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Angela Kearney: Exercising good morals to effectively spread good deeds
UNICEF representative in Indonesia Angela Kearney is responsible for leading a staff of 150 to carry out the duty of realizing the rights of every child in the country
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NICEF representative in Indonesia Angela Kearney is responsible for leading a staff of 150 to carry out the duty of realizing the rights of every child in the country.
Kearney adheres strongly to the core values of the organization as a key to the success of its program.
As part of the United Nations, UNICEF implements the exact core values, namely universality, non-discrimination and absolute accountability for what they do.
'UNICEF has a very core mandate on what we should be doing all around the Convention on the Rights of the Child,' explains the 59-year-old New Zealander. 'Hence, the core values of what we do are related to what the Indonesian government and UNICEF agree to in regards to the rights of children.'
Upholding ethical practices
Besides Jakarta, UNICEF also has several branch offices spread across Indonesia, from Banda Aceh, Surabaya, Kupang, Ambon, Makassar to Jayapura and Manokwari. Though Kearney is fortunate to have a rock-solid team that is highly dependable, as chief leader of the organization, she is primarily held accountable.
'I'm accountable for our core mandate and also for the agreements that we've signed with the Indonesian government,' says Kearney. 'Every five years, we sign the UNICEF country program.'
Moreover, Kearney is accountable for human resources. She bluntly states that all UNICEF employees, including her, must be 'honest, absolutely transparent on what we do and must have integrity.'
As for funds, Kearney explains, 'It's my responsibility to make sure that the money people give us is used in the best interest of Indonesian children. It is my job to make sure that we do it properly and we have to report on it. We've got a report on the funds, the results of our work and a report on the problems as well as the successes.'
The transparency principle is further applied in the workplace, where Kearney admits to having an open-door policy. Especially when a major emergency occurs, such as natural disasters, Kearney is incessantly engaged with staff working either in the office or at the location until the calamity subsides.
'It is about open lines of communication. But sometimes, I have to close the door and make the final decision,' she says. 'I have to decide whether we have the right amount of funds and the right people in place, and I need to make sure that we are on the right track with UNICEF globally as well as what we've agreed with the government here.'
However, Kearney doesn't micromanage, instead she lets her team of experts make decisions around the program's activities.
Kearney visits each of the seven UNICEF branch offices in Indonesia at least three times a year, during which she always makes sure to meet all employees. 'We consider our staff an asset in terms of knowledge and technical expertise in driving our program,' she says. 'I come to see the political leaders as well. So I often meet with the governor and legislature.' Kearney also likes to attend events, such as rallies, gatherings and children's events.
Valuable knowledge management
In the past few years, knowledge management has been identified as one of the essential management tools for international organizations and has been considered vital to their future development strategies.
At UNICEF Indonesia, Kearney and her team reviews lessons learned from each program they have deployed. In doing so, the team has to be very clear on what they agreed to do and documenting the results of it.
'It's important to document both sides of the story, the positive effects as well as the challenges and things that we may not be so happy with,' she states plainly.
In terms of knowledge management, Kearney and her team produce evidence, such as on how children actually grow up in Indonesia. 'Thanks to these analyses, we found a lot of situations where children were living in very challenging circumstances.'
This type of information is something that UNICEF Indonesia generates and also disseminates through knowledge management, including to the media. 'We use it for raising general awareness as well as for advocacies,' explains Kearney.' In this case, we work with government partners to increase their understanding on where they need to strengthen their program activities.'
Another essential element is training and working directly with journalists in different regions in the country. UNICEF Indonesia provides training on child rights in the context of human rights and the specifics of the child rights convention, which is the basis of the UNICEF mandate.
One crucial issue the organization is currently working on in knowledge management is stopping open defecation, of which according to UNICEF, Indonesia has the second-highest number of people in the world who are not properly trained to go to the bathroom with 63 million people who openly defecate.
'Right now, we have some positive examples of how we can get people, based on community empowerment, knowledge and leadership, to agree to stop openly defecating. And we want to document a very good story from East Nusa Tenggara,' says Kearney. 'We've also been to other places where we failed. We need to document that as well.'
Social media has also helped UNICEF Indonesia attract public attention to children's issues. 'You've got to have good tweets and YouTube videos that people want to see,' explains Kearney, who is active on Twitter. 'However, different people want different things. So, you have to know what you want to expose depending on the audience. It's about putting up quality stuff on the Internet.'
Administering the funds
Kearney said UNICEF Indonesia acquires its funds in three methods. First, they come from voluntary contributions given by governments based upon global agreements and high quality data on children. UNICEF Indonesia also receives support from multinational donors based on proposals for particular programs they are currently executing in the country. The third way is through donations from individual Indonesians and internationals living here. For private companies, the funds are often donated as part of corporate social responsibility programs.
Furthermore, Kearney makes sure UNICEF Indonesia partners up with private corporations that carry out sound business practices.
'We want the company to implement business principles that are pro- children. Such as, everybody in the company has a child that was registered at birth, working mothers can exclusively breastfeed, female employees are provided with maternity leave and the company believes in the honesty, integrity and transparency of their money and doesn't do anything against children.'
When an emergency occurs, Kearney is also confident that UNICEF Indonesia is the right organization through which people should donate their money. 'We're honest, we can distribute the funds to people very quickly, we know where we're working because we live and have staff there, and we know what's best for children.'
Thus, it is no coincidence that Kearney is most proud of the absolute energy and positivity of her team. 'We come to work in the morning and feel very humble that we are so lucky to have this job. People like their jobs and they are happy to be in the office. I'm also proud that my team wants to learn with me and that we're prepared to keep on learning.'
Kearney strongly believes in the importance of having a life outside the office. 'I'm very passionate about my job, but I have to be passionate about other things as well,' says Kearney, who loves all things fashion, from collecting countless Indonesian batik and ikat textiles to reading Vogue magazine in her spare time.
'On the weekends, I love catching up with friends over coffee, watching movies and riding my bike during car-free Sundays.'
Angela Kearney
Place / Date of Birth: New Zealand, May 22, 1954
Experience
Angela Kearney has been UNICEF representative in Indonesia since 2009. Previously, she was the representative in Angola from May 2006 until January 2009. Angela was UNICEF representative in Liberia from 2003 to 2006. Angela joined UNICEF in December 1998 as an emergency officer in Khartoum, Sudan. In 2002, she transferred to Kabul, Afghanistan as the deputy representative where she served until 2003.
Education
A Registered General and Obstetric Nurse (1975) and a Registered Midwife from Christchurch Hospital, New Zealand (1978). Also holds an Advanced Diploma in Nursing (Maternal and Child Health) from Christchurch Polytechnic, New Zealand (1983).
