Reflection on Henrik Beer by Ramesh Kumar Sharma, Nepal

Here is a note I got from Ramesh Kumar Sharma last year, which I forgot to post on my blog. It is copoied below.

Henrik Beer      

Dear Bob,

                     I hope  you this this finds you in good spirit and energetic mood.

                     I met Henrik Beer first time in 1966 in Kathmandu. The date was 22nd March.

                     The next time he was specially requested to come to solve the Emblem issue.The Queen wanted special emblem for Nepal Red Cross which he amicably and convincingly settled with the Palace. The date was 15 Feb i981.

                     I met him again in 1981 in Manila during International

Conference when he was retiring. He was very dynamic person.

                     I am coming to Geneva  in November we may have chance

to meet during Gen Assemly.

                    Please do not forget to give small write up.

                   Regards,

                    Sincerely

                     Ramesh

                               

Ramesh Kumar Sharma

Memories of Henrik Beer, a Red Cross SG who brought the environmental challenges to the world stage.

My fondest memories of Henrik was on a snowy Geneva winter day Dec 1978 or Jan 1979 when I was a young desk officer at the secretariat. I was duty officer and needed to check the telex for urgent messages. As the snow was quite thick, I didn't want to get stranded in my car, so I skiied in with my 20 month old daughter, warmly wrapped, on my back, the 3 km to the office. On arrival I went up to the telex room to find Henrik Beer watching the results of the first run of a Men's Slalom event coming through on the AFP teleprinter. Of course he was following the progress of fellow Swede Ingamar Stenmark. He was delighted to see me and made a big fuss over Anita. After the results came through and I had done my duty officer work, he invited me to his office and we had a long talk and he produced a bottle of schnaps.

Anita was crawling and walking around the office of this famous man and Henrik was so warm and engaging with her. He asked me how old I was and I said, " 31 years. " You have a bright future, and remember one thing. Red Cross is not political but to survive and flourish in this organisation, you must understand politics."

Skiing home that late afternoon, glowing inside from the schnaps, I felt I had really sat at the foot of the Guru. They were the days before "Zero Tolerance."

In late 1981, just before Henrik Beer retired, I hosted him on his last field visit. I was then working in Southern India where the League of Red Cross Societies were running a massive construction project, that of building 233 cyclone shelters along the 2000 km of cyclone prone coastine in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. It was with a great sense of pride that I escorted Henrik on his last visit. As we travelled together from Madras, he asked me, "How is Anita." He had remembered her name from that snowy Geneva day when she played in his office. That was typical of Henrik Beer, he loved people and his work.

Another memory or more precisely, was a souvenir that I had for more than 20 years. In the late 1970's, the League sold off a lot of old furniture replacing it with modern stuff. I bought Henrik's coffee table and used to think of all the world's statesmen and women that had discussed the leading global humanitarian issues of the day. People like Dag Hammerskold, U Thant, Indira Gandhi, Agha Khan had sipped tea, coffee and water from that table.

In December 2009 I had a long discussion about Henrik Beer with Tadateru Konoe, President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Here is a post from my blog on that trip.

" How are you Bob ?" he warmly greeted me as he entered the airport terminal in Jakarta last night. With his sharp eyes he had spotted me first. Tadateru Konoe is an impressive man who engages warmly and sincerely with all he meets. His humanitarian track record is equally impressive.

I was delighted when he was recently elected President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the largest humanitarian organisation on the world.

I was also delighted to learn that for his first overseas trip as President of the International Red Cross, he picked Indonesia.

As we travelled by car the one hour from the airport to his hotel last night, we spoke about the various times we had worked together in the past: Bangladesh, Geneva and India. But the bulk of our time was spent on recalling Henrik Beer, Secretary General of the International Red Cross from 1960 to 1982. Mr.Konoe and I worked with Henrik in 1975 when we were based in Geneva, and remained our boss for some years later as we went our different ways in the Red Cross world.

"Henrik was an outstanding leader," said Konoe last night,"and he gave strong leadership for more than twenty years." We shared for many minutes our personal reminiscences of Henrik and acknowledged Henrik's contribution to the environment.

We then had a long discussion piecing together Henrik's contribution to the environment and climate change.

In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, and for the first time united the representatives of multiple governments to discuss the state of the global environment. This conference led directly to the creation of government environment agencies and the UN Environment Programme.

Henrik Beer participated in the conference, and was deeply moved by predictions of the earth slowly destroying itself. He left inspired and determined to get the Red Cross Red Crescent involved in environmental programmes in order to stop the environmental degradation that he believed was worsening the plight of vulnerable people.

In 1972-73 the phrase “Climate Change” had not been coined, but Henrik Beer’s vision changed the way some Red Cross Crescent societies thought and acted, as they started undertaking environmental programmes, a shift that set the foundation for an easy understanding of the later, and insidious onset of global warming.

Mr. Konoe reminded me that Henrik encouraged Red Cross societies such as Ethiopia - suffering from drought in 73-74 - to plant trees and to get young people involved. Henrik had similar messages for flood-stricken Nepal and India. He was passionate about reforestation, he understood overgrazing and the need to protect mountain lands and water catchments.

As we drove deeper into the heart of Jakarta, I told Mr. Konoe that in 1975, when I went to Nepal as a disaster preparedness delegate, both Henrik Beer and he briefed me In Geneva and both reminded me of the need to plant trees and make the young aware of the need to care for the environment, especially the fragile Himalayan environment.

Both Henrik Beer and Tadateru Konoe (see photo of him above in 1968) had visited Nepal a number of times in the late 60s, early 70's and collectively gave a lot of guidance and material assistance. Konoe told me about an adventurous trip he had to Nepal in 1968, when he drove an ambulance donated by the Japanese Red Cross to Kathmandu, from India, across rough, and often unformed roads.

I recalled that n 1981, when I was working in India on a huge cyclone preparedness programme, Henrik Beer made his last field visit as secretary general. We were building 230 cyclone shelters and part of the programme was an integrated disaster preparedness programme where young volunteers planted trees to protect the coastline, the shelters, and drainage canals. Henrik was thrilled to see the Indian volunteers active with environmental programmes.

Mr. Konoe visited Southern India shortly after Henrik, and I had the pleasure of travelling with him and we recalled some of our impressions at that time. Today, planting trees for protection along cyclone prone coastlines is an archetypal way of addressing the increased threats posed by climate change.

As we neared the hotel we agreed that Henrik Beer was a great leader of the Red Cross and the humanitarian world at large, and kept abreast of world affairs and especially topics related to humanity and environment.

As we arrived, I told Mr. Konoe I had a fascinating paper on Red Cross and the environment, and this morning I unearthed it, and will share it with him when we meet at lunch today.

From the paper I noted the that words, spoken by Henrik Beer over three decades ago, could have been written yesterday as a rallying call for all civil society and government organisations to come together and safeguard our future:

“Can the agencies and the many INGOs each treat the world network of organizations as an administrative problem when it clearly represents an unstudied social problem? Is it not an unexplored global network of resources — of which the governmental and business worlds are an integral part – which has not yet been effectively related to the peace/population/food/development/education/environment crisis precisely because the functional relationship of all the parts to the social whole is repeatedly and systematically ignored in organizational decisions?

“It is no longer useful to concentrate on the problems of one "independent" organization or group of organizations (as though each operated as an autonomous frontier outpost surrounded by uncharted terrain). Nor is it useful to focus on a single geographical region or subject area -- it is now essential to look at the problems of the network of interdependent organizations and their inter- related concerns ," said Henrik.
Henrik Beer had a vision.

I know that Tadateru Konoe has a vision similar to Henrik Beer..

We now have a man of vision with a history of implementation at the helm of Red Cross, and I know if Henrik Beer were alive today, he would be very proud that one of his protegees, is President of the organisation he gave so much to. Henrik Beer and Tadateru Konoe have much in common: men of high integrity, men of vision who have given their lives to the Red Cross

114 years of Red Cross experience. Men who knew Henrik Beer

L to R. Jerry Talbot. former head of IFRC Asia and Pacific Dept, Alistair Henley, Director, Asia Pacific Zone, IFRC, and Bob McKerrow Head of delegation IFRC, Indonesia. Photo:  Jason Smith.




A few weeks back I was in our Asia and Pacific zone office in Kuala Lumpur and met up with Alistair Henley and Jerry Talbot, and at the farewell for Peter Lundberg I spied Jerry and Alistair together. I did some quick calculations and said to Jason Smith our communications expert, "there is at least 114 years experience among the three of us." Jason rushed off and grabbed  his camera, and took this shot.

Jerry, Alistair and myself, all knew Henrik Beer, and were very much motivated by his vision, his leadership and accomplishments.

A little more about these two dedicated Red Cross workers.

Alistair Henley has worked with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies since 1981. He is currently Director, Asia Pacific Zone responsible for managing the IFRC’s operations and general activities in the entire Asia Pacific region from the Zone Office set up in July 2007 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.



Before that he was Head of the East Asia Regional Delegation based in Beijing from 2003 to 2007. He served as Director of the Development Cooperation Department in Geneva from 1995 to 2000 and Head of the Coordination Department from 2000 to 2003. In these 2 posts he worked with donors to build up support for the Federation’s National Society capacity building goals and longer term programme appeals. This is one of many of Alistair's strengths, his ability to inspire confidence in donors and to negotiate long term funding. When I worked in Afghanistan, Alistair did sterling work in promoting our work and ensuring we got adequate funding.



Between 1989 and 1993 he headed the Regional Delegation for Southern Africa in Harare, and worked as a desk officer in the Asia Pacific and Africa departments of the IFRC (1981 to 1989). He started his Red Cross career with the British Red Cross Society in London (1978-1981).



He holds a Master’s degree in East Asian studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Alistair's grandfather and grandmother were amazing people who worked in what is today's Georgia and Azerbijan from about 1906 up until the collapse of Czarist Russia. He has a stunning collection of his grandparent's photos which is  a real treasure.



Alistair has a encylopedic knowledge of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement and had the unenviable task in decentralising the leadership of our Asia and Pacific department from Geneva, to Kuala Lumpur, a task he has done with great verve and aplomb.



Jerry Talbot retired on Monday, 31 March 2009, after 42 years uninterrupted service to Red Cross. Jerry Talbot the former special representative to the secretary general for the tsunami operation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, was an outstanding leader, with excellent vision, who took a long-range perspective on the big things and was able to develop concepts. He focused on people and inspired trust in all he met. He was gifted with a strong intellect and made a huge contribution for over 40 years to global humanity.

Bill Clinton with his arm round Jerry Talbot on the far left, when Clinton visited the Maldives.



Jerry comes from a large family who still farm In Onga Onga in the Hawkes Bay.



Not surprisingly with his farming background, his second assignment for the New Zealand Red Cross in 1969 was taking some bulls for breeding in Western Samoa. I often joked with him that he was an impressive bull-shipper. The year before that,  he spent one year in Vietnam working on livelihoods programmes for displaced people. For 14 years he was Secretary of the New Zealand Red Cross and under his leadership, it developed into a very well functioning organisation. Next he moved to Geneva in 1990 where he became head of the Asia Pacific Region for the IFRC. Jerry is married to Jen, a very lively and intelligent women, and the have three married sons.



During his Red Cross career he spent time helping his sister run the family farm and when possible, he would slip off to a quiet stream or river, where he indulged in fly fishing. There, like on Thoreau's Walden Pond, Jerry would reflect on the troubled world and come back more motivated to change the world.



In January 2005. Jerry moved to the Maldive Islands where the IFRC built thousands of houses, put in new water supplies, restored livelihoods and assisted many thousands of families. One on the greatest tributes to Jerry Talbot is through his leadership and vision on Dhuvaafaru Island in Raa Atoll, where the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has created new homes for more than 3,700 people who were displaced from their original island after the Indian ocean tsunami struck in 2004.

So that's a bit of a ramble about Alistair and Jerry, (pictured above) two guys I have come to admire greatly over the years.

Jean Pictet - Henrik beer's tribute !

International Review of the Red Cross (1979), 19:115-129 Cambridge University Press
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1979
doi:10.1017/S0020860400019860

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Research Article

A Tribute to Jean Pictet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alexandre Hay, a1, Henrik Beer, a2, Jean-Georges Lossier, a3, Professor I. P. Blishchenkoa4, G. I. A. D. Draper, a5, Professor Hamed Sultana6 and Dietrich Schindler, a7


a1 President of the International Committee of the Red Cross
a2 Secretary-General League of Red Cross Societies
a3 Former Editor-in-chief of the International Review of the Red Cross
a4 Doctor of Legal Science, Vice-President of the Soviet Lawyers' Association, Secretary to the Association of Democratic Lawyers
a5 Professor in the University of Sussex
a6 Member of the Institut d'Egypte, Honorary President of the Egyptian Society of International Law.
a7 Professor at the Faculty of Law University of Zurich
Article author query
hay a
beer h
lossier j
blishchenko ip
draper gi
sultan h
schindler d


On 30 June 1979, Mr. Jean Pictet will reach retirement age after forty-two years of service with the ICRC.

He joined the ICRC in 1937 and has had a very full career. He is a thinker, a jurist, a writer, a teacher and at the same time a man of action, who took part in all major Red Cross undertakings; he is the inspirer and the mentor of the Red Cross.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Ami Weyand Alm . Secretary to Henrik Beer

Ami Weyand Alm was a wonderful colleague who I first met in 1975 when I commenced working at the League of Red Cross Societies secretariat in Geneva.

Ami was secretary to Henrik Beer up until his retirement and she did an outstanding job. I have so many warm memories of having summer BBQs at Ami and Jurgen's house in Geneva, rather wild parties in the days when George Weber and I were young desk officers, and working with Ami when Henrik Beer required briefing papers.

Here is a delightful account of Ami's funeral from Monica Pejovic. Thank you Monica.

Sun, 24 Jan 2010

Dear everyone, Thank you for your warm and beautiful words as you remembered Ami. I would like to return your sympathy by giving a short account of the day we bid Ami farewell. As the bells rang out across the snowclad island a big crowd had gathered at Jomala church where a moving service was held. The priest suggesting that the best way to remember Ami was to continue the work she had done for the handicapped, for the cultural life on Åland and I believe for the Red Cross. The temperature had dropped to -15C but the sky was blue without a cloud and the sea lay quiet. Ami's coffin was carried through the snow to the grave by her two sons Emil and Erik,her brother and her cousins. Right next to them walked Jürgen and Ami's mother and family. As flowers were laid down an old nordicpilgrim hymn was sung. At the parish where people gathered afterwards,selected parts of your messages were read out aloud. Family and friends were touched to see that people from so many countries paid tribute to their old colleague and friend. Someone said afterwards: " That moment, when we heard the words from people around the world, was almost religious. Everything went quiet in the room - because all of a sudden everyone understood what an important impression Ami had made on many people. Thank you for lifting the memory of Ami up to the level she deserved." Thank you all! Sincerely, Monica

We spoke warmly about our mentor, Henrik Beer

" How are you Bob ?" he warmly greeted me as he entered the airport terminal in Jakarta last night. With his sharp eyes he had spotted me first. Tadateru Konoe is an impressive man who engages warmly and sincerely with all he meets. His humanitarian track record is equally impressive.

I was delighted when he was recently elected President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the largest humanitarian organisation on the world.

I was also delighted to learn that for his first overseas trip as President of the International Red Cross, he picked Indonesia.

As we travelled by car the one hour from the airport to his hotel last night, we spoke about the various times we had worked together in the past: Bangladesh, Geneva and India. But the bulk of our time was spent on recalling Henrik Beer, Secretary General of the International Red Cross from 1960 to 1982. Mr.Konoe and I worked with Henrik in 1975 when we were based in Geneva, and remained our boss for some years later as we went our different ways in the Red Cross world.

"Henrik was an outstanding leader," said Konoe last night,"and he gave strong leadership for more than twenty years." We shared for many minutes our personal reminiscences of Henrik and acknowledged Henrik's contribution to the environment.

We then had a long discussion piecing together Henrik's contribution to the environment and climate change.

In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, and for the first time united the representatives of multiple governments to discuss the state of the global environment. This conference led directly to the creation of government environment agencies and the UN Environment Program.

Henrik Beer participated in the conference, and was deeply moved by predictions of the earth slowly destroying itself. He left inspired and determined to get the Red Cross Red Crescent involved in environmental programmes in order to stop the environmental degradation that he believed was worsening the plight of vulnerable people.

In 1972-73 the phrase “Climate Change” had not been coined, but Henrik Beer’s vision changed the way some Red Cross Crescent societies thought and acted, as they started undertaking environmental programmes, a shift that set the foundation for an easy understanding of the later, and insidious onset of global warming.

Mr. Konoe reminded me that Henrik encouraged Red Cross societies such as Ethiopia - suffering from drought in 73-74 - to plant trees and to get young people involved. Henrik had similar messages for flood-stricken Nepal and India. He was passionate about reforestation, he understood overgrazing and the need to protect mountain lands and water catchments.

As we drove deeper into the heart of Jakarta, I told Mr. Konoe that in 1975, when I went to Nepal as a disaster preparedness delegate, both Henrik Beer and he briefed me In Geneva and both reminded me of the need to plant trees and make the young aware of the need to care for the environment, especially the fragile Himalayan environment.

Both Henrik Beer and Tadateru Konoe (see photo of him above in 1968) had visited Nepal a number of times in the late 60s, early 70's and collectively gave a lot of guidance and material assistance. Konoe told me about an adventurous trip he had to Nepal in 1968, when he drove an ambulance donated by the Japanese Red Cross to Kathmandu, from India, across rough, and often unformed roads.

I recalled that n 1981, when I was working in India on a huge cyclone preparedness programme, Henrik Beer made his last field visit as secretary general. We were building 230 cyclone shelters and part of the programme was an integrated disaster preparedness programme where young volunteers planted trees to protect the coastline, the shelters, and drainage canals. Henrik was thrilled to see the Indian volunteers active with environmental programmes.

Mr. Konoe visited Southern India shortly after Henrik, and I had the pleasure of travelling with him and we recalled some of our impressions at that time. Today, planting trees for protection along cyclone prone coastlines is an archetypal way of addressing the increased threats posed by climate change.

As we neared the hotel we agreed that Henrik Beer was a great leader of the Red Cross and the humanitarian world at large, and kept abreast of world affairs and especially topics related to humanity and environment.

As we arrived, I told Mr. Konoe I had a fascinating paper on Red Cross and the environment, and this morning I unearthed it, and will share it with him when we meet at lunch today.

From the paper I noted the that words, spoken by Henrik Beer over three decades ago, could have been written yesterday as a rallying call for all civil society and government organisations to come together and safeguard our future:

“Can the agencies and the many INGOs each treat the world network of organizations as an administrative problem when it clearly represents an unstudied social problem? Is it not an unexplored global network of resources — of which the governmental and business worlds are an integral part – which has not yet been effectively related to the peace/population/food/development/education/environment crisis precisely because the functional relationship of all the parts to the social whole is repeatedly and systematically ignored in organizational decisions?

“It is no longer useful to concentrate on the problems of one "independent" organization or group of organizations (as though each operated as an autonomous frontier outpost surrounded by uncharted terrain). Nor is it useful to focus on a single geographical region or subject area -- it is now essential to look at the problems of the network of interdependent organizations and their inter- related concerns ," said Henrik.

Henrik Beer had a vision.

I know that Tadateru Konoe has a vision.

My mind goes back to a misty morning in Bhuj, Gujarat, India, when Konoe and I were having a bowl of soup together outside the Japanese Red Cross tent. That was late January 2001. He was so proud of the work the Japanese Red Cross medical team were doing for the many thousands injured by the earthquake, that killed over 25,000 people.
On that muddy school compound we had over 600 Red Cross staff and volunteers living in tents next to the 400 bed Finnish-Norwegian Red Cross field hospital.

Konoe spoke to me of this wonderful relief operation and how it must be replicated in the future. Rather than pump more money into the Japanese Red Cross, Konoe was the driving force behind the concept of and the Asia and Pacific disaster management unit, which is now well established in Kuala Lumpur, and provides a zone-wide disaster response, coordination and technical support to the whole of Asia and Pacific.
We have a man of vision with a history of implementation at the helm of Red Cross, and I know if Henrik Beer were alive today, he would be very proud that one of his protegees, is President of the organisation he gave so much to. Henrik Beer and Tadateru Konoe have much in common: men of high integrity, men of vision who have given their lives to the Red Cross.

I am looking forward to the three days he is spending in Jakarta, where he will meet the President of the country tomorrow, give an opening speech at the Indonesian Red Cross General Assembly (held every 5 years), visit the programmes of the PMI, and as he loves to do in each country, meet the volunteers who are the backbone of our Red Cross movement.

Henrik Beer's team

Hre are two photos I recieved in a round-about way. Chantal Pellaton gave them to Jerry Talbot to give to me.

From left to right; Jurg Vittani, Dr. Kingsley Seevaratnam, Dr. Zielinski, Kaj Bertelsen, George Bolton, Jose Gomez, Slobodan Popvich, Shirley Robertson, Eugene Kirchoffer, Pierre Burtin, Jean-Pierre Robert-Tissot, Jacques Meurant, Muralti, george Gordon-Lennox, Oskar Steinbrenner, Nick Ohillips, Ted Akerhielm. I suspect this photo was taken in the late 1960s.

Can you identify this photo of Henrik Beer ?

An old colleague of mine from Geneva,Chantel, sent me this photo of Henrik beer without a caption. I am wondering if anyone out there can identify whp Henrik ( r) is talking to ?

Obama supports Red Cross

Today I thought of Henrik Beer, Secretary General of the International Fedeartion Red Cross from 1960 to 1982. If he were alive, he would have been so moved to see a black American President, Barack Obama. Henrik Beer worked tirelessly to bring diversity into an organisation that was European, North American white, and Scandanavian dominated in the 1960s and 70s.



Henrik Beer

Henrik bought in Bill Dabney as his Deputy Secretary General in the late 1960s, the first black American to hold that position. Justice Adefarasin, from Nigeria in 1977 become the first African to hold highest position in the Red Cross, the President of the then League of Red Cross Societies.

Recently, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies appointed Bekele Geleta, from Ethiopia, as our first African Secretary General.

These are times of change, healing and renewal in world politics and world humanity. We have the leadership. I salute you Barack. You spent many years as a boy in Jakarta, and won the admiration of Indonesians. I live in Jakarta and hear and read from people who new you. You left your mark in this country.

I also note that when Hurrican Gustav struck the US in September this year, you asked people to give to the American Red Cross. I quote from AFP/

Associated Press
September 2, 2008
DETROIT - Barack Obama urged hundreds of thousands of supporters yesterday to donate to the Red Cross to help victims of Hurricane Gustav. The Democratic presidential nominee scaled back Labor Day speeches to unions in an effort to keep the focus on the Gulf Coast.

It will be a hard road ahead, but I am convinced we have the moral leadership now to tackle the issues of inequity, poverty, discrimination and turn the World's economy round.

"I sent you forth my brightest world, now it's nearly gone"

This was posted on the Federation's website on 24 November 2007




24 November 2007
Bob McKerrow, Head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent’s Indonesia delegation

As we come close to the start of UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, Bob McKerrow, Head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent’s Indonesia delegation reflects on where the world’s oldest and largest humanitarian organisation has come from in terms of championing environmental issues.

McKerrow is one of the longest-serving International Federation delegates and has also published three books inspired by nature. He has climbed and trekked extensively in New Zealand, Europe, Peru, Antarctica, Borneo, East Africa, Nepal, India, Central Asia and has also been on expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic.

In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, and for the first time united the representatives of multiple governments to discuss the state of the global environment. This conference led directly to the creation of government environment agencies and the UN Environment Program.

Henrik Beer, Secretary General of the International Federation (from 1960-82) participated in the conference, and was deeply moved by predictions of the earth slowly destroying itself. He left inspired and determined to get the Red Cross Red Crescent involved in environmental programmes in order to stop the environmental degradation that he believed was worsening the plight of vulnerable people.

In 1972-73 the phrase “Climate Change” had not been coined, but Henrik Beer’s vision changed the way some Red Cross Crescent societies thought and acted, as they started undertaking environmental programmes, a shift that set the foundation for an easy understanding of the later, and insidious onset of global warming.

Slowly Henrik encouraged Red Cross societies such as Ethiopia - suffering from drought in 73-74 - to plant trees and to get young people involved. He had similar messages for flood-stricken Nepal and India. He was passionate about reforestation, he understood overgrazing and the need to protect mountain lands and water catchments. In 1975 when I went to Nepal as a disaster preparedness delegate, he reminded me of the need to plant trees and make the young aware of the need to care for the environment.

In 1981, when I was working in India on a huge cyclone preparedness programme, Henrik Beer made his last field visit as secretary general. We were building 233 cyclone shelters and part of the programme was an integrated disaster preparedness programme where young volunteers planted trees to protect the coastline, the shelters, and drainage canals. Henrik was thrilled to see the Indian volunteers active with environmental programmes.

Today, planting trees for protection along cyclone prone coastlines is an archetypal way of addressing the increased threats posed by climate change.

Two years after Henrik Beer started his tenure as secretary general in 1960, the book “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson was published. It highlighted the impact of chemicals on the natural environment. At the time this was revelatory stuff. In 1967 the Torrey Canyon oil tanker went aground off the southwest coast of England, and in 1969 oil spilled from an offshore well in California's Santa Barbara Channel. In 1971 the conclusion of a lawsuit in Japan drew international attention to the effects of decades of mercury poisoning on the people of Minamata.

At the same time, emerging scientific research threw the spotlight on existing and hypothetical threats to the environment and humanity. Among them were Paul R. Ehrlich, whose book “The Population Bomb”, published in 1968, revived concerns about the impact of population growth. Biologist Barry Commoner generated a debate about growth, affluence and "flawed technology." Additionally, an association of scientists and political leaders known as the Club of Rome published their report “The Limits to Growth” in 1972, which drew attention to the growing pressure on natural resources from human activities. Meanwhile, nuclear proliferation and the first photos of Earth from space emphasized the consequences of technological accomplishments, as well as Earth's truly small place in the universe.

Henrik Beer was a voracious reader and kept abreast of world affairs and especially topics related to humanity and environment. I was fortunate in coming to Geneva in early 1975 as a young desk officer and met him on many occasions. Henrik spoke with conviction and passion about the environment.

His words, spoken over three decades ago, could have been written yesterday as a rallying call for all civil society and government organisations to come together and safeguard our future:

“Can the agencies and the many INGOs each treat the world network of organizations as an administrative problem when it clearly represents an unstudied social problem? Is it not an unexplored global network of resources — of which the governmental and business worlds are an integral part – which has not yet been effectively related to the peace/population/food/development/education/environment crisis precisely because the functional relationship of all the parts to the social whole is repeatedly and systematically ignored in organizational decisions?

“It is no longer useful to concentrate on the problems of one "independent" organization or group of organizations (as though each operated as an autonomous frontier outpost surrounded by uncharted terrain). Nor is it useful to focus on a single geographical region or subject area -- it is now essential to look at the problems of the network of interdependent organizations and their inter- related concerns.”

Mama Nature said
"It's murder what you've done"
I sent you forth my brightest world
Now it's nearly gone

Mama Nature said
"I can't believe it's true"
I gave you life and food for thought
Look what did you do

You're killing my rivers
Drowning my baby streams
Day by day by day by day
I hear them scream

Mama Nature said
"You're guilty of this crime"
Now it's not just a matter of fact
But just a matter of time

MamaNature Said, by Thin Lizzy, 1973

Henrik Beer and Climate Change

With the UN Climate Change conference coming up in Bali next month, it is interesting to look back at the contribution Henrik Beer made to bringing environmental issues to centre stage in the world.

There is a widely prevalent tendency to think of organizations, particularly international organizations, - as functioning within thesocial system like billiard balls on a table. In this view, they may "knock into" one another, but essentially they are completely unrelated to one another -- there is no permanent organic relationship between them.

This view resembles that which lies at the base of current environmental problems, namely that each factory can function in its environment as though its products had no significant effect on other parts of nature. In the past year, however, it has become widely recognized that man exists in a very delicate and complex equilibrium with his environment, -- any industrial activity may have consequences for any other. Each factory functions in a web or network of dynamic relationships with other factories, via the processes of the natural environment.

To what extent is it recognized that every socialactivity of man -- the domain of most INGOs -- may have significant consequences for any other social activity? It is, in fact, impossible to predict which organizations will give rise to problems by their actions, which other bodies will be affected, and which bodies will then be in the best position to undertake compensatory action. All social entities — INGOs, IGGs, groups, national or local bodies, movements, and individuals — are bound together in a delicate web of interdependent social relationships, in which each is autonomous and at the same time, dependent on the actions of others. It is a truism that "No man is an island unto himself" but it is not so widely recognized that none of man's organizations can function in isolation.

This is clearly recognized in one field as shown by the following extract from a speech by Henrik Beer, Secretary General of the League of Red Cross Societies, at the 15th International Conference on Social Welfare:

One of the most important trends in the field of international voluntary service in recent years has been the recognition that social development cannot be pried loose from economic and political development and that the work of volunteer organizations cannot be isolated from other aspects of social work Prognostics for voluntary service must be seen as part of a whole. It is already outmoded to look on community social services as an entity in itself: it is part of a socio-economic whole...

From now on U.N. programmes will not be considered individually. Priority will be given to a total approach by every country to their own development planning, with harmonised progress and, hopefully, no compétition between different agencies and ministries about priorities, people and money.

The same will apply to our planning -- we shall no longer promote only the programmes we favour. The excessive stress placed on the autonomy of organizations masks the links between them. Excessive focus on one type of link — the consultative relationship with UN agencies - de-emphasizes the many other links, formal and informal, between organizations of many types, thus rendering impossible any balanced understanding of the social system.

Can INGOs — recognized or unrecognized by the UN system -- adopt, any course of collective action which is so shortsighted and procedure-oriented as to expressly favor only isolated. international organizations whilst ignoring the immensely complex world network of organizations of all types which stretches from the individual to local, national and international bodies to include the potentially highly-significant inter-INGO groupings?

For that matter, can the UN agencies afford to encourage any action which fragments INGOs into unrelated agency-oriented groupings at a point in time when the global crisis is completely multi-disciplinary, and demands the utilization of every available resource? Can the agencies and the many INGOs each treat the world network of organizations as an administrative problem when it clearly represents an unstudied social problem? Is it not an unexplored global network of resources — of which the governmental and business worlds are an integral part -- which has notyet been effectively related to the peace/population/food/development/education/environment crisis precisely because the functional relationship of all the parts to the social whole is repeatedly and systematically ignored in organizational decisions?

It is no longer useful to concentrate on the problems of one "independent" organization or group of organizations (as though each operated as an autonomous frontier outpost surrounded by uncharted terrain). Nor is it useful to. focus on a single geographical region or subject area -- it is now essential to look at the problems of the network of interdependent organizations and their inter- related concerns. (The terrain is now charted and populated so that the previously isolated frontier posts can now band together to survive as a community.) The nature and complexity of interdependence between plants and animals in nature has been the theme of the whole environment /ecology issue and the 1970 European Conservation Year. Perhaps this interdependence, still only recognized with great difficulty, between extremely different organisms can be used as a parallel to illustrate the nature of the interdependence between organizations of different typesand social function. This social interdependence has yet to be recognized with precision despite frequent use of such terms as the "international community." A century ago it was precisely this theme of interdependence between natural organisms which was forcefully stressed amid much controversy with texts such as the following :

"Many casesare on record showing how complex and unexpected are the checks and relations between organic beings which have to struggle together in the same country... I am tempted to give one more instance showing, how plants and animals, most remote in the scale of nature, arebound together by a web of complex relations." (Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species, London, 1859)
The example showed how two species of flower were fertilized with the aid of humble — boos whose nests were attacked by field-mice, which were in turn preyed upon by cats.

"Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district... A corollaryof the highest importance may be deduced from the foregoing remarks, namely that the structure of every organic being is related, in the most essential yet often hidden manner, to that of all other organic beings, with which it comes into competition for food or residence, or from which it has to escape, or on which it preys."
With this perspective, what can be said of the relationship between such social structures as governmental, and nongovernmental, profit and nonprofit, formal and informal organizations, movements, periodicals, mass media, etc? Is enough yet. known of organizational ecology, namely the chains of interdependence between social organizations of totally different types, to be able to determine which actions of one type of organisation will directly or indirectly affect the operations and even the survival of which other types of organizations responsible in society for other functions?

"The program of a large organization, whether intended or not.... affects a wide sector of the organization's environment, one much wider than the organization may understand to be its surrounds...Organizations that wish to deal responsibly with their social surrounds must be capable of eliciting and evaluating responses from those who realize that they are affected hut who ore ordinarily silent, and from those who are affected but may not realize it..." (R. A. Rosenthal and R.S. Weiss, Problems of Organizational Feedback Processes.)
In view of the ignorance of these inter-organizational processes and of the ecological role of different categories of the social flora and fauna:

"We think that anybody who wished to sort out "necessary" and "superfluous" or "justified" and "unjustified" NGO's so as to prove the alienation that there is an inflation of international organizations (in the deprecatory sense) would find it rather hard to define his criteria and would have to claim for himself the foresight of a prophet before making his judgement in a great many cases. Furthermore, even the smallest, lowliest, and oddest NGO's may well bo regarded as an expression of the genuine longing of their members for more international contact, understanding and cooperation. Such longings should be taken seriously because human motivation and psychological factors of this kind are of considerable importance for the whole present and future development of international organizations." (Alexander Szalai. The Future of international organizations, New York, UNITAR, 1970. Paper presented to a seminar on organizations of the future.

Nepal: Ramesh Kumar Sharma- comments on Henrik Beer

I just received an email from Ramesh Kumar Sharma, former Chairman of the Nepal Red Cross Society for decades. He was also a founder member of the Nepal Red Cross Society.

Dear Bob


I hope you this finds you in good spirit and an energetic mood.

I met Henrik Beer first time in 1966 in Kathmandu. The date was 22nd March.

The next time he was specially requested to come to solve the Emblem issue. The Queen wanted a special emblem for the Nepal Red Cross which he amicablly and convincingly settled at the Palace. The date was 15 Feb i981.

I met him again in 1981 in Manila during the International Conference when he was retiring. He was very dynamic person.

Regards,
Sincerely
Ramesh

Ramesh Kumar Sharma

People who knew Henrik

During the past few weeks I have got the names of people who knew Henrik Beer. If you read this, I would really appreciate a contribution from you.
Uno Mellåker:
Nils Arvid Jonasson
Mr Ola Grundin
Birgitta Bertmar
Gunnar Siegel
Björn Runberg
Ragnar Boll
Elisabeth Widman
Claes Göran Landergren
Ragnar Boll
Fredrik Gladh,

The winds of change, Algerian Refugees in Tunisia

".....the indispensable transmission belt between the international interest stimulated by our office....and measures of practical aid in the field......

The United Nations connection made substantial government fund available for League operations - with both beneficial and detrimental effects. On the one hand, Beer had the money to recruit field staff quickly. On the other, there was little additional finance to cover the increased workload in the Secretariat and the field personnel could be retained only so long as the UN grants continued. Therefore a period of rapid expansion commenced, followed by sudden retraction, a pattern that was to characterize the League for many years. The long-term view was that capacity must be built up in the newly emergent National Societies, but for that - unlike emergency operations - the money was always tight. Decolonization could be a protracted and bitter business, as in Algeria." (Beyond Conflict: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 1919-1994, Daphne A. Reid and Patrick F. Gilbo)

UNHCR reports to General Assemby, New York 1962

"Mr. Henrik Beer, Secretary-General of the League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, confirmed the High commissioner's announcement that the League would continue the relief operation on the understanding that the necessary contributions would be forthcoming from governmental sources. The League, for its part, had appealed to each of its national Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Lion and Sun Societies to support the action of its Board of Governors to intensify gifts in cash and in kind to maintain the present level of relief provided to nearly 300,000 refugees without means of livelihood in the asylum countries of Morocco and Tunisia."

(http://www.unhcr.org/excom/EXCOM/3ae68c3e0.html)

The term "NGO" - Henrik Beer, advisor to UNEP

"Henrik Beer, advisor to UNEP Executive Director on NGOs has stated that : 'There is no NGO community as such. The NGO world is composed of-many different elements - some are purely technically NGOs - they are composed of communities, for instance, or specific parts of the community, and are therefore more governmental than non-governmental. Others are specialist, scientific or professional organisations, others major popular organisations of different kinds with the environmental issue as a side line. One should therefore beware of speaking of NGOs' opinions, NGOs' possibilities as unified factors, they are as varied as humanity itself '. Some organisations of great relevance to UNEP's work find the description difficult to understand, especially as applying to them. Some social scientists have arrived at a consensus as to what is meant by NGO. It is :
1) privately (rather than publicly) established
2) not-for-profit,
3) voluntary membership participation."

(http://www.nautilus.org/~rmit/publications/ConceptNGO-IntAssociations-1977-4.pdf)

125th Anniversary of the International Review of the Red Cross

"Between 1948 and 1967, the National Societies grew in number from 65 to 106. The Movement enjoyed a spectacular expansion, owing mainly to the newly-won independence of many African, Asian and Caribbean countries. This created new responsibilities, for a new Society cannot simply be set up; it must still develop into a functional organization. In 1961, the League's Red Cross Development Programme was introduced for the purpose of organizing the National Societies as a force to provide relief and assistance to the population; a force that drew its strength from the participation of individuals whose activities were geared to the specific needs of each country.As Henrik Beer, a former League Secretary General, wrote: "This new dynamic Red Cross must be carried forward on the impetus of new principles. It resolutely turns its back on paternalism, which has been superseded by fellowship and full team spirit. It is this which is the originality of the League's mission. At the same time, under the drive and impetus of a spirit of understanding and harmony, it has undertaken the challenging task of weaving a vast network of technical cooperation in the most widely varying fields"."

(http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/57JMMD)

Everywhere for everyone...

"in 1969, the League celebrated its fiftieth birthday. With 112 members around the world, it was conscious of - but largely comfortable with - its increasing spread and diversity. Nonetheless, it entered a period of introspection.

The demands of disaster and war were heavier than ever, with appeals being issued by the Secretariat every three weeks throughout the 1970s. Even as staff struggled to cope with unprecedented numbers of victims in Africa, South-East Asia and the Middle East, new members of the League were demanding more attention. In particular, they wanted more resources devoted to development.
In Geneva, Secretary General Beer stated bluntly that all the plans and policy statements would amount to no more than 'wishful thinking' unless the League balanced its objectives with its money. Was it not possible that the organisation was trying to do too much?

In 1973, the movement commissioned 'The Big Study', an external report, by Canadian Donald Tansley, on its strengths and weaknesses. He concluded that it should concentrate on the core activity of protection and assistance in war and disasters and downgrade many of the other programmes that had grown up over the years. It should also break away from its 'charity' approach to humanitarian work.

The report was received with mixed feelings. In particular, its proposals for a more central role for the Geneva institutions were seen as a threat to the jealously guarded autonomy of National Societies - and to many of their main programmes.

While the League constitutions was amended, to ensure a fair geographical distribution of its members, daily work at local, national and international level continued much as before. On balance, the movement agreed with the parts of Dr. Tansley's diagnosis but it did not like the prospect of the slimming treatment he prescribed. Consequently, in 1980, the organisation launched the new decade with a new slogan. It was: 'Everywhere for everyone'." (Beyond Conflict: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 1919-1994 - Daphne A. Reid and Patrick F. Gilbo)

Bourgeois d'honneur de Genève, Geneva July 1982

(Henrik Beer was honoured by Geneva in July 1982 with the title of Bourgeois d'honneur de Gèneve-the third person to receive this award during the previous three decades) "Au cours des dernières décennies, la bourgeoisie d’honneur a été accordée à des personnalités ayant oeuvre au sein des organizations internationals à Genève, en signe de reconnaissance de leurs importants mérites et de gratitude à leur contribution à la renommée de notre canton. C’est ainsi que la bourgeoisie d’honneur a notamment été conférée au Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, Haut Commissaire des Nations Unies pour les Réfugiés en 1978, à Monsieur Henrik Beer, secrétaire général de la ligue des sociétes de la Croix-Rouge en 1982, au Dr. Halfdan Mahler, ancient directeur de l’Organisation Mondiale de la Santé en 1989, à Monsieur Francis Blanchard, ancient directeur général de l’Organisation internationale du travail en 1989 toujours, à Monsieur Pekka Johannes Tarjanne, ancient secrétaire général de l’Union Internationale del Télécommunications (ci-après UIT), et à son épouse en 1999, à Monsieur Kofi Annan, secrétaire général des Nations Unies, en 2002, et en 2003, à titre posthume, à Monsieur Sergio Viera de Mello, représentant special du Secrétaire général des Nations Unies en Irak et Haut Commissaire des Nations Unies aux de l’homme, décédé en fonction." (http://www.geneve.ch/welcome2.html)

Eurovision song contest 1981

"Not all the funds raised in the selling of this monumental testiment to our musical heritage will fall into the pockets of Polydor. By buying this record you will be, to quote the back cover message of Henrik Beer (yes!), general secretary of the Red Cross, “helping the Red Cross carry out its work for humanity and peace. We thank you for your support.”

Well, thank you Henrik and here's to the next twenty-five years (glasses raised and drained, records flung into the fireplace). " (The Mick Sinclair archives http://www.micksinclair.com/sounds/euro.html)