What do I do, anyway?

A lot of you have asked me what I actually do, so I’ll try to explain. I’m the Chief of Administration for the Regional headquarters in Juba, which means the Personnel and Logistics functions for the UN Police Officers assigned to the South Region are my responsibility. I supervise the Regional Personnel Officer and the Regional Logistics Officer. On the organizational chart, I also have National Staff responsibilities but no one has yet explained to me exactly what that entails.

The UN Mission in Sudan is divided into two Regions, North and South. Within the South Region where I am there are three sectors: Juba, Malakal and Wau, each with approx. 4 team Sites. It is our responsibility to staff and supply those sectors and Team Sites.

This week for example, we had a newly arrived Norwegian police officer I had to place. Some of the factors we had to consider were previous Mission experience (two previous missions), whether he has any country-men or –women in the Region as we try to place two or three people from the same country together to support each other and help the newcomers adjust, what his policing background was (patrol and investigation), where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do, where the vacancies are etc. In this case, I interviewed him about his interests, interviewed the Juba Team Site commander and let the commander read the Norwegian’s curriculum vitae to see if he would be a good fit at the Team Site. They were both interested in him working at the Juba Team Site so then I met with the Juba Sector Commander to ensure he agreed with this, which he did, then got the final okay form my boss the Principal Staff Officer here at Regional HQ. Its not rocket science, sorry to offend you Human Resources types out there, although the Juba Team Site commander said he hadn’t been treated so professionally in a staffing action in his whole time in this mission. Hmmmm. The things that make you go Hmmmm. Being open and transparent (those are such buzz words that I hate to use them but that is what they mean in this case) has always served me well in policing, and I’ve always looked with disdain upon management who think they know more than the people to be staffed, know better what’s good for them and conduct the staffing process in secrecy. Enyways, we’ll see how it goes, I’m only two weeks into the job. Logistics is responsible for ordering and disbursing office supplies and administering the vehicles, allotting them to Team Sites etc. That is a bigger headache, there are not enough vehicles to go around and many of them are in need of repair.

Then I do other assorted jobs. Today I am accompanying some visiting Kenyan Senior Police Officers on their courtesy visit to Regional HQ and to the South Sudan Police Service Headquarters here in Juba. Rubber chicken time!