UN insider
Perspectives by a career staffer on the UN, and its agencies all over the world.
What is WHO?
Things I learned from being around the Geneva world-health behemoth What is WHO, where and why? Such questions abound these days regarding the UN health-expert body, and have flown around the Internet since the Covid pandemic was officially announced in March 2020. I have no medical expertise, but some personal and anecdotal knowledge of its…
Can tigers bounce back?
Let’s take a break from ecological doom-saying for a moment. Tigers are among the species that have received good news recently, as in this Nepal report : https://tinyurl.com/ybcvspe2 Back in 2011, I looked at the tiger issue in another light, as a UN Special reporter, interviewing the head of UN wildlife-conservation agency CITES by David…
Thai elephants get some love
From the archives: 2011 Elephants have been in trouble in northern Thailand for decades, but now efforts to conserve and revive their population are showing promise By David Winch Photos, Pierre-Michel Virot and Thai Elephant Centre UN Special magazine, May 2011 First things first: elephants are fun to watch. A lot of fun. But just…
Love and war in Geneva
Ariane, married to the bored and detached fonctionnaire Adrien, is trapped in a life of banal social-climbing in Geneva, with its vivid social taboos. She soon becomes triangularly linked to Adrien’s superior, the very haut fonctionnaire Solal.
Bangkok is calling, but UN staff don’t hear it
From the archives: 2010 The city is bursting with activity. Its downtown pulses like a mini-Tokyo. The country is growing prosperous, and gleaming towers rise at every turn. Yes, it’s not hard to boost Bangkok and Thailand. And yet, who wants to work there? by David Winch, UN Special magazine, March 2010 photos: Pierre-Michel Virot…
The return of Dag – dynamic UN head back in the spotlight as turbulence looms
UN Special magazine, June 2011 Coincidence, or a trick of history? At the very moment when the UN appears caught in confrontation with a superpower member and overwhelmed by tectonic geopolitical shifts in the developing world, Dag has returned to the headlines. Dag Hammarskjöld is a large figure – maybe the largest – on the…
Trip to the edge — A deskbound Geneva ‘fonctionnaire’ tastes life in the field
By David Winch, UN Special, May 2009 The arrival was a shock. The airport, a shambles. After a day and a night on flights from Geneva to Paris to Togo and beyond, here we were in Central Africa. Years later, the memories of this, my first field mission, remain vivid. Arriving from the North, the…