Dereje Wordofa Gidda (PhD) was the Youngest ever appointed UN Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA at New York United States headquarters. He is now running to become the first Ethiopian and African democratically elected President of SOS Children’s Village International to lead 177 countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
The election is being conducted globally for the first time in 72 years making Dr. Dereje part of history in the making. He has over three decades of work experience in humanitarian services and making people’s lives better. He has so much to share from his experience and future plans to do more in children’s and young people’s lives.
Dereje Wordofa Gidda’s entire adult life has been devoted to humanitarian service, human development, social policy, and lasting peace. Over the last three decades, he has worked for five international organizations including those focused on promoting children’s rights. He has travelled to more than 70 nations and lived in 6 countries – other than his home country Ethiopia – to execute international assignments and responsibilities.
In his last role, he worked as the youngest ever UN Assistant Secretary General with a focus on the implementation of Agenda 2030 and promised to ‘leave no one behind’. Before receiving the call to his UN assignment, he served as the Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, as well as being Deputy COO for Africa/Middle East of SOS Children’s Villages among other organizations.
He holds MSc, MBA, and doctoral degrees. His experiences, combined with high-level education, have helped him to embrace the virtues of humility, inspiration, enthusiasm, kindness, courage, trust, transparency and resilience as part and parcel of principled leadership.
The Ethiopian Herald has interviewed Dereje (PhD) recently on his vast experience in international organizations, as well as his candidacy for SOS. Excerpts:
How do you see the current activities of humanitarian organizations at the international level? What changes and challenges have you seen?
Well, humanitarian organizations, be it, non-governmental, nonprofit agencies, United Nations, and other international bodies are confronted with so many challenges. Primarily, the Coronavirus pandemic has put tremendous pressure on the world, on the economic fabric, how societies live, and how families actually cope to make ends meet and movement of people from one place to another. All are restricted because of the pandemic, combined with that there are political tensions and violent conflicts.
The climate change, places where there are droughts as well as too much rain has affected so many people. Importantly, poverty is the chronic, protracted concern and all this means, these organizations need to work harder to mobilize greater resources and influence the practices, policies and regulations given by governments in order to deliver their humanitarian and development agenda.
And on top of that, inside the organizations, there are always dynamics. They need to acquire the necessary resources to run their business, programs they need to attract high caliber experienced people. Often some organizations cannot do that because of limited resources because the workforce with a high level of competency runs to where there are better rewards. So as business, for example, grows, NGOs get less and less, competent people. Some of their good people actually go out and start their own enterprises, which is not bad. It is good in such a way but their ability to deliver a program would be restricted. So, they are confronted by internal and external challenges and always they need to reinvent themselves and bring in innovation to accomplish their objectives with less money with better results.
How do you see the role of humanitarian organizations like SOS in the social and economic development of countries like Ethiopia?
Organizations like SOS have played a very important role within the broader development agenda. SOS, for example, is primarily concerned with children who are orphaned, in abandoned, neglected places where they are not recognized, their voices are not heard. SOS reaches out and speaks with communities and works with local authorities and government and give on a place where these children are loved and cared.
And that requires tremendous commitment and courageous decision because you need to ensure that these children are really orphaned and abandoned. It is the last resort they need to be taken care of by the programs that SOS runs and it is a lifetime commitment. These children need to come into a place where they are cared for and loved. They need education. Their health should be ensured, they need to eat and continuously be nurtured for them to become healthy, and active, young people.
And then they need to prepare for active life and become, useful citizens in the places where there are born and grew up if they are born in Ethiopia and say in Somalia or, in, or Oromia or Tigray region, they need to be useful for that society, but also useful to Ethiopia as a whole, and even they need to prepare to take responsibilities globally. So, agencies like SOS have a long-term view to supporting the welfare of children.
How do you explain the legacy of SOS village international in Ethiopia? Can you mention some indicators in this regard?
SOS Ethiopia played a very important role in reaching out to children who were without adequate parental care or children’s those who have lost their parents. And SOS started back in 1973 here in Ethiopia during the war and famine in Northern Ethiopian and the first children’s village was established in Mekele in Tigray State and a few children were admitted to those programs. And, I think then the program was expanded in Jimma, Addis Ababa, Harar, Gode, Bahir Dar. And, this is now almost covering the whole country. And there are children who were admitted to SOS family life care and they were cared for and educated and became young people and become adults. SOS has cared for thousands of children who had no father and mother or relatives, but they were nurtured in a family setting and became useful citizens. Otherwise, they could have been abandoned and neglected, even died or suffered and left with a lifetime trauma and damages in their soul.
The program is expanded in Ethiopia and currently spends more than 400 million Birr annually to care for children in different parts of Ethiopia. And this is not only to provide family like care, but also fun which is preventing family breakdown. If possible children need to be cared for by their parents by supporting their families, but also in care, their parents by the children remain within their villages. They would be living and growing up with an uncle or grandma or grandfather. And, SOS supports not only that family and neighbors, but also the whole community by working with Idir, Equb and other community-based organizations and also building schools and clinics, which are very important, not only for that particular family but for the whole neighborhood and community.
And, it has also adopted a work around, adoption locally and foster care. They call it Gudifecha in Ethiopian context. But SOS is not involved at whole international adoption, children often targeted and peaked and looked after in the place where there are found or born, which means, a girl or a boy in Jimma will grow up in Jimma the same thing in Bahir Dar or Tigray or Harar. So, they learn about the culture, the language and understand the customs and the dynamics within their community and society. So they don’t learn only the schooling, but also other things which make them a full human being by the time they become adults.
Now you’re running to become the first Ethiopian and African democratically elected president of SOS village international to lead 136 countries in America, Europe, Africa and Oceania. If you will be elected, what is your plan, vision?
First of all, I am very proud to be able to put myself as a candidate to be the fourth president of this prestigious Federation of 177 members across the whole world. And I am the fourth president. There are three people who were presidents in 70 plus years. This is very exceptional and a turning point for an entire Federation because in other federal contexts in multilateral settings, there are more frequencies of people who are heading such establishments. For example, the United Nations had a number of Secretary Generals over the last 70 years. So, for me to be able to compete for this job is historical and a turning point in that sense.
The first president was the founder himself, Herman Gminer. So, for me, to find myself is very exciting and, but also very, very challenging because, I would be, a person who comes from Africa and but also importantly, there are relationships between the three presidents and I am not related to the flow of nomination and appointment of these three presidents.
In terms of my vision, this is a very amazing federation that expanded to 177 countries spending over USD1.3 billion per year to provide family like care and family mingling programs, supporting, youth development and employment and investing in education and health of children and young people. So, it is a very big Federation and has done a lot of work and its footprint and its positive impact in the world is significant. The way I explained to you, children in thousands actually went through this program and became very active citizens and contributing and adding value to their society and in the world. So, my vision is to really build on this and accelerate the good things that have been achieved. So, continuously look at what and how worked and make them even better.
And also the organization has confronted itself with some challenges. For example, there are times where resources were very difficult to get to match the level of ambition that the organization had because there are still millions of children who are suffering who have no parents, but it cannot reach all of them without increased resources and also confronted with, wrongdoings, either corruption or child abuse and they were not addressed on time but this failures and mistakes and error of judgment will be corrected and we draw lessons and we built something good and excellent, from what went wrong from in the past. So that is my vision, really, to learn from the past, errors and build the good things and take the Federation into the future.
My most important priorities are five. One is to really strengthen the unity of the Federation because there is tremendous capability in each member. And we need to harness that and make this Federation global childcare movement important among others and make its impact much greater through unity.
The second is to strengthen its governance and supervision, it is the ability to govern and supervise the work because there’s the governing body, and practically the international Senate is the next authority next to the general assembly. The general assembly is the highest legal body to steer the Federation. The second is the international Senate which meets about two or three times a year. And I would be the chair of that senate of about 20 people from different parts of the world. And this international senate should be strong and cohesive and the body that makes strategic decisions on time, on time when it really matters.
The third is improving the quality of the care. So I explained to you that we are caring and loving children, and we are providing this in the context of external challenges. For example, at this point in time, there is COVID-19 and this has a direct impact on their health and education, even on their food on the table and how they relate. All those things need to be taken into the equation. And we need to improve how we provide such childcare in better ways.
The fourth one is, we have a strategy for 2030 which is aligned with sustainable development goals of the United Nations sustainable development goals, 2030. And there are ambitious targets and goals in that strategy. And my plan is to accelerate the implementation towards that strategy. To do that we need to bring in new resources than what we have today. We have to shift and reallocate the resources to places where we need to allocate and to make greater impact or wider impact. And what we need to bring in innovation; innovation in mobilizing resources, innovation in dairy, delivering programs, innovation and improving the quality of the work.
The fifth one is we need to continue to advocate for improving the lives of children particularly those without parental care. And we need to advocate to ensure the rights and desires of children, everywhere, protection and advocacy is very important. We don’t do it alone. We need to work with other child focused international organizations.
We need to work with a United Nations like UNICEF, which is an important agency within the multilateral UN circle concerned and working towards improving the rights and wellbeing of children. And we need to work with alliances and stakeholders that want to improve the welfare and the rights of children. So, we have a lot of things to offer in those global circles. In the past 10 years, SOS never committed itself to speak publicly or engage with the government to influence policy and practice or macro budget such that more policies and programs or budgets to actually make the life of children better. So we need to bring in our knowledge into the political circles and involve in the debate and influence change globally because we need to match our commitment to improve the life of children with the scale of the problem. The scale of the problem is big.
Today, close to 200 million children suffer from child labor, lack of adequate family care and war and displacement. All those things directly impact children and the impact on them is much severe than the adults, because they are a very, delicate part of the population, and structure and children who are aged five and below with little negative impact or shock could easily suffer or die. So therefore we need to pay attention as international organization, but also with government, with multilateral, bilateral institutions in order to really bring the voice of children and young people into the policy and political agenda through advocacy. So that is the most important priority for me. And I would offer a lot because I have worked on policy, public policy and advocacy in many different organizations before.
Do you think that you have better quality than your competitors?
I think there are many people who could do the job better than I, and sometimes you find a place where people tend to encourage you to be part of their effort. And I see myself as lucky enough to find myself in this place where my own personal beliefs since childhood or a young person because of who I am. I do believe I need to do something for the people who are less privileged than me. I am educated. I am living better and have something to offer. Therefore, I always believed I needed to make myself available to do good to the population. So my own personal values are very much aligned with SOS.
The second is the vast experience that I have. I have been working in five organizations and lived in six countries other than my own and traveled to more than 70 countries for international assignments. All these have actually improved the way I operate within the multicultural settings. I have to live with those people as a resident, but also I have to work with people who came from different backgrounds, religion, and citizenship, or gender and ability. And so on all those things, you know, operating with that context is something I would offer in this context. And importantly since I graduated from Addis Ababa University back in 1987, I took up a leadership job. I have never been idle at home or unemployed for the last 32 years. So, in a way I was exercising my leadership capability, both in the front line, in the middle of hierarchy, also on the top, including as a UN, Assistant Secretary General, which is a very high diplomatic position within the UN, so this leadership is also very important.
So I wouldn’t see myself as I am really better than my competitors, but I have the ingredients, the qualities that the job requires. And importantly, I am very much passionate about finding myself in this because the more I do it, the more I would be happy and fulfilled, compared to working for an industry or banking or anywhere else where I work. I don’t think I would be happy, whatever, what compensation and rewards I would get. This is a job, something I would do even for a free, because it meets my own personal beliefs.
I learnt that you have been working in various international organizations? Why is that? What about working in your own country?
I have been serving my country since I graduated from Addis Ababa University. I grew up during that time Ethiopia was in a very messy situation. As soon as I graduated, I decided to serve in humanitarian circles. During the Derg regime, university graduates are assigned to a certain job whether they like it or not and I was assigned in the municipality office. However, I am not happy. I love the job but I do not like the context and go out to do what makes me happy and join in saving the children.
Sometimes you shift from one organization to the other and often I moved to places I could add value. Sometimes you make the decision and sometimes you don’t. The call comes to you but you are not in a position to say no. What is important here is, for the last 32 years I have not changed my beliefs and commitment in all places. These organizations have the common agenda which is to make the world a better place where there is no war, everyone is fed, go to school and finish their education to the highest possible. I am happy because I spend time in these places and at the same time transfer from one organization to the other makes me stronger as one can learn different cultures from different institutions.
As an Ethiopian citizen who has lived abroad for many years, how do you see the ongoing change in Ethiopia?
I never cut off myself from Ethiopia at all. I lived in six countries and traveled to many and I come to visit my mother who died now and my siblings and come here to spend my holiday with my two children and my wife. On top of that I read, watch and listen to news. I have never been involved directly in the political dynamics in Ethiopia either working for the government or oppositions or any format that is not my interest area. But I am very much interested in Ethiopia to live in harmony, continue to grow from one step to the other. It could have done much for the better.
If you ask me about Ethiopia, since my young age, the country is moving tremendously. But if you recall the time of 1970, this was a miserable place to live in widespread chronic poverty in rural and urban areas, tremendous political tensions were there, no security at all. The time was not allowed for any people to improve their lives or merits.
Since Derg, there was relative stability and infrastructure improvements and access to education, health service improved a bit, agriculture going to rural areas. There were overall improvements but the political setting was not in the right order. Democratic norms and rule of law were not in place. They trigger political differences and conflict. Eventually, we see another wave of change and we would not know where it takes us. It sounds very promising and brings citizens to come together to work on an agenda like the renaissance dam, improving agriculture in rural areas, environment, investing more on education particularly in primary and secondary education which is fundamental and of course throughout this time Ethiopia is confronted by internal and external challenges.
There is not enough foreign direct investment, there is not enough aid to support particularly those who are at lower pyramid and help them to overcome the threshold of poverty and there is internal and external political interference in the way the country reconstructs its political trajectory. All these are challenges internally fragmentation because of the ethnic based ideology continuing, disturbing the way the politics should be organized, the way businesses should be organized and so on. But I think the current discussions and aspirations might lead the country to really have relative peace.
This country, if there is real active peace, would actually accelerate its ability to improve the lives of its citizens economically, socially and so on. So I’m very positive. Of course there are violent conflicts that we have witnessed in different parts of the country but a lot of work needs to be done in there to really address the underlying cause of this conflict. And then bring the political parties around the table to continue to work out their differences with the intention to improve the lives of the people.
How do you see the role of Ethiopian Diasporas engagement in terms of political, economic and social aspects?
Well, I’ve never attended any of the Diaspora meetings. I am very busy and I personally assist my own family and often go to this platform. It takes time to reconnect, organize yourself and give your contribution. Therefore, I never attended any of the meetings and reactively, I have got space and time this time, as I talked to you earlier, even though I had no opportunity to talk with the media previously. I just work, go home, sleep and, do the next one, but if you ask me people who are living outside of Ethiopia, whatever names they have could actually make a tremendous impact. It starts by actually supporting their families by providing or sharing the knowledge, sending them money, visiting, being an example and organization underscore so mobilize in a much greater resources for the country. And importantly also influence the political pressure that’s coming from outside of Ethiopia. They could actually think very thoughtful analytical steps and influence change. So, I do believe they play a very important role in Ethiopia.
I am sure that you are listening to news about Ethiopia. The US, America and EU impose sanctions on Ethiopia. Will it have an impact in business?
The sanction has a political connotation and it restricts the movement of important people to travel to the United States. At this point in time, I don’t see a really major economic impact on Ethiopia because Ethiopia does business and has diplomatic and economic relations with hundreds of countries, East, West Europe and other places. So it could continue to travel and do business. And, in my view, the sanction is unfortunate and the American government could have engaged in serious conversation and dialogues with Ethiopia where the opportunity existed, before taking any punitive measures like travel measures.
Let me take you to SOS village international again. Do you have a promising agenda to address the issue of vulnerable children?
There are many vulnerable children who are now on the streets, children who are abandoned and separate suffering in silence when there is pain, often, you could express your pains from screaming but the pain of children makes them silent. They suffer in silence.
SOS and its partners, one of our strategies for 2030 is to reach out to more children so that children would not grow up alone. Children need to grow in a family. A family could be their own biological father and mother. They could be those who are willing to take them in. It could be family-like care we are providing. It could be their relatives and other family members or children who actually if they have elders, a girl or a boy could be organized and supported to grow up. So our plan is to reach out to more and this will require more resources and expanding programs.
The other is to work in partnership with the government and others. Advocacy is very important. If we do work with the government, we can bring in know-how, we can help improve policy regulations and increase the budget. And therefore, governments also play a very important role in expanding the outreach to cover more children who are vulnerable both in rural and urban areas but also by bringing attention to vulnerable children. Also we are bringing political concerns that need to be addressed as the root cause of problems, for example, food distress and epidemic or pandemic and violent conflict. All these are sources of child vulnerability.
So improving that culture, stability, peace, and access to education and health for families and improving their income would make children less vulnerable. And if families are actually living better in a peaceful environment, children will get a better diet on their table. They can go to a school, they can be treated when they are sick and the vulnerability drops dramatically. So I think we expand our program, but that would not be the only solution, but partnership and the involvement of other actors be it local, region or international would be very important.
How did COVID-19 affect the activities of SOS? If you are a president elect, what will be your response plan?
The pandemic is a major concern and it has already impacted how families live, how they get their food. For example, the food budget has increased because of the restrictions and children, the way they learn has changed; they don’t go to school and play on the playground. They need to be dependent on technology and they are spending more at home. So, there is a new dynamic in terms of how they relate to each other between the children and the mother, social care workers, caregivers in general.
So, if I become president, one thing we need to do is to assess the impact of the pandemic on the organization. How it generates its income, how it relates with outside, how the workforce actually delivers its service to children. And also we need to see the impact of the pandemic on the children themselves and their caregivers. And this pandemic would not be going away in the next one or two years. It could be even longer for developing countries where we invest most of them, because the healthcare services are low and the potential for seeing more and more waves of infection is very high. And as we speak right now countries which are in low income are disadvantaged and tremendous inequality on the access to vaccinations, rich countries have bought the whole production even before it is manufactured and they are really vaccinating their population from the aged to the children while health workers and sexual workers and the elderly are not vaccinated in developing countries and poor countries.
So in the places where SOS would operate their pressure and the impact of the pandemic would be greater. So, even if we assess that impact off it, and I just asked her of us to do something, to counter the negative impact, we need to do that again and again over the next two or three years, because, the pandemic is really a major concern now having said about COVID-19, but other, similar a pandemic could, emerge, which is a major concern and organizations like SOS who are carrying massive number of children through family strengthening program or family life care need to be continuously alert. When a disaster, like COVID emerges again, any hazard disaster or any forms of disaster need to be part of their risk assessment so that the impact would not actually hit our children and young people and their families.
How do you evaluate SOS international? If the organization has its own gaps, how could you fill so as to hit organizational vision?
This is one of the biggest Federation in the world, bringing 137 member associations from Latin America, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Europe together for a common vision of providing a loving home for every child. It is not a simple agenda because of the diversity of the Federation.
So, this Federation needs to continuously reinvent itself to operate as a whole body while maintaining differences; and these differences need to be harnessed for the members of the Federation. So, that would be a really big challenge, but there’s a massive need for vulnerable children and their resources always need to be mashed.
And this resource’s flow could be affected by various factors. The pandemic is one example, but, the economic crisis the way we witnessed it in 2008, 2007 has direct bearing on its flow, so far the funding hasn’t shrunk. On top of that incidents that happen within the Federation because you care for children and all human beings are not really, angels, some abuse the authority, people who are in charge of providing protection and care for children, abuse, the very children, sometimes you don’t spot it immediately and you could be late. And, even if you address it, the scar on the children remains while also it is ripple effect outside, particularly as those who actually care for SOS and support SOS would be affected, and they might withdraw their funding or these things aren’t risks, you operate all day in and out.
But I think that the Federation is almost 70 years old and overcome so many things and overcome so many challenges and has become a very resilient Federation. What I do believe is, if we continue to work together as a whole unit which really overcomes this challenges financial, some shocks inside the organization or shocks that, from our side on the work of or programs of the Federation. So, I think, SOS is a very strong brand. It is a very recognized brand in terms of caring for vulnerable children, and that brand need to continuously be enhanced in order to get more support. Support is not only money, people who give encouragement, people who actually influence change, and the brand could actually encourage governments and others actually to learn from SOS and also bring in their own, competencies and capabilities to reach out to them vulnerable children.
So, I think the opportunity is much greater than the challenge, because the knowledge and skills that have been built over a pair of times is significant. And, we could deploy this to unleash the potential to be able to reach out to more children. And the vulnerability of children is not only in poor countries but also that vulnerability exists even in richer countries like Germany and Luxembourg or Norway and Austria, they do have child welfare, childcare programs. I was there, family breakdowns happen in those rich countries for various reasons, from drug abuse to alcohol, from death of family members by accident and so on. And children suddenly become without parental care and they become vulnerable.
So, the problem of child vulnerability is not a problem for poor countries; it is a problem of the society. And the societal problems continuously assessed and see how children are fair and the communities, the families and the country needs to be fit for those children. When I say fit, children need to be nurtured through loving care or providing food, a place to sleep, but go to education and provide health. And they need to recognize that they are loved and worthy. And if they grow up being loved and worthy, they become good citizens.
So that is the way attention should go everywhere, be it in rich countries or poor countries. Of course, the problem is much greater in poor countries because we have more miseries here, of violent conflict, and hunger induced by poverty and lack of rain in basic shocks in a community actually makes children very vulnerable. So, the underlying causes need to be addressed. If we see even here in Ethiopia for example, there are incidents that have happened over the last year children are more, most affected. These are children who not only missed food and proper place to wash and sleep, but also importantly lost the opportunity to know where they had to learn. Instead of going to school, they are actually staying temporarily in a shelter that
is huge damage, a damage that continues to exist throughout their life. So I think work should actually focus on improving the wellbeing of children, protecting their rights. These rights are articulated and declared and the commission was the right for the child and most countries have signed this and they need to honor them.
If you have any point you want to add, the floor is open for you.
Development comes from different dimensions and matured politics is very important. Rule of law is key for development and improving economies through different means. Industrialists, agriculture, manufacturing, finance and technology are all very, very important for the development of a society. And also targeting directly poor people is equally very, very important. Mature politics and matured economy might benefit only the elites and people who are better off to lift up massive, poor people anywhere, in the world. It requires direct investment in those populations. Investing in women, investing in girls, investing in children is very, very important to lift the whole society. The whole society is out to really bring this through improved income in protecting their rights, investing in education directly, especially in the most vulnerable places, places far from the center like Addis Ababa or capital cities of any developing countries.
It’s not possible to see a development for everyone. So, not to leave any single person or group of society one has to actually look at different dimensions to improve; the old part of the society, particularly the poorest within that also investing in young people was so crucial and urgent in places like Ethiopia. I came to know that a lot of young graduates come out of university and are unemployed. This is unfortunate. This is a power. This is a potential, these are the people who really accelerate the efforts to tackle poverty across Ethiopia and their service and knowledge, skills could be even available to those countries that are behind Ethiopia. So, investing in this section of the population is also very, very important.
So what I’m saying is organizations that are bringing resources, position themselves to do good for poor people, need to self-regulate, need to be provided the platform, and need to be given encouragement to do more than what they are doing. They shouldn’t be restricted by unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles or political restrictions. Of course, they need to suffer a great, and there are certain ethical, moral standards and benchmarks for their performance those who actually for feedback need to be given the space to work with their target groups, be it the older people or the young people, the children, girls, and, and women, they do many things and they need to specialize and add value to improve society. So one shouldn’t see only the politics or the economy one part of a web-based society needs. So, it should be comprehensive and all around.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
BY GIRMACEHW GASHAW
The Ethiopian Herald June 12/2021
