A letter of concern from the People’s Health Movement regarding the appointment of Ms. Ann Veneman as Executive
Director of UNICEF, effective May 2005.
To the honorable Secretary General of the United Nations Mr. Kofi Annan and the members of the Executive Board of the
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF):
The People’s Health
Movement (PHM) was alarmed to learn of the appointment of Ms. Ann Veneman, former Secretary of the United States Department
of Agriculture (USDA), as the new Executive Director of UNICEF. It is unfortunate that the process of appointing an Executive
Director for UNICEF is shrouded in secrecy, and allows no mechanism for individuals or NGOs active around issues of children’s
welfare, health and rights to participate. Neither is there a forum for the various candidates to make known their goals or
plans for the agency prior to the announcement of the appointment.(1)
Apparently the appointment
process allows the United States government the lion’s share of decision-making in the choice
of Executive Director of UNICEF. This in itself should be a cause for debate among all observers. As is well-known, the United States and Somalia
are the only two countries which have refused to join the 189 other governments of the world as signatories of the UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child. Given the US
practice of de-funding UN agencies whose direction it disapproves (UNESCO, UNFPA, WHO, etc.), we can only imagine the pressures
brought to bear on the Secretary General to name Ms. Veneman.
In the absence of a transparent,
informative process to select an Executive Director, the international health community is forced to evaluate Ms. Veneman’s
suitability to lead UNICEF based on her past performance on issues affecting children’s health. After reviewing the
publicly available information, the People’s Health Movement believes it would be unconscionable to quietly stand by
while Ms. Veneman is appointed steward of the health and well-being of the most vulnerable among us: children.
Ms. Veneman’s training
and experience as a corporate lawyer for agribusiness do not qualify her for the substantial task of leading the agency most
responsible for the rights of children worldwide. There is no evidence in her tenure as US
Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of the California Department
of Food and Agriculture, or Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs of the USDA of her interest in the world’s
children or their health and well-being. Indeed, her performance in these positions has been characterized by the elevation
of corporate profit above people’s right to food (UN Declaration of Human Rights, article 25). Such a philosophy and
practice would reverse almost six decades of UNICEF’s proud humanitarian history and prove disastrous for the world’s
children.
One of the greatest disasters
for children of the past decade has been the US sanctions against Iraq, and the subsequent invasion and occupation of that country.
The previous Director of UNICEF, Ms. Bellamy, called for an end to the sanctions responsible for the deaths of an estimated
500,000 children. Ms. Veneman has made no similar expressions of concern. Indeed, as US
Secretary of Agriculture, in 2003 she named Mr. Daniel Amstutz to head Iraq’s agricultural reconstruction process. As Oxfam’s former policy
director Kevin Watkins stated, “Putting Dan Amstutz in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq is like putting Saddam Hussein in the chair of a human
rights commission. This guy is uniquely well placed to advance the commercial interests of American grain companies and bust
open the Iraqi market, but singularly ill equipped to lead a reconstruction effort in a developing country.”(2) This
appointment by Ms. Veneman doesn’t bode well for the children of Iraq,
nor does it evidence concern for them on the part of the next Executive Director of UNICEF.
As one of the negotiators
of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Ms. Veneman helped write the rules that have plunged millions of Mexican
children into poverty. NAFTA codified the harsh neoliberal economic policies that have swept away laws and protections won
by Mexican workers over decades. The US-Mexico border is characterized by harsh and worsening conditions of child labor in
the Mexicali Valley, deplorable housing around factories, increased environmental contamination, and a lack of educational,
health and sanitary infrastructure for workers and their families, especially young children.(3)
Ms. Veneman’s attitude toward children who work spans the border to include the fields and orchards of her own
country. When Human Rights Watch sought her support for pending amendments to US
legislation (Fair Labor Standards Act and others), then-US Secretary of Agriculture Veneman spurned their concerns. Apparently,
the future Executive Director of UNICEF was not moved by the health and safety risks to child farm workers, including routine
pesticide exposures, inadequate access to sanitation and drinking water, hazardous conditions causing work-related illnesses
and injuries, low wages and long hours, the effects of farm work on education, and special risks to girls, including sexual
harassment.(4)
Ms.
Veneman’s record in respecting the rights of ethnic minorities in the United
States is also poor. When African American farmers won a judgment against the US Department
of Agriculture for unfair treatment in the provision of subsidies and loans, more than US$12 million was spent by the USDA
to undermine this historic civil rights case. Under Ms. Veneman’s leadership, the USDA paid out less than 25% of the
funds set aside for the Black farmers. The USDA has never accepted that its policies were racist, has never apologized, and
continues to fight the farmers. Racist policies should not be tolerated in any government, and could wreak havoc in an international
setting like the United Nations.(5)
Policies
championed by Ms. Veneman around protecting public health, especially in regard to the “mad cow disease” (bovine
spongiform encephalopathy) outbreak, have been weak. Instead of pursuing an approach prioritizing health based on the precautionary
principle, USDA activity centered on minimizing financial losses to the cattle raising and meat packing industries. Ms. Veneman
assured the population that there was no problem with beef when only very limited testing was carried out, and resisted labeling
meat to identify country of origin. In fact, the USDA refused to permit meatpackers to test cows in order to meet high international
export standards, afraid that US consumers would also demand stricter guarantees of protection.(6) Given another of the USDA’s
roles --as a large purchaser of beef for school lunch programs-- this antipathy to verifying the integrity of the nation’s
beef supply evidences replacing concern for the health of children with concern for the health of beef industry profits.
Perhaps
Ms. Veneman’s most noteworthy support of agribusiness over people’s health concerns is her unequivocal support
for genetically modified foods and the biotechnology industry. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Ms. Veneman declared
at an UN FAO conference that biotechnology “will reinvigorate productivity growth in food and agriculture production
and make agriculture more environmentally sustainable.” Formerly a corporate director of Calgene, producer of the first
commercially marketed GMO tomato, Ms. Veneman continued the US Department of Agriculture’s policy of approving field
releases of GMOs at almost 40,000 sites between 1987 and 2002, rejecting only 3.5 % of applications. Her handling of the two
GMO “crises” occurring during her tenure (those of Starlink and ProdiGene corn) resulted in US$20 million and
US$3.5 million payouts respectively to the corporate sector, but in no labeling requirements or protections for consumers.
In a move that foreshadows an opposition to a diversity of stakeholder viewpoints in UNICEF, the Advisory Committee on Biotechnology,
named by Ms. Veneman in 2003, purposefully excluded key anti-biotech farmers’ organizations. Ms. Veneman’s comments
pressuring the European Union to drop its ban on GM food imports and calling African countries “disgraceful” for
refusing non-processed GM food donations have been widely reported. Such comments display an inability to recognize the validity
of cultural concerns, which is a central qualification for delicate international posts like the direction of UNICEF.(7)
When the US Department of
Agriculture was founded in the mid-19th century, President Abraham Lincoln called it the “People’s
Department” because it served the approximately one half of the population engaged in agricultural work. 150 years later,
a small fraction of Americans are engaged in farm work and the USDA mostly represents corporate interests. The Veneman period
in that US government agency has served only to intensify corporate control.(8) In an agency like UNICEF, where its constituency
of children has a limited ability to represent themselves, it is urgent that those charged to speak for children and represent
their interests have a history that qualifies them to do so.
We do not wish to unfairly
assert that Ms. Veneman’s future in UNICEF can be known by simply reviewing her history in agriculture. However, in
one of her only reported post- nomination comments regarding her new post, Ms. Veneman asserted in a press conference that
reproductive health and education were “not relevant to the missions of UNICEF.”(9) As all experienced in child
health and welfare know, a mother’s access to reproductive health and education including child spacing are in fact
central determinants of child health. This inauspicious introduction to a new administration at UNICEF raises alarm bells
for those dedicated to child welfare.
In the coming period, UNICEF
will be facing challenges in a number of areas which demand strong advocacy for children and their rights. There are enormous
differences between an approach that seeks to maximize corporate profit and one that maximizes child health and well-being
regarding:
* children’s rights
to food, housing, education, healthcare and childhood itself;
* the marketing of breastmilk
substitutes;
* women’s access to
reproductive health and child spacing information and services;
* access to ARVs and other
pharmaceuticals for HIV+ children and their families;
* the provision of untested
and insufficiently tested GMO foods, supplements and
medicines to children;
* the effects of neoliberal
“free” trade policies on families and childhood;
* water privatization and
access, and diarrheal disease;
* industrial contamination,
and birth defects and disabilities;
and many others.
In a world where 11 million
children under the age of 5 die each year, most from a lack of simple medicines, clean water, safe environments, and adequate
nutrition, advocacy for children means demanding corporate and government accountability and dedication to resolve those problems.
In a world in which health experts estimate that 6 million of those children could be saved by low-tech interventions costing
about $7.5 billion (less than 2 percent of the annual US military budget), advocacy for children means opposing the harmful
and wasteful expansion of military spending and the use of military force to solve problems.
As advocates for children,
we are compelled to voice our strong concerns about the appointment of Ms. Ann Veneman as Executive Director of UNICEF. The
People’s Health Movement and NGOs with a long history of promotion of child welfare and children’s rights will
not permit the integrity of the most respected international body devoted to the welfare of the world’s children to
be jeopardized. While we look forward to a close and productive engagement with the new leadership of UNICEF, and continued
collaboration with the dedicated staff of local UNICEF offices, we will not hesitate to actively oppose the implementation
of policies that do not work to eliminate the 30,000 daily preventable child deaths and other threats to child welfare.
As advocates for children,
we also insist that the Secretary General replace current practice, which rewards powerful countries with the ability to make
political appointments to important posts, with a transparent and participatory process that guarantees a professional, committed
and competent leadership for UNICEF and other agencies. The present process undermines democracy, sullies the image of the
UN, and further threatens the already precarious existence of the majority of the world’s citizens.
Signed:
Ravi Narayan, Coordinator,
Global Secretariat, People's Health Movement (PHM)
(List of Signers)
Fran Baum PHM Pacific, Australia
and New Zealand
B. Ekbal, PHM India
Edelina De La Paz,
PHM South East Asia
Jihad Mashaal, PHM Middle
East
Arturo Qizhpe, PHM South
America
David Saunders, PHM Southern
Africa
Sarah Shannon and Lanny Smith,
PHM North America
Pam Zinkin, PHM Europe
Prem John, Asian Community
Health Action Network (ACHAN)
Zafrullah Chowdhury, Gonoshasthaya
Kendra (GK)
Maria Hamlin Zuniga, International
People's Health Council (IPHC)
Nadia Van der Linde, Women's
Global Network for Reproductive Rights, WGNRR
Claudio Schuftan
Footnotes:
1. Richard Horton, “UNICEF
Leadership 2005-2015: A Call for Strategic Change,” The Lancet, December 4, 2004.
2. Bill
Berkowitz, “Iraq’s Agriculture Czar,” Z Magazine, September 2003,
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Sept2003/berkowitz0903.html.
3. David Bacon, The Children of NAFTA: Labor
Wars on the U.S./ Mexico Border, 2004, University of California Press.
4. Letter from Lois Whitman,
Children’s Rights Division, Human Rights Watch, to Ann M. Veneman, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, February 8, 2001,
http://hrw.org/campaigns/crp/farmchild/veneman_letter.htm.
5. Environmental Working Group, Obstruction
of Justice: USDA Undermines Historic Civil Rights Settlement with Black Farmers, 20 July 2004, http://www.ewg.org/reports/blackfarmers.
6.
Philip Mattera, USDA Inc: How Agribusiness has Hijacked Regulatory Policy at the US
Department of Agriculture, Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, July 23, 2004, http://www.agribusinessaccountability.org/pdfs//289_USDA%20Inc..pdf.
7. Mattera, USDA, Inc.
8. Matera, USDA, Inc.
9.
“Nominee Says Reproductive Health Not Relevant to UNICEF Mission,”
1/21/2005, http://cebo.org/2005_01_01_unnews_archive.html.
