Ben Dotsei Malor | Chief of Communication and Public Information at the United Nations Mission, UNMISS, South-Sudan
Welcome to the United Nations Career Journey Podcast, brought to you by the Office of Human Resources at the UN Secretariat, and UNDP, the UN Development Programme. In this series we interview colleagues from around the world working for the UN. We ask about their career paths and what working for this global organisation means to them. My name is Kome Jaeger and today we’ll hear from Mr. Ben Dotsei Malor, Chief of Communications and Public Information at the United Nations Mission in South-Sudan also known as UNMISS.
Good morning, Ben. It’s good to see you again.
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Lovely. So how does it feel you being on the other side — as the former Chief Editor of UN News, I’m sure you’re used to doing the interviewing. How does it feel to be on the other side?
It is humbling. It tells me I have a responsibility. It makes me want to do the best. It feels strange not being the one doing the interviewing, but at the same time it feels nice. It’s good to be here for a good purpose and to speak with you.
Thank you. So, your business is about information. How important is it to get information to people?
I would say….
People would say information is power.
We are in the information age.
We need information to save lives.
We need information to transform lives.
We need information to improve lives. We need information to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We need information to achieve gender parity and women’s empowerment, we need information to get rid of poverty, we need information to save the world.
So, I would say information is critical, but above information, we have to consider communication because that is at a higher level.
In the sense that in communication you are trying to ensure that the information you have transmitted is registered at the other end and registered correctly and registered in a timely way, registered in a way that will lead to certain actions, purposeful actions. So, all these things are very important. If something is working well in Brazil and somebody in Nigeria can get that information and use it, adapt it in Nigeria for success then that is the power of information. If a child in a village in Ghana, my home country, is able to get information in an area of study that they are struggling in, and this information is either coming from Switzerland, Singapore or even somewhere in the Caribbean, then that child becomes empowered. So, I think information is vital. Communication is even more vital.
You worked at the BBC for 12 years. How was that experience?
It was transformational for me. It was educational for me.
It taught me public service in a very holistic way, and I learned a lot at the BBC.
I learned a lot in terms of journalism, in terms of broadcasting.
And I learned a lot about life. The key pillars the BBC drummed into your brain regarding effective broadcasting is that you need to be impartial. You need to be accurate. You need to be fair. You need to be objective. And you need to be truthful. And so those things in a way, they help you shape your journalism, your broadcast(s). You put your prejudices and preferences aside and then out of respect for the listeners or the viewers, you take these pillars of ethical journalism and then you build programmes out of them, programmes that can be considered valuable.
So, working in the BBC also gave me the opportunity to appreciate feedback — that receiving feedback does not mean somebody is knocking your personality down. They can criticize your work. It doesn’t mean they are criticizing you as a person. If you learn the distinction, you will become voracious to receive feedback and do better.
Another thing is a life lesson I learned in broadcasting, especially live broadcasting at the BBC, which means, it is not what comes at you in life or the negativity that comes at you in life, that is the main problem. The main challenge is how you respond.
And I think the words that we play on is that you should learn not to react, but rather to respond to circumstances. If you’re on [the] air live and something goes wrong, you have to find a way, on the spur of the moment, to overcome that challenge. How you respond, how you overcome the challenge becomes the main thing. And so that was a life lesson. And I made some very good friends at the BBC. I acquired many skills, expertise and experiences that I’m still using today, even in the context of the United Nations.
Sounds like a wonderful time working at the BBC. What drew you to the UN?
I have to confess that I became an accidental international civil servant at the United Nations because one of my colleagues, back at the BBC in London, a Nigerian Muslim woman called Kadira Ahmed, saw something and said I think this is better for you. “I’ve been encouraged to go for it, but I think you should go for it,” and that is how the journey to the United Nations began.
I have to admit that when the United Nations offered me the job in New York, I hesitated a bit because in the BBC you’ve become comfortable, you have millions of people listening and giving you feedback and I’m going to a new job in New York where probably nobody will be listening to you live on radio anymore.
And so, I told the director at that time if they could fly me to see me… maybe they wouldn’t like the size of my nose and decide they wouldn’t give me the job. And they said no, you just come.
In the end I paid my way to the UN to go and see. I wanted to be sure that I would be able to deliver and do the job well with the group of colleagues that would be in the UN. So, I paid my own way to New York and quietly went and viewed the operations and eventually decided to join the UN.
Let me say secondly, it was a great privilege for me because at that time, at the head of the United Nations was somebody from my country, [Mr. Kofi Annan,] the late Kofi Annan. So, I thought, ok in the BBC in London I was working hard, serving the public interest and now at the United Nations, I will be working hard in support of a fellow Ghanaian who is at the top of the Organization. So even if I should sacrifice, stay up late, or miss any entertainment to let UN succeed, I had an extra incentive to work hard within the United Nations for the United Nations to succeed, because if it succeeds, there’s a Ghanaian at the top, the credit comes [to all of us.]. But if it fails, you will be seen as a failure too. So those are the thoughts that came to me.
You had a stake in it, is what you’re saying.
A big stake in it and I have to give my all to make sure that the UN succeeds not just under everybody, which I would do, but particularly under this Ghanaian, who was at the helm, at the time.
Could you tell us what your current role is please?
My current role is Chief or Director of Communications and Public Information in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan. It is a peacekeeping mission, and we are here to help the brothers and sisters here in South Sudan to succeed.
The cliche or that saying here is “No more war,” so that they don’t return to civil war, but they move forward into peace, progress and prosperity.
Is there a responsibility to highlight the positives about Africa in the media?
Absolutely, there is, and there will always be that responsibility.
Because, for many decades, even for me, working at the BBC, you will see that [we have] this journalistic cliché that we say: “if it bleeds, then it leads”.
Yes, and it would seem that many times the conflicts across the African continent, the coup d’etats, the negative things, the devastation caused by HIV-AIDS, violence in certain countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, where there were civil wars. You would think listening to certain programmes that all that there is to Africa is famine, disaster, death and destruction.
But increasingly in this social media age, yes, these problems may persist in certain areas, but they do not define the whole of Africa. There are wonderful things happening. When you watch Tik-tok videos you watch Facebook, you watch or go on Twitter, you’re going to find that there is more to Africa than the negative things that we have tended to broadcast. On the other hand, back at the BBC, I just recall one time where we took listeners’ views seriously about Focus on Africa. Focus on Africa was the main news and current affairs programme that many people, millions of people listened to across Africa. I became Deputy Editor for the programme. At one point we said, look, people are saying we are always negative. What can we do on the positive side? And it took one of my English colleagues who had served in Africa, either as a volunteer or teacher, to say that we shouldn’t call it positive. It’s just real life in Africa. If there are some new bridges being built, new agricultural development, new businesses that are doing well, that is the real Africa.
Let’s just put the real Africa there. It doesn’t mean we are on a positivity propaganda for Africa, but yes, there is more to Africa than just war, famine and disease.
Are there any day-to-day challenges that you face?
There are day-to-day challenges. Currently, as I speak to you, we are under a curfew.
You have to be back within the UN compound or if you leave anywhere, you have to be home before 8 PM. And then we can only start our day’s journey from 5 AM, so that has its own challenges.
There are challenges where you want to do more. You want to expand the reach of our radio, which is the biggest communication platform in this country. We want to put up transmitters in many more places across the country, but it requires resources. So, we need resources.
We have challenges. Sometimes it can rain quite a lot here. There are places that are inaccessible, badly affected by climatic conditions, climate change. Certain areas, miles upon miles of land totally flooded and you are not able to get to those places.
But even in these limiting conditions you see people’s positive attitudes, optimistic attitudes where we want to do the best that we can. Especially for the success of the UN, the mandate that is given us.
Particularly for the success of the people here, this is a rich land, but the people are poor.
What do you like about working in the mission?
Let me say, compared to working in UN Headquarters…working in the mission, you see the direct impact of whatever work you’re doing, whatever sacrifices you’re making, whatever decisions you’re making, whatever choices you’re making. If you lose sleep for a few hours, you see the direct impact on the lives of young girls, young boys, women and men here. If you are busy crafting a statement that must go out to the public, it is a statement that is saying, “Don’t do this. Don’t do this. This community should not attack this community. Let’s end the violence.” It’s a statement that is saying, “look, let’s not take guns and attack each other or go stealing cattle. Let us try and find peaceful ways to resolve problems.”
So, the gratification, let me put it that way, is quite immediate compared to when I was in New York. Even though we were working hard, sometimes the gratification would seem a bit distant. Over here, it’s immediate. If I drive into Juba town, many of the things we are trying to do, you can see the effect. If our peacekeepers are trying to maintain certain conditions, you can see the effect directly as it is showing in the lives of the people. So that is one thing and basically also as a pan-Africanist, Ghana, my country had a president who believed that Ghana’s freedom was not complete unless the freedom of every African was guaranteed.
So, for me, as an Nkrumahist, who was a pan-Africanist, he wanted Africa to unite, so under the banner of the United Nations to be here working for the benefit of our South Sudanese brothers and sisters, that gives an extra bonus as well.
Fantastic. Do you have a story that you want to share from the mission?
Yes, I have a story. It is the story about one of the big towns here in South Sudan, a town called Bentiu. Bentiu currently wouldn’t exist on any map if it were not for the United Nations going to that town and building huge walls, walls that are so wide a vehicle can drive on top of it. Walls that are so high that they could be more than six feet tall and keep flood waters at bay. Bentiu — currently when you fly to Bentiu, all you could see for many miles is [flood]water. And then you see this, more or less, artificial island in the middle of the floodwaters and that is Bentiu. Bentiu is only in there because the United Nations worked very hard, worked quickly to create these huge walls technically called dikes. And when you go to Bentiu, and you see the miles upon miles of these dikes to save a whole town, it is highly impressive. The other side of the Bentiu story is that Bentiu could actually be described here as the oil capital of South Sudan.
The state in which Bentiu is located, which is Unity State, is the biggest producer of the oil that is exported by the country to bring revenue and so Bentiu is a vital place. The UN has gone there and preserved lives and saved lives, to save the entire town. This state capital has been saved by the efforts of the United Nations and international partners. And if the UN had not gone there, Bentiu wouldn’t exist. And sometimes when we talk about peacekeeping, it would be good for people to see that over 250,000 people in this place are only able to live there, though under harsh conditions, simply because the United Nations is here helping the people.
Another thing is a large proportion of the people in South Sudan depend on humanitarian aid.
Very scarce humanitarian aid because of the climatic shocks, because of the violence and other things, and the United Nations humanitarian partners, World Food Programme are all here contributing greatly to help the people until the situation stabilizes and the nation can stand on its own two feet.
You speak so highly of the UN. Tell us why you are so proud to work for the United Nations.
The United Nations does not usually get the credit it deserves.
The United Nations is not a perfect organization. But I am a West African working in the United Nations.
I used to be at the BBC when we reported about terrible atrocities in Sierra Leone. Where the limbs of children were being hacked by drug-fueled, wicked rebels…when Liberia was in turmoil. And so, nobody will deny today that Liberia is at peace today and they are going for elections and a former international footballer is now President of Liberia. If someone had told you this in the late or early 90s, you wouldn’t believe it.
Millions of people became refugees all over the place. Sierra Leone, similar things. Horrible things happened there. Then the United Nations, again with the West African peacekeeping force, goes into these two countries and restores peace. And we have democratic governance in Sierra Leone, in Liberia today.
I served as the spokesperson for the peacekeeping mission in Liberia when I was there, 2006 to 2008.
The mission was struggling to establish a viable police force. And even to find qualified young men and women to join the Liberian National Police was tough.
Here I am today seated in Juba, South Sudan, and guess what? Liberian police officers are now here in South Sudan — not as receivers but as givers.
One time their country was receiving… they were in turmoil. Nobody could imagine that people from Liberia could end up becoming givers in peacekeeping. It’s like a dream.
And so, to be here today to see Angolan Peacekeepers in South Sudan. Liberian peacekeepers in South Sudan. Sierra Leonean peacekeepers in South Sudan. People from nations where no one would have given them a second chance. But now their countries are at peace through the efforts of the United Nations, and they are now giving back into South Sudan.
We can now use these real facts and stories for our South Sudanese brothers and sisters, and say, no matter how bleak things look now in South Sudan, please don’t give up on yourselves. Be positive, have faith, let’s pray and trust God, but let’s do the things that need to be done so that just like the Sierra Leoneans who are here, Liberians who are here, you will get to the point of peace and democratic governance and prosperity very soon.
Your stories are inspirational. Your pride in the work that you do at the United Nations is contagious. It has been a true honor to get a chance to speak with you and pick your brain.
Kome, the pleasure is mine and always here to serve.
Thank you for speaking with us. Talk to you soon.
My pleasure and I wish you great success.
Ben has just concluded his eighteen-month stint as the Chief of Communications and Public Information in South Sudan and has returned to his position at UN Headquarters, New York as the Chief Editor of UN News II.
