Peace and Development
Although
Denmark was a quiet corner in Europe, Jørgen Lissner was influenced
already in early childhood by the humanitarian crises caused by the Cold
War. The horror of the Hungarian uprising against Soviet rule in 1956 and
the subsequent mass exodus of refugees to Austria was brought forcefully
home to him by his older sister, who served as a social worker in a
refugee camp in Vienna, and by his older brother who worked in an Austrian
shelter for Hungarian children who had been separated from their families.
Another event that left an indelible impression was in 1961 when the
Berlin Wall went up with the recurring images of people being killed by
border guards while attempting to flee to West Germany.
This historical setting, gave Jørgen an interest in the United Nations from an early age. In high school, he joined the UN Association in Denmark and was particularly impressed by the famous speech of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961, rejecting the Soviet demand that he step down in favour of a "troika" at the head of the UN Secretariat -- and by his tragic death the following year in a plane crash near Ndola in the Congo.
An opportunity to work with the UN arose much earlier than he had expected. While doing compulsory military service in the Danish army, Jørgen volunteered at the age of 19 for a tour of duty with the UN Peace Keeping Force in Cyprus. There, during months on around-the-clock patrol along the ceasefire line in Nicosia, he witnessed first hand the scourge of inter-ethnic civil war -- and he discovered the power of the UN to freeze conflict and the powerlessness of the "blue helmets" to build peace. He realized that "Peace cannot be enforced, but only take root when it is nurtured by socio-economic progress and by viable institutions". The seed had been sown for a lifelong pursuit of peace in the name of development.
Jørgen left Cyprus in May 1965 and returned to civilian life. But 17 years later, in 1982, he returned to work under UN auspices. In the intervening years, he laid the foundation for a career in the field of development by (a) taking a diploma course in Asian Studies at the University of the Philippines, (b) getting a Masters degree in development policy and planning at Aarhus University in Denmark, (c) serving for one year as a community development volunteer in the rural areas of South Korea, (d) becoming an active member of the Danish Anti-Apartheid Movement, (e) working 8 years in development NGOs in Geneva and Copenhagen, and (f) writing a book on "The Politics of Altruism" -- a critical 360-page analysis of the policies and practices of international development NGOs.
Jørgen returned to the UN in October 1982, as UNDP Assistant Resident Representative in Ethiopia. He moved from Copenhagen to Addis Ababa with his wife Liti and their 3-year old son Allan. Since then, the Lissners have served in seven different duty stations in five regions (Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and headquarters in New York where their youngest son Henrik was born). Their posting in Bangladesh began in late June 2000.
Highlights and Lessons Learnt
Jørgen has often asked colleagues who are discouraged by particular setbacks on the road towards global development to dig out old development literature from the 1970s or 1980s. Comparisons between the development debate then and now reveal that the know-how of development has matured by leaps and bounds. One-dimensional projects and simplistic prescriptions have been replaced by complex multidisciplinary and comprehensive strategies -- and the old focus on "delivery of services" (health, education, social welfare) has given way to new approaches based on people’s rights and entitlements and on the need for responsive governance. The primary focus has shifted from projects and budgets to policies and strategies.
For years, we quoted the proverb : "Give a man a fish, and he will be hungry again tomorrow. Teach him how to fish, and he can feed himself for a lifetime". Now, we must add to the proverb a third sentence -- less elegant, but no less true: "Change the fisheries policy so as to prevent overfishing, reduce maritime pollution and facilitate the fish marketing process, and all fishing communities in the entire country will benefit permanently".
Beyond these long-term shifts in the UN system’s main approach to development, Jørgen recalls vividly a number of major "defining moments" in his two decades with UNDP -- such as (a) the disastrous famine that hit the central highlands of Ethiopia in 1984, (b) the news that the UNDP/Liberia office -- which he invested two years in modernizing -- was ransacked by rebel army units during the civil war, (c) the striking progress being made in the campaign against river blindness in West Africa and in the use of biological control methods against African crop pests, (d) the difficult struggle to design a tourism policy for Nepal that protects the Himalayan environment, while at the same time provide income for ultra-poor rural families, (e) the challenge of building a completely new infrastructure of democratic institutions in Lithuania -- a "new" country emerging after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and (f) the shock-waves and setbacks to development in Jordan, whenever the conflicts in the region erupted anew.
Goals for Bangladesh
Jørgen is optimistic about the opportunities that present themselves for the UN system to make a meaningful contribution to the development of Bangladesh. This is a country that is blessed with ultra-fertile land, with large numbers of well-educated people, and with emerging democratic institutions.
The key challenge facing the UN system in general and UNDP in particular is to promote more responsive governance in all fields : better governance for poverty reduction, better governance for health and education, better governance for protection of the environment, and better governance in the public sector at large. He is very pleased with the progress already achieved in UNDP’s assistance to the Election Commission, to Parliament, to the Auditor-General’s Office, and to the human rights work in the Ministry of Law and Justice.
But more needs to be done, especially towards the establishment of an ombudsman institution to enable ordinary people to seek redress for abuses of power in the public sector. The legislation is drafted, but it is still awaiting approval by Parliament.
Promotion of more responsive governance also requires a concerted effort to reduce corruption. UNDP has assisted a number of governments elsewhere in the world with the elaboration of anti-corruption strategies. Strategies of this type focus largely on the systematic removal of the most common opportunities for abuse and corruption. If progress can be made in this field, it will benefit the work of all UN agencies in all their different areas of expertise.
Advice to those who would like to pursue a Career with the UN
He stresses that the UN is not a place for beginners. It is a place people advance to after proving themselves in their national context. There are very high expectations of the UN in many countries, and the UN will not be able to measure up to these expectations, unless we consistently bring in the best and the most experienced.