Unicef Case Study

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Ethical Compliance………………………………………………………………………………41

Legal Compliance………………………………………………………………………………..43

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Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………...46

Background

UNICEF is a nonprofit organization that was first created in December of 1946 by the United Nations after World War II. Their workers are often the first responders providing medical and emergency assistance to women and children affected by a natural or man made disaster, both foreign and domestic. UNICEF also offers humanitarian aid; providing educational and medical assistance to populations in underserved and remote regions of the world.

UNICEF in the Field

On October 26th, 2015, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake rocked Afghanistan and Pakistan. The natural disaster reportedly killed over 400 people, injured over 2000 people, and destroyed over 7500 homes leaving thousands homeless. In the wake of this disaster, UNICEF provided thousands of newborn baby kits, over 10,000 micronutrient packets, over 1000 therapeutic food cartons, and school kits to help meet the educational needs of 42,000 children (“Powerful Earthquake Strikes,” 2015).

Over the years, there have been hundreds of instances like this where UNICEF has been involved. Some other familiar disasters that UNICEF has provided relief in was Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York, they also provided assistance in the massive 2011 Tsunami that hit Japan.

Along with assistance during worldwide disasters, UNICEF also works to assist in humanitarian efforts around the world. UNICEF contributes to mortality and morbidity reduction in vaccine preventable disease by advocating with governments, ensuring that sufficient quality supplies are available at the time of planned immunization activities, and by focusing on reaching the most difficult to reach children (www.unicef.org, 2003). UNICEF provides 40 percent of the world’s doses of vaccine for children (www.unicef.org, 2003). What makes UNICEF’s worldwide efforts possible is the ability to communicate both globally and locally, with each other, with patients, and with local and foreign governments.

UNICEF’s Biggest Challenge

UNICEF, along with any other first responding units in a time of natural or manmade disaster heavily relies on the ability to communicate. Common tools used to communicate over long and short distances are phones (both cellular and/or landline), pagers, or email. Cell phone communications work by transmitting a signal from the user's device to a local cell tower, which eventually routes the user’s communication to its endpoint. Email runs via an Internet provider, usually through the telephone lines. Pagers rely on transmission towers and satellites, and landlines rely on the local telephone line infrastructure of the community. Next, we will see how and why these common communications methods present considerable challenges for UNICEF.

These communication methods, though typically reliable, can fail under certain, but not uncommon circumstances. First, in order to be effective, the country must have an advanced network infrastructure with cell towers, and transmitters every few miles, a solid power grid, and telephone cables in place throughout the country. This is common in developed countries such as the US & Canada, the UK, China, and almost any other developed country. However, underserved countries in Africa, South America, or remote regions such as the Amazon, or the Himalayas have little to no communications infrastructure which leaves devices such as telephones, cell phones, and certainly Internet accessing devices almost useless. Even in developed countries, the communications infrastructure can fail in the event of a natural or manmade disaster. If an earthquake or tornado destroys some of the transmitting towers, anybody within that area will not be able to use their cell phones. Cellular network infrastructure can also fail if it is overloaded by to many callers at the same time. For example, in the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, so many people were trying to make phone calls to loved ones that the entire network shutdown and communication in those areas failed. The Boston metropolitan area’s robust mobile networks simply clogged up as Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and other providers coped with a massive and unexpected surge (Ungerleider, 2013).

It’s common in times of crisis for these vital communications networks to fail, which makes it extremely difficult for organizations such as UNICEF who rely on them so desperately to operate. For UNICEF, local communications are pertinent for on-site coordination of necessary activities and operations. Global communication is necessary to coordinate personnel and supplies required to address the needs of the local community. In the next sections of this analysis paper, I will present different technologies that UNICEF could adopt to address their need of reliable communication in areas or instances where the common means of communication that we’ve discussed are not an option.

UNISEF’s Communication Needs & How They Can Be Improved

UNICEF is interested in the types of technological innovations for voice and data communications that could be implemented and utilized in the event that local and global networks are destroyed in a natural or manmade disaster. The innovations that can be considered to create an effective communication network must be portable, self contained, not reliant on the local power grid, and most importantly the technology must be affordable. In this paper, I will present various types of technological innovations for communication that UNICEF could deploy. In assessing each of the technologies, I will address the following questions:

- Who/what will benefit from each technology?

- Which stakeholders will be affected by a new technology adoption and why is it important to them?

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