The Brome Lake Duck and Drake Weekly


by Fouad Kronfol

Special Issue for the Holidays.!!!!

"Kaboom, Kaboom, Kaboom !
There is absolutely no room,
In this world of darkness and gloom,
To think about human doom,
When our spirits start to loom,
And there goes another Zoom!"

It is 5 December 2041 and I am sitting by the Lake musing about the World and UNICEF. These are some thoughts as they came to my mind:........

In a few days UNICEF will be 95 years old and probably on the verge of having a new Executive Director (ED) appointed . What will happen when she/he comes on board?

The world has fallen into ruins in the past 20 years or so...the Covid pandemic wreaked havoc with health services in all the world, but hit hardest the developing countries. While some of the rich nations managed to protect a large number of their citizens, the poorer ones were left to fend for themselves. But, now there are close to one thousand countries, 997 to be exact, since almost all provinces, states, departments and other administrative units have claimed independence and are running their own affairs as best they can. This although two dozen small island nations have disappeared under the rising ocean waters which reached 93 cm.above 2020 levels.

World population is about to hit nine billion despite the millions who died of the pandemic and other preventable diseases with dropping vaccination levels...most countries are seeing their elderly population out-grow their children as birth rates plummet everywhere. The climate has warmed up more than 3.7 degrees C. because the COP series were not successful in bringing an overall reduction in fossil fuel emissions.In fact Greenland is getting close to its name as its ice shelf is disapppearing..Natural disasters have become more frequent and more deadly all over, with humans scurrying to mitigate the damages but not wanting to take the necessary drastic measures to control global warming...something even as simple as banning vehicle advertisement on the media was never succeeded!. Human greed has become more endemic than disease and no measures have been able to change attitudes so that most are continuing doing what they want regardless of consequences. The divide of haves and have-nots has become even more pronounced exemplified by vaccine hoarding, and other economic measures such as sanctions, boycotts etc.

Of course the 1% of the 1% rich have not been affected by any of this mess, in fact they have increased their wealth multiple times in these two decades. With the demise of the United Nations in 2035 (ninety years after its birth) the world's security is now controlled by a cartel which includes Google, Amazon, Ali Baba, TikTok, IKEA, and a few more giants of industry and finance. Their chiefs have virtual control of world events from their manipulation of the banks o f personal data they have accumulated on all citizens of the world. To add insult to injury their CEO's with families and friends have escaped in their private space shuttles to the new EARTH (Extraterrestrial Area of Rarified Types in Heaven) which is orbitting some 2 million miles around the earth. Speaking of virtual, all everyday human activity has stopped as everything is now "in the cloud", virtual, artificial, and nano-digitalized. Nothing can be done without a screen anymore...

But what about UNICEF in all this? Hard times and depleted finances have forced the sale of UNICEF House to the NY State. Trying to help children in a thousand independent localities meant having an autonomous office presence in each which resulted in a big increase in admin costs. To coordinate all these UNICEF has moved out of the US and rented a 4,000 cabin ocean liner which was converted into a Headquarters-on-the-move so that senior management can on a regular basis visit all countries periodically by mooring in nearby waters and using on-board helicopters for inland locations.This ingenious organization has allowed the closures of all 7 regional offices with considerable savings. The out-sourcing of administrative and operational work to different localities has helped streamline this aspect. UNIPAC was sold to Amazon so that great savings in stockpiling supplies and equipment has occurred. All UNICEF staff everywhere, and they now number about 126,000 (give or take a few thousand!), work from home, using the different computer devices. Their policy guidance comes via chips imbedded in each staffer's arms. All this re-imagining of UNICEF has become much too complex to handle and there is now serious consideration given to phasing out the organization when it reaches its Centennial in about five years. The old adage says:"all organizations must die sometime" and maybe the time has come for UNICEF !

Yet,.In retrospect, UNICEF has;

saved the lives of millions of children,
improved the welfare of more millions of children,
provided safe water to uncounted millions,
saved the lives of millions of mothers,
helped educate legions of children at many levels,
improved the nutrition of uncounted children and families;
initiated quick actions of relief and rehabilitation in thousands of emergencies, both natural and man-made;
sold billions of greeting cards around the world,
raised multiple billions of Dollars from all kinds of fund-raising from public and private sources,
succeeded in placing child-related services into national development plans;
raised advocacy for children to the highest political levels;
spawned many thousands of other international and local organizations that work for children;
became the main international go-to organization for all child related policies and actions globally,
helped promulgate and get adopted Declarations and Conventions on child rights;
etc. etc. etc.

So, even if UNICEF were to disappear as an organization there are many other agencies in the world which could continue the policies, programmes and activites that will affect the health and welfare of children. Since the UN does not exist anymore, even our acronym will need changing. We have about five years to decide on the final outcome.

Oh! Yes! and Greta Thunberg is nominated to be the next ED !!!

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