These are Humbling Times

It is a privilege to lead ICC on its journey of evolution. We are collectively figuring out how we can make the most impact in helping the UN System in its Digital Transformation.

As the Director of the Shared Services IT organization for the UN system, it is a privilege to lead ICC on its journey of transition and evolution. ICC was founded on Jan 1 1971 by the UN General Assembly via a GA resolution passed in September 1970.

For the three founding partners, UN Secretariat, UNDP and WHO, ICC was a visionary idea 50 years ago - to share costs and buy a (very expensive for those days) mainframe together. The extra "oomph" added by the member states in the GA resolution was nothing short of revolutionary in hindsight. They conceived ICC to be a shared service function and invited other UN system agencies to join the ICC partnership.

From those humble days when ICC was a handful of staff running a mainframe in the basement of WHO, ICC has evolved and transformed multiple times - each time becoming more valuable to the UN system and adding more UN System Agencies to the ICC Partnership. To date, we remain the only voluntary shared service function in the UN system, where partners use ICC for services that they find valuable. Our steady growth both in the number of partners (each of whom gets a seat on our management board) and in the number of services we offer is a testament to the value we add.

As we at ICC approach our 50th anniversary, we find the world facing its toughest challenge in at least a century. Nature has brought humanity to its knees and impacted every country in the world in a way that even humans at our worst could not during the World Wars.

As the world speculates how this will play out no one can be sure what the world will look like in a short few months from now (say on September 1 2020). This would have usually been termed the "short to medium term". Now, that date feels like a lifetime away.

How many more lives will be lost to the virus, how many people will have been confined indoors for months on end, how many will have succumbed to hunger or to other treatable illnesses that will go untreated? How many businesses will have gone under and how many dreams of innovation ideas full of brilliance will have fizzled out? What will social interaction look like? When will we feel comfortable sitting in crowded restaurant, traveling in a crowded train or attending a concert?

"These are the worst of times, these are the best of times" (to paraphrase Charles Dickens)

As an incurable optimist, I see the positives, and find myself humbled and amazed in equal parts by the behaviour I see.

We have seen the selfless work of the thousands upon thousands of medical practitioners who are trying desparately to save lives and the delivery workers we are all relying on to continue living our lives.

We at UNICC also see exceptional behaviour from our partner organizations, from WHO to UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF and others who continue to double down on their efforts to make a strong positive impact to the world both now, in the midst of this crisis as well as for the world to come in the next few months and years. They are already anticipating how much worse a shape the world could end up in, and how can they proactively start working towards avoiding the world from reaching that state.

And of course, then there are the teams, like the Spanish Military (Fuerza Terrestre @FUTER_ET) who helped disinfect critical infrastructure in Spain including the UN Base in Valencia that houses UNICC in the midst of the toughest crisis their nation was dealing with, to ensure the work of the UN could carry on across the world.

Finally, there are countless stories of individuals, like the UNICC colleagues who have been working evenings and weekends to ensure each of our UN Partner Agencies has all the technologies and digital tools to be able to operate effectively while working remotely, and their missions can continue unabated.

Go Together, Go Digital, Go Far

In dealing with this crisis and its possible aftermath (i.e., the new normal world we will end up in) there are countless experiments being conducted at a local, regional, corporate, national and international level. From Hyper nationalism to strong multilaterlism, from inwards looking to forward looking, different approaches are being taken by different communities of humans. Some are trying the hardest to bring things back to status quo as it existed Pre-COVID, some are looking to bring their community to a new, more equitable normal, while others yet, are trying to take their communities back to more insular and protective times.

The approaches taken by various countries that were deemed to be successful so far, for example, have been very different. The approach taken by Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand and others were all different but have shown good results so far. How each approach will look in the longer term is still to be determined.

My personal belief is that some of the more successful efforts will be the ones where the whole community comes together, where the private and public sector and individuals are all collectively working togther and through their specific challenges. Honesty, openness and collaboration will be the keys to a successful new normal.

With this approach, the role of technology (as a great enabler and equaliser) will also be key - if it can be made available to all the constituents and allows them to be collaborate more effectively. If tech can help them track their health, make payments, get guidance, get education for their kids, connect to their broader community - digital technology will finally start to live up to its promises.

In this new world we are all hurtling into, the role of the UN System will likely be even more relevant (and I agree this is my biased opinion since I work within this system). The UN was created 75 years ago to give the world a template for how to collaborate on pan-national issues. In the world we live in today and the new normal world we are heading to, we realise that we are more interdependent and more interconnected than we ever imagined. The role of the UN system in addressing these global challenges - in collaboration with member states but also with the private sector - will be critical. No other organization has the moral authority to be able to take on these challenges while taking everyone's concerns on board. The UN may also be called upon to help where the local and regional organisations (state ministries, local non-profits etc) are unable to step up and coordinate relief.

For the UN system to have a chance to take on this new level of responsibility, it will need to effectively use digital technologies in a more effective and transparent way. Efforts underway in the UN to go digital have been accelerated and their success will be critical.

In our own little way, we believe UNICC can help our partners within the UN system accelerate their digital journeys to make the positive impact that large parts of the world are hoping they can deliver.

It is impossible to guess which of the experiments being undertaken at the local, regional and national level will be successful - and to what degree. The UN System will have to, in parallel, ensure we develop a global approach so meaningful progress towards a more equitable new normal does not stop at national boundaries.

I will wrap up with an exceprt from the remarks the then Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon made at the Dag Hammarskjöld lecture in 2016. Dag Hammarskjöld was the second Secretary General of the UN and the youngest person to have held that post. He was also awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize. Here is the excerpt:

Dag Hammarskjold often met with United Nations staff. In 1958, the gathering began with a song that he had asked the UN choir to learn -- one of his favorite Swedish folk tunes.

It inspired a poem that concludes by asking: "Will the day ever come when joy is great and sorrow is small?"

Hammarskjold reminded the staff that the United Nations is tasked to inch the world closer to such a day.

But then he added an even deeper personal observation. He noted that whenever we are carrying out a duty "well fulfilled and worth our while", we can already see joy as great and sorrow as being small.