SNAPSHOT:
The Manager: Henry Jackelen
The job: Resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme.
In brief: Jackelen has had two careers within the framework of the United Nations. The first was in technical banking and the second, the more recent one, in the country division. Jackelen, born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, arrived in Bulgaria after a posting to Paraguay, Latin America.

It takes so many little things that only one in tens of millions can fit them correctly and institute change.

Henry Jackelen, the new resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Bulgaria, has witnessed, been part of and conceptualised fundamental change. Change, that takes so many forms, is the vision that guides him in life.

The Sao Paulo-born Jackelen met Muhammad Yunus when his breakthrough “bank to the poor” concept was still in its beginning stages. From 1983 to 1999, when the two were in close contact, Jackelen could observe, and in part join, the evolution of Grameen from a bank that started out with a $50 000 grant from the Ford Foundation into a multi-billion bank catering to the poorest of the poor Bangladeshi women. He could see the concept mature through necessary and radical reforms, survive criticism by the Wall Street Journal and Jackelen’s about the bank’s poor quality of assets. He watched Yunus, the architect of the concept, build a 16-company group and be awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for it.

Jackelen was there to witness societal change. “I was in South Africa, that big chapter of my life, when it went from one extreme to another. I saw a whole society change.”

Jackelen himself was the person to have developed a methodology to finance small and micro-enterprises in South Africa. First taken up by a now non-existent NGO headed by the doctor to Nelson Mandela, the methodology is now thriving and works toward eradicating poverty through South Africa’s largest micro-finance institution, the Small Enterprise Foundation.

“People can change and that is the key,” Jackelen says. So do societies.

“The vision that drives me is that societies inherently wish to change for the better, if we can find the way for the leadership to evolve, for the society to participate in the way that it needs to,” he adds.

Re-inventing UNDP presence
Jackelen, with his mind “infected with the virus of change”, is now here. Whether by accident, he jocularly attributes all his career starts to destiny, or not, his arrival comes at a time of change that will affect both the UNDP and Bulgaria. Now that the country has joined the European Union, its status, internationally and within the UNDP system, has changed, although current arrangements remain in force until December 2009.

“What I have been discussing with the government since my arrival is how to re-invent the presence of the UNDP system in line with the new reality of Bulgaria, as an EU country,” Jackelen says, adding that a clear definition of this “re-invention” will be made by late 2008. The existing partnership agreement and the financial arrangements expire in December 2008.

The UNDP will not change its main focus areas: poverty, governance, environment and private sector, as they are the cornerstones of its operations anywhere in the world. UNDP Bulgaria will rather seek to expand on them, adjust the way it operates and the way operations will be funded. It will change to the changing needs of the Government.

Bulgaria’s two new roles
The talks with Government officials informed Jackelen that Bulgaria wants to assume two new roles, of a mediator in conflict prevention and of a donor country. Both roles are attainable, according to Jackelen.

In the first place, Bulgaria, with its unique location in a conflict zone and neutral tone, has the qualifications to act as a negotiator. As for the second, in the run-up to the EU Bulgaria has gathered multi-faceted expertise that could well be transposed to smaller states in the Balkans and the Caucuses.

These two roles will add new aspects to the UN-Government partnership.

To keep this partnership on a successful track will be the professional challenge for Jackelen. The model that the UNDP will be developing in Bulgaria is “totally new”, he says, although work has been done in countries in post-accession mode such as Poland and Lithuania.

“Here we have had the most successful presence,” he says, comparing Bulgaria against countries in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. “The possibility that this particular type of experience could be useful elsewhere is pretty impressive. That’s why the big challenges are how do we keep this work going until 2009 and improve work on existing projects, then what next and how to retain the pace of success in the step beyond.”

The former banker measures success with the value of funds invested. During its 15 years of presence in Bulgaria, the UNDP has conducted more than $170 million worth of activities, the projects ranging from revamping cultural sites (Beautiful Bulgaria) through to job generation to community cultural c-entres.

Another gauge for success is the strong institutional capacity, illustrated by the smooth co-operation with 15 ministries and two-thirds of all municipalities in Bulgaria.

This co-operation pattern, especially in work on local development, could be of particular use for Bulgaria in its new conflict prevention role.

“I see the future [of the UNDP] as possibly being reinforcing to this mandate for Bulgaria,” Jackelen says. “If you are going to work in conflict prevention, local development is where the opportunity lies.”

“To try to make people who lived together and broke apart live together again takes much work at the local level, not so much at the level of politicians,” he says, adding he had seen the situation unfold in Kosovo and Sarajevo. “Thus, local development is a natural area in the instrumentality that you need for conflict prevention. I am optimistic that Bulgaria has a role to play in this area.”

And the idea of Bulgaria as a negotiator can take yet another dimension, in environmental issues. And to play an active part in the global warming debate, which is to be high on world’s agenda in the coming few years, is an important one to discern.

Speaking days after the issue of UN’s Human Development Report (available for free on www.undp.org), the UN-hosted Bali talks and the Nobel Peace Prize award to Al Gore for instigating the global warming discourse, Jackelen says Bulgaria may play a unique role.

“Bulgaria is not one of the largest countries but not one of the smallest either. Being in a transition, it is now neither a developing nor a developed country. So it well qualifies to act as a bridge,” Jackelen says.

“And on issues such as environment, to have a voice able to discuss issues from the point of view of the developing and developed world is a very unique position because in the developed world there are very important changes that need to occur for the future to happen, as we stated in our report. At the same time, there are some important changes to occur in the developing world. So Bulgaria is uniquely placed to discuss and argue on these changes in both worlds.”

And Bulgaria as a donor country is an idea that the Government has identified but the public is yet to digest.

“A poll we requested from Gallup polling agency on the perception of Bulgaria as a donor country reveals people haven’t thought of it yet. It is a new idea but we want it to be thought because it is part of global partnership. Especially in the age of environment when everybody is dependent on everybody, it is important that people think in global terms,” Jackelen says.

The social entrepreneur
Whereas all of the above tackled a change stemming from Bulgaria’s need for change, the UNDP has its own ideas to disseminate. Work with the private sector is of special importance to Jackelen.

Jackelen believes that in part his assignment to Bulgaria has been attributed to his background in the private sector and in micro-finance, in particular. Two of his three careers, Jackelen says, have been work just in the private sector, as a banker and as a consultant with the World Bank, and the bulk of his work in Bulgaria will be to build a sound alternative platform for business to speak out, reach out to the politicians and drive market changes.

“There are certain ideas that can be discussed easier through the UN framework and some of them are corruption, AIDS in the workplace, poverty,” he says. “The UN represents a different way of expression. Our platform influences the dialogue. We do not teach business to lobby for its interests with politicians, rather encourage them to participate more actively.”

Jackelen notes that his predecessor, Neil Buhne, has made solid advances in launching the Global Compact initiative in Bulgaria and his work has “yielded very practical output in terms of corruption, for instance.”

“It is fundamental that this emerging private sector be engaged in ways that are different, not only as a taxpayer and abiding by the laws but also as a citizen of the overall society,” Jackelen says. “What we do here and elsewhere through the Global Compact initiative is we give out a platform of all sizes to be more engaged of the realities around.”

Especially now, when Bulgaria is part of the EU, business should become involved beyond the normal boundary. Beyond the normal boundary would mean not only considering the profit-making aspect, the reason for many societies to “demonise” business, but also ways to aid the community a business works in. Offering help to nearby schools, kindergartens, homes for the elderly or parks from the business perspective can have a huge impact on a community. Especially if done together with other companies.

The private sector
Jackelen also brings his local development expertise, which has already yielded practical results within the framework of the UN. While working in the UN technical division in New York, he developed credit systems for small and micro-enterprises around the world. Now that he works in the country division, he is likely to bring innovations to the existing micro-financing projects underway in Bulgaria.

And Jackelen is passionate about the idea of instilling among business people the idea of the “social entrepreneur”. To him, Yunus impersonates the idea, “who with very little resource made a huge impact”. There are many “Yunuses” - the community helpers – that are given vent in CNN Today. He hopes there would be more falling into this bracket in Bulgaria, too. Though he does knows few such people to fall into this category, he is on the look-out for those.

Jackelen began using the term in the 1980s because “as I come from the private sector I am used to the idea of the entrepreneur as the engine of change”.

“By now the whole idea of the social entrepreneur is becoming a science. Special organisations are looking out for the change makers to ensure the change in their communities. Because they are changing the society they are more and more celebrated,” Jackelen says.

The Yunus factor
To Jackelen, the 15 years of communication with Yunus and the verbal spats they had all throughout not only led to the crystallisation of the “social entrepreneur” idea. Yunus showed Jackelen the true face of poverty, one that only an unbiased mind can see. Though Yunus is a capitalist in the Adam Smith terms, Jackelen says, this believer into a market without distortions was a subscriber of the Marxist idea that “perceptions influence your knowledge”.

“Yunus taught me an awful lot but what he particularly taught me is what is poverty and what is reality,” Jackelen says. “And the perceptions that we have about the poor are so influenced by all kinds of prejudices and fears that we have that our understanding of the reality and the richness of their lives is very limited. We don’t have the access to them, we don’t understand them, they live in a different planet. So Yunus was my access to understanding this kind of reality that I was not really understanding.”

Jackelen has been infected with the charismatic personality and ideas of Yunus. Jackelen has repeatedly been the virus to “infect” people in the positive sense.

“In the days when I have not succeeded I look at a very small group of people who I know and who constantly remind me that I was the one to guide them into doing what they are doing now,” he says.

“I cannot take claim for what they are doing now but I will take claim for them going there. So those are the great things.”

Managing by reality checks
The great things at work happen when the little changes become reality. They, according to Jackelen, occur when the members of the team are open, honest, aware of their responsibilities and capable of minimising the possibilities for second-guessing. Being a bit “brusque”, he expects a good argument from people “because if communication is all very smooth and very good people end up coming up with half-truths and half-decisions”.

“There has to be some stress and tension,” he says, adding this is the way to push for a good answer.

And being able to fly while keeping his sight firm on the ground is essential. That is what he calls “management by reality checks”.

“In all things it is our illusions that kill us, whether it’s in the private sector or in the UN,” Jackelen says. He recalled Henry Ford and the story about the decline of his firm. He came up with the idea to build a car for his son. The project was so awful but since it was for his son nobody around would tell him he was on the wrong track. Ford lived with his illusion right until the time when his car went to the market, the company suffered major financial losses and he had to give up the car.

“In the public sector illusions can go on like forever because the final test doesn’t come as easily,” Jackelen says. “For this reason, in our work in the public sector we have to find these reality checks to distinguish between what we think and what is happening. If you build a building in a village, is it enough? You have to keep thinking what else, what else, what else? In local development it is very difficult because you manage without knowing the impact.”

And in leisure time
After work, he likes to have “some quiet time”. This introvert function, however, is interlaced with much extrovert activity that has found its best illustration in a commitment of many years to theatre. He has acted ever since he was 14 and in his Washington DC period, when he was doing his Master’s degree, he would take a month off to play parts in professional theatres such as Playwright’s Theatre, Studio Theatre, Roundhouse Theatre and Arena Theatre, among others.

Jackelen perceives theatre in the “collective unconscious” understanding, as defined by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung.

“The reality of acting is inside you and not something you make up. And the Jungean idea holds that within us there is a whole collective unconscious, which is something that actors naturally go for. So when you play a role you find something within your own past that helps you play the role.”

Jackelen never mixed theatre with day-to-date behaviour. “In my life, theatre has its own space,” he says. Yet he does not deny that acting has helped him a lot in his life. For example, since he’s been on stage he addresses people more easily than people who have not.

Jackelen, the change maker, takes centre stage. One can only hope that changes for the better, small or big, pass the reality checks and trigger further change.