Congo fighting challenges UN 'togetherness' bid
U.N. staff at Foundation workshop
A real crisis was developing with reports of fresh fighting in the east of the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was a timely reminder of the challenges that lie ahead.
The UN operation in Rwanda is one of eight pilot projects in which the world body is learning to speak with one voice. “It’s the start of a process – the total reform of the way we communicate within our family,” Aurelien Amah Agbenonci, UN Resident Coordinator in Rwanda, explained.
Traditionally, individual UN agencies, programmes or funds handle their own communications with the media and public in the different countries in which they work. UN operations in Albania, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uruguay and Vietnam are working to change that.
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
The October 9 workshop was one of two run in the Rwandan capital by Foundation consultants Nick Kotch and Nick Phythian.
Rwanda’s efforts to rebuild after the 1994 genocide have been complicated by unresolved ethnic and political tensions in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and raids by Hutu militia who fled there after slaughtering of more than one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Fighting in the Congo often sends civilians fleeing across the border into Rwanda.
The one-day course for UN agency or programme heads in Kigali focused on ways of working with journalists from Rwanda, the region and further afield. They experimented with different techniques for delivering their messages and fielding questions during interviews both on and off TV.
Earlier, members of the new UN communications team, which will work with them under the new system, spent two days exploring techniques for identifying key messages and delivering them through news releases and TV interviews.
The highlight of their workshop was a mock news conference focusing on the impact of the world financial crisis on the UN and its work in the region.
ANTICIPATING THE UNEXPECTED
Some people freeze in front of a TV camera. Others may start well enough until an unexpected question has them wondering in a dazed kind of way, “What’s he asking me that for?”
Both workshops offered participants tips to help them focus, anticipate the unexpected and bounce back from mental blocks and other nasty surprises.
They brought together staff from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the UN Development Program (UNDP), the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the World Food Program (WFP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
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