violence, sexual abuse, illnesses and exposure to natural disasters. Referred to as the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), the experiences remain main risk factors to ill-health and early mortality among children as well as a poor quality of life both in developed and developing countries. Figure 1, shows how childhood experiences affects children growth and future development (CDC, 2014). Owing to the significance of children growing up in a stressing environment, UNICEF’s approach to child support is based on a life-cycle approach. In their model, UNICEF emphasizes the need for the early childhood support going beyond childhood to touch the adolescent needs. Realizing the scarce resources and increasing needs for any growing child, UNICEF’s central focus is on disadvantaged children, which includes children with disabilities, and children affected by degradation of the environment and rapid urbanization (UNICEF, 2016). Figure 1: Childhood Experiences and Impact hierarchy Teamwork Effective teamwork is fundamental to the success of every organization. A successful team is realized in an environment that provides new opportunities, provides positive feedback and has a culture of recognizing its stakeholders (http://www.lmi-inc.com/articles/teamwork_components.pdf). Realizing the need for future growth in terms of niche and population in their programs and development and meeting objectives, the aim of UNICEF is to ensure people work together within the organization and outside the organization with various stakeholders, both international and targeted national governments. The collaboration enables the organization to beat the challenges that discrimination, diseases, violence, and poverty pose in child development. To UNICEF a child’s future is determined by what the child faces during his/her current experiences (UNICEF, 2016). Strength and Weakness analysis UNICEF has shown various strengths and weaknesses when executing its duties to the needy in the society. According to Salem, Hasnan & Osman (2012) performance measurement system (PMS) is a significant tool in any given organization. PMS is defined as a group of metrics, a metric or the process, used to quantify both the effectiveness and the efficiency of actions. PMs is incorporated from strategic planning and the mission of the organization. PMs also provide the data to collect, to analyze and to report and at the end draw conclusion of the any business. Thus, UNICEF has not been sidelined in that PMs cannot be carried in its activities and performance, and that can be examined using its strengths and weaknesses. UNICEF takes pride in its outstanding vision for every child, aligned with its mission for over 70 years, coupled with a visible performance outcome which has seen the organization remain a recognized and trusted brand worldwide. UNICEF has remained a key player in emergency situations steering the movement to save suffering children and has been a key player in inter-agency such World food Programme activities of working together. This type of interworking has built and upheld UNICEF as a reliable organization whose role and support are highly welcomed and appreciated. However, the organization in reality is quite distanced in interacting with other organizations and civil society. Further, while the organization terms itself result oriented, UNICEF employs management by input approach (UNICEF, 2013). UNICEF has remained in the forefront in ensuring that each child gets the fundamental immunizations to decrease mortality and morbidity from preventable diseases to the greatest degree that is feasible. UNICEF not only serves long-term contracts in the countries they are working with, but works to ensure a close relationship with the local government. However, its performance in various countries suffers from UN malaise where managers are not rewarded for their efforts or held accountable for the outcome. Further, the reporting in writing are not in line with practical activities on the ground as results are usually partial and UNICEF does not align the outcome with the reporting requirements of the donor. Besides, to ensure the sustainability of projects, UNICEF has its programs directed to situations affecting the country it collaborates with. UNICEF applies an action-oriented and practical approach in what it does to build confidence to its stakeholders. UNICEF partnership strategies and priorities do not allow full force partnership representation and scope. Internally, UNICEF has a substandard human resource management structure that involves untimely recruitment gaps, technical competencies gaps, and increasing levels of employee burn-out. Also, UNICEF is an organization that is quite complex and full of bureaucracies that leads to employees’ time and skills being wasted without anyone addressing the matter. Nevertheless, the outstanding performance of UNICEF in saving and supporting the children means the organization has a comparative advantage over other UN bodies in operational effectiveness, a fact which has seen the organization maintain and increase its multi-donor supporters. UNICEF suffers a drawback in its strategic indicators such as failure to ensure and maintain capacity building that would in turn empower the nations targeted and ensure programme sustainability (Evaluation Office, 2004). Sources of income Working day in day out to ensure no child dies from disease whose cause can be prevented and that every child enjoys a healthy childhood and safety, as well as ensuring a minimum attainment of primary education for girls, eradicating poverty, reducing discrimination against girls, women and children and responding to emergency situations UNICEF has won itself various sources of support (UNICEF, 2016). UNICEF believes in partnership and has a long history of corporation with multi-national corporations. The UNICEF gets its support from various partners and other major international and national corporate partners and groups and individual donations, with its main supporter being UN-agency body that supports United Nations organizations. The, money given to some degree lacks transparency in how it is invested in the targeted programmes and thus accountability remains a challenge for UNICEF (UNICEF, 2015). Additionally, the money has never been insufficient to attend to the expected needs and priorities of UNICEF. This can be attested from such headlines such as $3.1 billion appeal launching Ottawa to support, 62 million children at risk due to humanitarian crises in 71 countries. Further, UNICEF did point out that the 2014 aid agency did make up to 52% of targeted $2 billion meaning there was a 48% budget deficit causing the organization to trim programs supporting children in crisis and Syrian refugees (Blanchfield, 2015). Stakeholders According to Clarinval & Biller-Andorno, (2014), within humanitarian agencies it is a challenge to make ethically justified decisions, due to poor-prioritized needs. In areas stricken by disaster, the populations at stake have needs that in most cases outweigh the available material resources and personnel. Focusing on the organization’s master plan and the immediate needs, careful decisions have to be made regularly to ensure the priority needs are always addressed. In UNICEF, there exists an executive Board that makes major decisions such as resources allocation. However, to ensure sustainability, impact, efficiency and effectiveness there are country authorities who work hand in hand with UNICEF personnel on the ground to make various immediate decisions. Also, there are regional directors that are assigned several countries depending on work demands to ensure that the decision making process is up-to-date with the organization’s policies, mission and strategies. Subsequently, various stakeholders may execute various decisions within their mandate in upholding UNICEF’s culture of supporting the needy in the society (http://preval.org/documentos/00473.pdf). Conclusion In conclusion, UNICEF is a humanitarian agency committed to meeting the basic needs of every child with its brand having a major outcome over 70 years. Its focus is the suffering of and less fortunate children in order to ensure they attain a minimum level of primary education, get immunized against all preventable disease through comprehensive immunization programmes in each 190 countries where the organization is offering its services. UNICEF embraces teamwork, a critical decision making process and works hand in hand with its partners. However, the organization suffers a drawback of not having sufficient accountability, not meeting donors’ expectation, being distant from the civil community and failing to work with target communities to ensure the sustainability of its programs. UNICEF enjoys widespread monetary support from partners in the government and UN-agency body and corporations, groups and individuals. However, the money is never enough to meet the needs on the ground, a fact which forces the organization to cut its budget to do what is possible. References Blanchfield, M. (2015). UNICEF Launches Record $3.1billion Appeal for Funds. Retrieved 3/11/2016 from, http://globalnews.ca/news/1799997/unicef-launches-record-3-1-billion-appeal-for-funds/ Center for Disease Prevention and Control, (2014). Injury Prevention and Control: Davison of Violence Prevention. Retrieved 3/11/2016 from, http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/index.html Clarinval, C. & Biller-Andorno, N. (2014). Challenging operations: an ethical framework to assist humanitatrian Aid workers in their decision-making process. PLoS Curr, 23(6). Evaluation Office, (2004).UNICEF’s Strengths and Weaknesses. a summary of key internal and external institutional reviews and evaluations conducted from 1999-2004. Retrieved 3/11/2016 from, http://www.unicef.org/evaldatabase/files/Strengths_final_jan_2005.pdf Salem, M.A., Hasnan, N. & Osman,N.H. (2012). Balanced scorecard: weaknesses, strenghths and its ability as performance management system versus other performance management systems. Journal of Environment and Earth Science, 2(9):1-10. Schwarzer, R., Schulz,U. & Berlin, F.U. (2001). The Role of Stressful Life Events. Retrieved 3/11/2016 from, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/health/materials/lifeevents.pdf SOS Children’s Village USA, (n.d.). Children’s Statistics: Why You Should Help the Children. Retrieved 3/11/2016 from, http://www.sos-usa.org/our-impact/childrens-statistics Teamwork: Components of an Effective Tea, (nd.). Retrieved 3/11/2016 from, http://www.lmi-inc.com/articles/teamwork_components.pdf UNICEF (2013). Annual Report 2013. Retrieved 3/11/2016 from, http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNICEF_Annual_Report_2013_web_26_June_2014.pdf UNICEF (2015). UNICEF’s Corporate Partnerships. Retrieved 3/11/2016 from, http://www.unicef.org/corporate_partners/index_24525.html UNICEf (2016). About UNICEF. Retrieved 3/11/2016 from, http://www.unicef.org/about/who/index_introduction.html Read More