INTERVIEW WITH MR. OSMAN ISMAEL ABDOURAHMAN

Interview with Mr. Osman Ismael Abdourahman, President of the Executive
Committee of the Staff Union of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. December 13, 2007

SEBLE DEMEKE, UN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
FOR AFRICA

Congratulations on your election as the President of the Executive Committee of the Staff Union in ECA. It is a big responsibility and the UN Special wishes you all the best.
Thank you.

What is the structure of the staff representation in ECA? There is the Staff Council and there is the Executive Committee? How do you communicate?
The Staff Council is the representative of the staff elected by the different divisions. Each division in ECA elects its own representatives by category, for professional and general service staff. All their representatives become the Staff Council members. The Staff Council then decides on the election of the Executive Committee, which is the bureau of the Council and deals with the day-to-day staff activities. The Executive Committee reports to the Staff Council.

Are you also representing the staff of the other UN organizations in Ethiopia or do they have their own staff representatives?
I am representing ECA Staff. We organize staff activities with other agencies representatives such as in the case of HIV/AIDS in work places. The Specialized Agencies have a global representation and then they have country representatives. We do activities together but ECA Staff Union does not represent agency staffs.

Do you have any kind of mechanism for coordinating your activities?
No. The only activity that we coordinated was during the visit of the Deputy Executive Secretary. As the representative of ECA, I spoke on behalf of all the UN system staff in Ethiopia.

How long have you been involved in the staff activities?
During the past two years. I started as the Secretary of the Executive Committee. When the Staff Union President retired the Staff Council met and elected me as the President of the Executive Committee.

ECA has a new management – New Executive Secretary and a new staff Union President. What kind of staff management dialogue do you expect?
Since his appointment, Mr. Abdoul Jeanh showed a very strong commitment to dialogue with the staff. During the restructuring process he undertook when he came aboard, all the staff at the division level were actively involved to the brain storming to come with new ideas and challenges in Africa. Following this now the Staff Union has regularly met with the Senior Management, Administration and Human Resources. The idea is we set up a mechanism to meet every other week with the Senior Management and once a month with the Executive Secretary. We also agreed to get together informally, whereby we discuss the staff and organization issues as well as promote social contacts among the staff. This helps us concretely to solve staff problems and the management showed willingness to this effect. Furthermore, since the good dialogue with the new management, there is focus on an internal promotion of staff to the satisfaction of the Council.

What are the major staff management issues today?
The one aspect can cover all issues and that is career development problems of staff. Under this issue we also deal with mobility, improving the skills of staff training, promotion, accountability of managers and many other relevant issues. But also on the other side, there are other issues such as HIV/AIDS in work places. Outside of the official office hours there is a lack of getting together and socializing in order to feel part of the UN family staff.

During my last two interviews of your predecessors, Mr. Tilhaun Ashenafi and Mr. Edgar Casals, the participation of ECA staff in United Nations Peace Keeping Operations leaves a lot to be desired? How do you assess the current situation?
I am not very well aware of these problems. The only thing I know is during the recent visit of the Deputy Secretary-General here in Addis Ababa, we put the issue of Peace Keeping Operations, because for ECA staff it is one way of encouraging mobility and also the opportunity to participate in many of the operations taking place within the African continent.

Staff Security: You are aware about the continuous tragedy happening to UN Staff Members, recently in Algiers. How do you intend to work with the management in this area?
This is a problem of the UN System and the response should be given at the UN Global level. The situation is beyond local security protection. We know that UN staff working for humanitarian assistance and development work to serve the people and they are not part of any conflict. They are not armed and should not therefore be targeted by any party.

There is a Staff Union referendum going on in New York. Do you feel that the Staff at large should be consulted for a similar referendum on the statute of ECA Staff Union?
The problem of the UN New York Staff Union is special because they are not part of CCISUA. It seems that they have to go
through deep discussions related to the mandate of their Union, which is not necessary for ECA at this time. We are about to organize the new election probably by the end of January.

I realized that the UN Special Magazine is not reaching all ECA staff. Is there anything you can do to make it available to all the staff? My intention is also to distribute the magazine to ECA sub-regional offices in Africa. How can we do this together?
It should go through the registry and be distributed to each staff member and the sub-regional offices through the pouch system. But we need more copies from Geneva. We could also have a branch of UN Special focusing on Africa, published and distributed here in ECA and to other duty stations to make them aware about our specific problems.Any staff member from Headquarters and field offices could contribute articles.

Any other issues you would like to raise?
The UN Staff everywhere in Africa lives and works with the society and we need to have a better communication and social interaction with the population. Otherwise we end up being isolated and not be able to understand the need and aspiration of the people. May be it is a good opportunity now as we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of ECA here in Addis Ababa to face this challenge.

I enjoyed talking to you and thank you for your time.