FAO Expert

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FAO Expert

In the United Nations systems, they have copied a staff program that originates from the British Navy,around 1800.

The British Navy had Officers, some NCO, and sailors. Then, there was some strange thing called midshipmen for lack of any better word.

Some qualifications are needed to become a midshipman:

You must know nothing about sailing or the sea;

You must be too young to defend yourself.

You must be poor.

Whether you die or survive is of no importance to anybody.

I knew absolutely nothing about farming and nature.

I had no strong fists and no sugar-daddy

I had no funds

Whatever happened to me, the world would continue it's course.

It was clear that I was the ideal figure to become a midshipman, which in the U.N. system is called an Associate Expert.

An Associate Expert costs nothing to FAO as he is funded by his own country. His own country funds his salary because they have figured out that he would cost even more on unemployment dole and being an associate expert you get him/her out of your system for one or two years.

You will guess that if you are an FAO Program Manager and you receive a telex asking whether you would be willing to accept a staff member at no cost, it being understood that you, as Program Manager will undertake to teach him the job, what would you do, of course you accept that person, whoever he is and whatever he does not know.

During my professional life I have been amazed that the World All Over, Program Managers appear to believe that doing photocopies is an essential step in learning your job.

Considering the deep and profound links between Sweden and Algeria, my total lack of any Arabic, my guarantee that I had never traveled in any Muslim country, that I had lived in France all the time that France and Algeria were at war, it was obvious that I would be assigned as Associate Expert in Algeria.

My Commanding Officer was a mature man of 25 years, who just transferred from Morocco, he was considered as a brilliant Officer who had a bright future in the Organization as he had managed to transfer not only himself from Morocco to Algeria, but the three Organization Vehicles that normally belonged to Morocco.

On the same plane another Associate Officer was being assigned to Algeria, he had the advantage on me as he had not even done agronomy studies and was mostly interested in design, tissues and quite often at what was packed in the tissues. Which is a rather dangerous interest in a Muslim country.

That three men team (men???, three men with a mean age under 25 years?) was to leave quite a mark on Algeria. My boss was well versed into the deep customs of the U.N. Organization and he immediatly undertook to teach us the very first rule:

Your salary stays in your bank account !!!

The Organization in its profound wisdom knew that living in foreign towns was expensive, so each Officer, when on the move, received a per-diem, that per-diem calculated to cover the costs of living when away from home. It must have been during the very sand storm season that put sand grains into the calculating machines, as the per diem we received was sufficient to cover the cost of a whole tribe. And anybody who would dare suggest that this was not due to a sand storm but due to the fact that the per diem was calculated by the most Senior Resident Officers, well that person should mind his tongue!

Here we were, my elderly boss receiving no per diem as he was assigned to Alger, and two Associate Officers receiving per diem. When my very Senior Officer hade made sure that we were made of the right spirit he pointed out to us that it was rather meaningless to sustain the local economy by spending our money at the Hotel when we could instead move in with him. This meant that suddenly we had 200 dollars a day in excess. Being made of the right stuff, we undertook not to have to overload the banking system by transferring these funds back to our home countries and dutifully started investigating whether the local restaurants where really that expensive. I can vouch that they were not and that the wine was quite drinkable. One of the advantages of the Algerian wine is that you can drink it without being intoxicated or even drunk. As a proof of that, when we tried to see whether we could return to the Old man's house in the duty car without using the hands, it proved to be a very feasible proposition.

So as not to induce any feeling of fear in the local population by driving without the hands, we entertained the local population with a selection of the best songs we could remember, and as to those who claim to remember that the three of us were not at any time singing the same song, that must have come from a cultural misunderstanding.

At times we preferred to pass by my fellow Associate Officers lodging as he was high up, possibly 7th floor and in front of another apartment building and we undertook to compete in egg throwing, the winner being the one that could hit the highest situated balcony in front. I must admit that my very old boss proved again his value and experience by outclassing us at that exercise.

One should not be too harsh with us Junior Experts. When we had to go to the UNDP office (please remind me to tell you about the UNDP Office, that is worth another laugh), when we went into that Office, mostly to carry out some administrative task, like trying to see if we could get an advance on salary (No!), we were bound to meet real Experts, men who were not Junior or Associate Expert. It was an amusement to us to see the stratagems they used not to see us, they suddenly would be so involved in discussions with one another that we passed by as shadows. These Real experts had a tricky moment, if they met us in the stairs it was rather difficult to find a reason not to see us, but there was no rule as to time that should be taken to say "Bonjour" to us, if there had been a Guinness Book of Record at that time, this would have been the shortest "Bonjour" in the World.

This was good training, when I joined FAO Head Quarters in Rome, at the huge grade of P1, it did not take me too long to discover that humanity began at the P5 level. Any Technical Officer below P4 level was simply ignored during meetings. Except for finding a volunteer to run photocopies.