The InterDependent

After nine months of administrative limbo, it seems that the UN is finally about to fill three vacant director posts in the Department of Public Information division, which generates the daily television, radio, print and Web publications output as well as manages relations with media around the world.

The three empty posts had been occupied by Ahmad Fawzi, who retired in November; Eric Falt, who was chosen in April for a new post at Unesco; and Paula Refolo, a colleague who earned her way up through the ranks and decided to retire when she became eligible for early compensation.

By early December, the first choice as director appeared to be Stéphane Dujarric, who was raised in France and in the US and is the communications director for the UN Development Program, the largest agency in the world body. Dujarric also worked as spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan, handling the oil-for-food crisis, among other high-profile events at the UN. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon placed him briefly in an advisory post until he headed the Development Program. Dujarric knows his way around the UN and is well known by media representatives.

J.C. McIlwaine/UN Photo

Stéphane Dujarric, who is said to move from the UN Development Program to the UN Department of Public Information in 2011.

The other choice is apparently Maher Nasser, the director of the UN Information Service in Vienna, which covers Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia. Previously, he worked as director of the Information Center in Cairo, and in New York as chief of the liaison office for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. (He also worked at the relief agency’s offices in Vienna and Amman.) His work at the information services qualifies him to fill the post vacated by Refolo, which covers, among other activities, UN information networks. But any qualified director of those groups, particularly in Cairo and Vienna, will have to handle a large range of urgent issues. Heading a visible division will offer Nasser a chance to develop further and meet the level of the challenge.

The third appointment has been drawing internal opposition. Deborah Seward, who works at The Associated Press in Paris, was named the assistant managing editor of the news cooperative, succeeding Refolo. Replacing a woman with another woman is a welcome step, which would have equally applied to others from the same division -- Jadranka Mihalic, the director of the UN Information Center in Mexico City; or Lena Dissin, a section chief in the Department of Public Information at UN headquarters.

Apparently, the way the Seward appointment was reached drove numerous, usually amenable senior staff in the division to circulate a note sent to Under Secretary-General Kiyotaka Akasaka of the Department of Public Information; Mike Meyer, chief speechwriter for Ban Ki-moon; Martin Nesirky, spokesman for Ban; Vijay Nambiar, chief of staff for Ban; and Kim Won-soo, deputy chief of staff. The note writers pointed out that while Seward may be a fine journalist and manager of a major international news agency, she had no real knowledge of the intricate work of UN Information Centers and of the intergovernmental process to function as secretary of the Committee on Information.

Furthermore, she had no experience working with interagency bodies or the procedures for UN personnel and the budgetary labyrinth, particularly in a department with more than 300 staff in 60 locations. They strongly felt that the lack of such essential background will negatively affect the staff’s performance and effectiveness of the department.

Obviously, they considered that the appointment of a new director from the ranks of existing staff would be "a better way to strengthen our collective communication effort,” according to the note; and that it would also "send a positive signal that this Secretary-General truly respects the professionalism and dedication of his staff." A video circulating in the department showed Seward indicating that she had no UN experience, but that she would like to work for the UN.

Two internal appointments out of three are encouraging for the UN. Seward, whom no one internally seems to know except Meyer, will have plenty of opportunity to prove her usefulness to the world body. The outcome depends a lot on how each of the three directors interacts with his and her own staff and how Akasaka manages the new team; and -- of course -- how all that interaction converges into a communications strategy with a positive impact on the role of the UN and the image of its secretary-general.