Fire and Rain:  The Council Divides its Urgent Attentions

31 Aug

The world is, to reference the Washington Post and virutally every other media outlet, beset with crises.   From Mali to Ukraine, hardly a day goes by without at least one new eruption of hostility, one new warning that the armed violence we struggle to manage may well be entering a new and more potent phase.

At such times, eyes are cast towards the UN Security Council hoping that its ‘maintenance of peace and security’ mandate will translate into policies and actions that can put out some of the fires ranging across half the world, or at the very least lower their searing heat.

The Council is trying hard to do just that, but there are simply too many fires raging, too many escalating conflict zones, any one of which could take up Council members’ full attention.  We find the Council careening from one issue to another, focusing on Syria one week but not the next; obsessing on the ISIS threat while diverting attention from Gaza; assuming that a soon-to-be-deployed peacekeeping operation in Central African Republic will stop that bleeding while Libya disintegrates before our eyes.   Only Ukraine, and that in large measure because of the involvement of permanent Council members and their large militaries, tends to keep its Council focus.

Under the presidency of the United Kingdom, the Council had a busy and varied August, which including a ‘field trip’ to the Hague, Somalia and other locations; some forceful efforts to limit the length of statements, even by governments that have limited access to the Council and are party to grave conflict; and at least two important discussions – one on protection of humanitarian workers and the other on UN capacities for preventive response to violence prior to its full eruption.

Both of these discussions brought out a range of deep UN member state anxieties.   The loss of life from the community of humanitarian workers is shocking and worthy of both great honor and urgent response.  Most of us can barely imagine the challenges of bringing relief to people isolated by violence and abandoned by governments and insurgencies alike.  In the case of the prevention discussion, it is somehow reassuring to those who carefully follow Council deliberations that there be an acknowledgement of how untenable the current situation is, a situation that lends itself to short-term crisis management rather than the longer term crisis prevention which  is closer to our common hope.

In life as in policy, it is often the things left unsaid that are of more significance than those which are named.  This also pertains to webcast Council meetings where statements too often traverse well-worn paths that seem to be designed to ‘inform’ constituents more than sharing thoughtful policy assessment.  In these discussions, there is much text devoted to what Council members care about and occasionally even what they are prepared to do about it.   But much of that is in the form of general recommendations that offer neither kernels of lessons learned nor honest assessments of the failures of past policy.   When the Council speaks of the disintegration of Libya, for instance, while defending (or ignoring altogether) the Council’s resolution authorizing ‘all necessary means’ to stop Gaddafi and the ethnic chaos and the grotesque and highly fluid arms market that were left in its aftermath, it is natural to wonder if Council members are paying enough attention to the longer-term implications of their own decisions.   The rest of us, after all, can ignore the potential consequences of our life choices only at our peril.

So what about those unmentioned items with significant policy reference?   Briefly, two stood out.   In the case of humanitarian workers, we were hoping that someone on the Council would raise clearly the uncomfortable relationship for these workers being protected by peacekeepers who are increasingly seen as partisan, in part because of the expansion of peacekeeping mandates, especially regarding use of coercive force beyond the mantra of “self-defense and the defense of the mandate. “  Such forward projection of force, which in the DRC seem to have won the confidence of diverse UN officials, need to be more carefully vetted from the standpoint of their implication for the safety of already beleaguered humanitarian operations.  As we have seen in South Sudan and just this weekend with capture of Fiji and Filipino peacekeepers, there are legitimate concerns about playing with peacekeeper neutrality in a manner that can jeopardize the safety of more than peacekeepers.  The more that others – states as well as ‘spoilers’ — see PKOs as partisan forces, the more likely that affiliated UN humanitarian workers and other ‘country team’ members could be dragged into threatening situations caused by such ‘partisan’ conflict.

On prevention, the ‘debate’ style format elicited many comments from non-Council members, most of which were laced with anxiety about the state of the world and the Council’s often tepid responses.  From our standpoint, there needed to be more commentary from Council members about the dangers of continually ignoring the smoke that signifies potential danger.   We would also have liked to see more representation in the debate from the people who manage the understaffed and too often ignored preventive architecture of the UN system.

We are extremely grateful to outgoing High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, and felt that her presence at the debate added considerable value.   But there are others who also should have been in that chamber, including the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. The Council is unlikely to successfully shift its distracted gaze towards prevention responsibilities without routinely acknowledging and consulting with those already tasked with preventive functions.

As our understanding of conflict-related threats continues to grow, opportunities for Council over-stretch will grow likewise.   The discussions this month pointed again to the grave need for Council members to engage the full measure of the UN’s preventive capacity as well as to demonstrate to an anxious global public why they believe that the  current crop of Council resolutions and related responses to the many violent outbreaks now on its agenda are both sufficiently mindful of the needs of humanitarian workers and also more likely to suppress violence in the end than to inflame it further.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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The Plague Year: The UN’s Ebola Response

23 Aug

Last week at UN Headquarters, a meeting was convened under the auspices of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) that represented some of the best (if not most time sensitive) of UN capacities in action.

This gathering was actually a joint session focused on three of the countries on the PBC agenda – Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.   The agenda was not security sector reform or gender violence, but rather the implications of the recent outbreak of Ebola that has immobilized national services and caused hand wringing and finger pointing both within the affected societies and in the West.

Readers of this blog have surely followed the unfolding drama in the media.   The security lapses along and across common borders;   the quarantine of thousands of persons in makeshift camps; the courageous response of medical workers operating at great personal risk and without adequate diagnostic equipment and treatment options; and perhaps most shockingly the lack of vaccines to prevent further infection.

The discussion was led by Ambassador Lucas of Luxembourg, chair of the Guinea configuration, and featured briefings from the three country teams, all of whom competently outlined the threats and responses that offered some glimmer of hope for recovery amidst daunting social and medical challenges.

The responses of PBC members to the country teams’ testimony blended gratitude, sadness and pragmatism. Some states expressed concern that some Peacebuilding Funds might be diverted away from mandated tasks towards Ebola response, while others questioned how a plague of this magnitude could remain unaddressed by medical science for so long.   Others wondered about the often slow pace of response.  Ambassador Lucas herself noted that there was likely a time when concerted action could have stemmed the Ebola menace, but she also wondered aloud about current prospects for effective threat response.

Almost all understood the implications for pandemics and other plagues on the very fabric of community life.   In all three countries, each one a relatively recent survivor of other forms of horrific violence, the shock and fear caused by Ebola are proving to be debilitating yet again. But this time there is an added twist – the worry that those with whom you have lived and grown up may be the very persons to infect you with a grave disease for which there is no apparent cure.  These are the worries that can strip away social cohesion – motivating a deeper form of quarantine than even the one imposed by officials.

This for us is more than a sad and cautionary tale.  It is a dry run for what might become a more common occurrence – bacterial and viral infections that have become immune to our potent medicines or are transmitted beyond the reach – or attentiveness — of our otherwise sophisticated medical technologies and research facilities.

Ebola is the latest sign of an evolving constellation of threats to stable and peaceful societies emanating from the viruses in our bodies more than the hatred in our minds.   We applaud efforts by the PBC to understand and address the security implications of Ebola; but we also urge the PBC to do what it can to help prepare more rapid responses to what is almost certain to be a next, deadly, medical emergency.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Hedging Bets: Vultures and Their Economic Prey

15 Aug

Much of the Latin American civil society community is rightfully distressed about a recent decision by a US judge who ruled that hedge fund (vulture) debts incurred by Argentina would have to be paid in full.  This came on the heels of a missed deadline (June 30) for Argentina to pay off creditors as noted by Kathy Gilsinan in The Atlantic. Gilsinan placed part of the responsibility for this financial mess on the willingness of Argentinian officials in the 1990s to submit to US jurisdiction over some of its bonds. Certainly there is more responsibility to go around.

As explained in part by the Buenos Aires Herald, vulture funds represent a type of highly profitable (if nefarious) financial investment, in which a fund buys sovereign debt cheaply and then sues to enforce payment. Benefiting from tax and jurisdiction loopholes, vulture funds purchase debt from generally highly distressed countries as it is about to be written off. They then sue the debtor/borrower for the full value of the debt, plus interest and penalties, in courts located in the US, Paris or Brussels. The original holders of the debt are usually more than willing to rid themselves of these liabilities as many of these debts are soon to come into default or face protracted restructuring negotiations.

With regard to the Argentina case, a move by OAS delegates to void the judge’s decision was rejected by the US.   Moreover, there has been relevant commentary in the US regarding the incompetence of Argentina’s lawyer who allegedly urged Argentina to threaten rather than negotiate a settlement. http://factcheckargentina.org/should-the-court-sanction-cleary/.  Other commentators have placed responsibility on a system that fails to properly regulate market volatility (or even enforce existing regulations) let alone to sufficiently acknowledge the vested interests of sovereign states in lending relationships.  As noted by Larry Elliot in The Guardian, “The problem is simple. Individuals and corporations have recourse to bankruptcy codes that give them protection from their creditors. Sovereign states do not.”

As noted both by civil society and by many in the financial community, this ‘vulture’ crisis is not at all confined to Argentina.   Many of the nations that face vulture fund lawsuits are Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, including several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. As Elliot notes, “There are wider implications. If the so-called “vulture funds” that have brought the current action emerge victorious, it will not only encourage legal action in other cases where creditors have been forced to take a “haircut” but will make future debt restructurings more difficult to organise.”  Clearly this benefits none but the vultures.

In many ways, the Argentina ‘vulture’ decision mirrors larger problems with the international financial system:  political leaders in the global south desperate for working capital, anxious to maintain their political standing and, in some cases even lining their own pockets.   This combined with loose or uneven regulations in the centers of global capital virtually invite predation of the sort that seems to have occurred here.

Many in civil society fear that another financial crisis is likely, perhaps even around the corner.  If that happens, the burden of debt will fall less on the governments that negotiate credit agreements and more on the farmers and bus drivers and other workers whose employment is subject to both the lending ‘bets’ made by their leadership and the predatory and opportunistic mindset of the ‘vultures’ circling around weakened economies.

In many ways this process of decisionmaking by government leaders reflects a more common practice – many of us in the so-called developed world hedge our bets all the time.   Our ‘calculus’ allows us to make economic and related decisions based on a short term logic that virtually dismisses the rights of generations to come, let alone the rights of persons whose sole purpose seems to be to provide raw materials for our often mindless consumption.   We live, as Wendell Berry once noted, beyond the effects of our own bad work, manifest in our propensity for building bridges we’ll never cross, but also for entering into agreements without sufficient consideration for the people who will be required to meet the obligations that we recklessly incur.

As highlighted by Brooke Sample in Bloomberg View, “The problem is that at any given time, it always looks better to delay — and the worse a crisis gets, the more attractive a delay looks, because the reckoning is already very painful.”  Clearly, we all must do more and speak louder, reminding leaders that pushing burdens and their accountabilities away from their authors and on to their progeny is ethically dubious at best and certainly corrosive of a viable community life.  For many in civil society and their constituents, the pain that accrues from bad economic agreements is a pervasive fact of life.  However, pain based on an honest assessment of previous practices that can lead to fairer economic arrangements and more accountable economic relationships is somewhat easier to bear.

As human demands grow and government leaders find themselves responding more to short-term private financial interests than longer-term public ones, the avoidance of conflict and accountability will remain tempting.   And as we continue to defer real leadership the vultures will remain ready to capitalize. But the conflict born of an often fundamentally unfair economic system will not disappear.  Its consequences can only be pushed forward for so long. As the global community prepares to embrace a new set of sustainable development goals, there is no time like the present to place those consequences in sharp relief and deal with them forthrightly.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Dharavi: A Place of Paradox and Misconceptions

14 Aug

Editor’s Note:  This is from Kritika Seth, an associate from Mumbai who previously managed GAPW’s youth effort. Kritika now works for an NGO in Mumbai where her compassion, attentiveness and thoughtfulness have resulted in the following reflections.  

Lakshmi Dhadke – A star, a ‘sorter’, a lady that oozes dynamism and passion from every ounce of her body; her laughter lights up the entire room; her effortless ways of dealing with life’s problems and her smooth ability to deal with the full range of human emotions will leave you awe struck. She seems almost limitless. Lakshmi Tai, as we like to call her, is a simple Marathi lady, a mother of two adorable sons and a wife to a rickshaw driver living in the labyrinthine slums known as Dharavi.

The first time I met her and realized that she possessed all of these creative, life-affirming qualities, I wondered, what is she still doing living in Dharavi?

With more than 60,000 structures, many of them shanties, and as many as one million people living and working on a triangle of land barely two-third the size of Central Park in Manhattan, Dharavi is one of the world’s most infamous slums. It is often seen as a cliché of Indian misery, a visual eyesore and a symbol of raw inequality that epitomizes the failure of policy makers to accommodate the millions of rural migrates searching for an opportunity in the magical city of Mumbai. Paradoxically, it is also a churning hive of shops and workshops resulting in an annual economic output estimated to be $600 million and perhaps as much as $1 billion.

Perhaps those who have not seen Dharavi would consider it to be nothing more than a huge slum, but when I have looked, I see Dharavi as a city within a city, a city of many faces and many facets.

Despite India being a rising economic power, a huge portion of its economy operates in the shadows. In most developing countries, there is only one economy, but in India, there are two. The formal economy consists of businesses that pay taxes, abide by labor regulations and polish the country’s global image. The ‘informal’ economy is everything else: the hundreds and millions of shopkeepers, construction workers, taxi drivers, tailors, street vendors, middlemen and more. The informal economy is responsible for the overwhelming majority of India’s annual growth and as much as 90 percent of all employment. Thus, Dharavi could welll be referred to as one of the self-created, special economic zones for the Indian poor.

“What do we make?” questioned, the ever-enthusiastic Lakshmi Tai during our brainstorming session intended to help her start and run her own business. “We live in a world where we can get almost anything and most of it is made in Dharavi. What can I do to make my creation different?”

It is not an easy question to answer.  Leatherwork is now a major industry in Dharavi. Small garment factories have proliferated throughout the slum, making children’s clothes or women’s dresses for the Indian market or export abroad. According to a 2012 study by the United States Agency for International Development, Dharavi contains at least 700 larger garment workshops and about 40,000 smaller ones. Then there are 5000 leather shops. Then there are food processors that make snacks for the rest of India. And then still more: printmakers, embroiderers and, most of all, the vast recycling operations that sort, clean and reprocess much of India’s discarded plastic.

As Lakshmi Tai rightly puts it, “Every slum has its businesses. Every kind of business is there in the slums.”

Plans to raze and redevelop this informal city of Dharavi into a “normal” neighborhood has stirred a debate about what would be gained but also about what might be lost by trying to control and regulate Dharavi. Every layer of Dharavi, once exposed, reveals something far more complex and organic than the image of a slum serving merely as a warehouse for the poor.

Discrimination is still common practice towards Dharavi residents. They often complain that they are routinely rejected for credit cards if they list a Dharavi address. Private banking institutions are reluctant to make loans to business owners in Dharavi or to open branches there. Part of this stigma is as much about traditional social structures as about living in the slum itself.

But money talks in Mumbai, and Dharavi now has money, even millionaires existing alongside its misery and poverty.

Dharavi’s fingerprints continue to be found across Mumbai’s economy and beyond, even if few people realize it.  And thus, after zooming out, looking at the bigger picture, I believe there is no other place that Lakshmi Tai be other than the eccentric hive of Dharavi.

The area is imprinted in the Indian imagination, depicted in books or Bollywood movies, and even featured in the Oscar-winning hit “Slumdog Millionaire.”  Dharavi has been examined in a Harvard Business School case study and dissected by an army of urban planners all over the world. Yet efforts to fully capture Dharavi’s diverse character are elusive.  May they remain so.

Kritika Seth, GAPW Junior Associate

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Regions of Hope

2 Aug

On the last Monday in July, under Rwanda’s leadership, the Security Council held an open debate on peacekeeping operations, specifically on an examination of the evolution of relationships binding the UN with regional operations such as those developed and maintained by ECOWAS and the African Union.

This issue of ‘regionalization’ had come up earlier in the year when the Council was set to authorize a peacekeeping operation for the Central African Republic, now scheduled for deployment in mid-September.   This authorization, which would involve substantial ‘rehatting’ of troops already committed to the African-led International Support Mission (MISCA), bred some discontent.  At the time of authorization in April, AU officials expressed concern that the Council was undermining the authority of MISCA, authority that would be crucial over the coming months of perilous duty required to protect as many civilians in CAR as possible while patiently awaiting deployment of the UN’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission (MINUSCA).

While AU representatives were less challenging of the Council during the July debate, it is clear that fault lines persist.  Among those lines, the following should receive more policy consideration:

First, there is general agreement that authorization of regional peacekeeping activity by the Security Council increases its legitimacy.  And, as Russia, China and others noted, it is critically important for regional security organizations to stay connected to the Council.  But at what point does ‘connection’ look too much like ‘permission?’   The Council must find the right balance between fulfilling its Charter obligations and supporting, in the words of the US, the actions of ‘neighbors’ taking responsibility for protecting each other.

Second, the Council must continue to refresh its list of core peacekeeping partners including, as urged by Pakistan, the League of Arab States.   In this context, the apparent willingness of the European Union to consider a return to a more robust engagement with UN peacekeeping is a suggestion that should be readily seized.  Moreover, the increasing capability of regional security organizations, including UNASUR in Latin America, gives comfort that, under the right circumstances and with sufficient confidence building, we can sustain the capacity needed to prevent and protect.

Third, there has been much discussion about the need for ‘rapid response’ capacity, which seems to have evolved steadily from a focus on standing UN capacity to regional iterations. Given the slow speeds at which an over-burdened Council often makes decisions, at what point does the need for authorization undermine the benefits of rapid response?  In other words, at what point in a protracted negotiation with a regional organization seeking to respond to the threat of conflict is ‘rapid’ no longer rapid?

With fires raging on so many regional fronts, it is clear that the Council needs to integrate and support as many partners as possible, not only in Africa but wherever competent, accountable, rapid-response capacity can be found.   It is equally clear that more attention to fire prevention and less to fire extinguishing remain in order, both for the UN and its growing roster of regional partners.

However, the Council has generally and, as noted recently by Jordan, Luxembourg and other members, given short order to early warning, mediation and other prevention measures.   Later this month, the UK as Council president for August will convene a general debate on prevention.   In this effort, partnership development is important, both with existing UN capacities such as the Joint Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect as well as with regional entities organized and committed to diverse and robust forms of violence prevention.

At this upcoming debate and elsewhere, the Council must find ways to give places of honor to both sets of partners.   The pattern of addressing conflict past its formative phases and with capacity that is both late arriving and insufficient to some of the massive conflicts that peacekeepers and other agents of UN response are expected to address is one that simply must evolve.    In this context, we especially welcomed Argentina’s recent call for more ‘strategic thinking’ with the entire UN membership that could lead to fewer ‘emergency Council meetings,’ thinking that can help us find the ways and means to fight fires before they actually ignite.  Such thinking could also increase the participation and confidence of member states with their own strategic ties to the regional organizations that have become so critical to the success of UN peacekeeping efforts.

For so many victims or those fearing to become victims, timing is everything; getting the right capacity into the right positions as quickly as possible.   The Council has a moral imperative to ensure diverse and timely capacity to regions in conflict, but an equally critical imperative to ‘maintain’ the peace and not only react once the peace has been shattered.   There is hope that more regional engagement and more preventative measures, together with a Council increasingly seized of its own burdens and limitations, can result in a more effective spectrum of response in these dangerous times.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Traffic Control: Making Policy Sufficient to Ending a Menace

30 Jul

Editor’s Note:   Today (7/30/14) is World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.   To help call attention to this unresolved scourge, Danielle Peck has offered this reflection on UN and member state efforts to eliminate trafficking and restore dignity to victims.  She also offers suggestions on ways to better highlight this crime and eliminate impunity for abuses. 

On July 14, 2014 while attending the special high-level event on “Improving the coordination of efforts against trafficking in persons” co-organized by the Group of Friends United against Human Trafficking and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), many shocking statistics were brought forward demonstrating the ongoing reality of human trafficking. President John Ashe discussed how human trafficking affects every nation in the world. He called it a most “grotesque and lucrative” crime generating 36 billion dollars per year.  The executive director of UNODC, Yury Fedotov, stated that “victims come from 136 different nationalities and are circulated through 118 different countries.” He also mentioned that 75% of victims are women and girls. UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo said, “Every one victim found represents 100 victims still lost.” Statements like these have led me to ask, “What is our international community doing to prevent human trafficking from occurring?”

The U.S. Department of State created the Trafficking in Persons Report, which holds every state accountable for maintaining minimal standards needed to eliminate human trafficking in persons, though states are obviously not required to sign an agreement to that effect. The ‘minimal’ standards are that each country must make a serious and sustained effort to prohibit and eliminate forms of human trafficking. Stringent punishments are suggested to those who violate trafficking laws. Each country is categorized within a ‘tier system’ based on how well it follows minimal standards against trafficking.

Even though the U.S. Department of State has created international pressure with its ‘tier system’ to eliminate trafficking, that system is often disregarded by other states. It is often the case that a nation does not want to be told what to do by another nation. Many countries have also questioned the way the State Department gathered its information for the Trafficking in Persons Report. For instance, Russia voiced its aggravation at being moved to a tier three (the worst rating within the tier system), and they accused the system of being corrupt.

In addition to US efforts, it is vital that the United Nations has a well-established department to combat trafficking. This would not only create efficiency and accountability when gathering ‘best practices’ and statistics, but it might influence more actions to combat human trafficking. UNODC has an office dedicated to combating human trafficking and has implemented many policies to attempt to combat the full range of such trafficking. Still, there are many challenges the department has faced in part due to the fact that human trafficking covers such a broad range of behavior. The department must focus its attention not only on sex trafficking, but also immigrant smuggling or child labor, just to name a few areas of concern. Within the “Human Trafficking FAQs” section of the UNODC website, there is a list of challenges the UN believes must be further addressed. Here I have taken a few of these challenges and provided some suggestions moving forward.

First, the UN believes that there is a problem with how states and organizations gather accurate information on trafficking. There has been no system implemented within the department that encourages states to gather accurate data. As trafficking is a criminal activity, many states may find the data gathering task beyond their capacity. The UN should implement a system with templates that each state can follow to help gather relevant data. Studies should be done that show how accurate data (on trafficking or related matters) has been gathered in the past. The UN should then take further steps to create an infrastructure that will assure that every state can follow those templates with as much ease as possible. If an efficient plan could be created for every state to follow, there would be more accurate trafficking data throughout the world.

Today there are too many different data-gathering systems yielding a wide diversity of statistics on trafficking in persons for each nation. Thus, my first suggestion is for the UN to create an instruction manual that can guide nations seeking to gather human trafficking data.  Then the UN needs to create a common space/system for nations to share their data. The international community needs better cooperation and coordination in developing an information exchange. If every nation had a system to follow on how to gather accurate information, they would probably be more willing to enter their information into a shared database.

Secondly, despite this fine event, the UN does not yet fully convey the importance of countering human trafficking within the international community. Every state has its own list of priorities in this area, in part a function of local cultures and values. The UN must be clear that countering trafficking should be a high priority for every state. As mentioned above, human trafficking exists in every country and affects or influences every person, directly or indirectly. Trafficking represents a massive corrupt network that cannot be overcome without the entire international community making it a priority. The UN should hold more panels that discuss the facts and methods to combat trafficking, as these get publicity and the attention of leaders, as well as create a space for open dialogue for diplomats and NGOs to discuss solutions. It is the UN’s responsibility to help spread awareness of the scourge of trafficking of persons into the international community.

Third, the UN needs to do more to prevent trafficking at its source. Research needs to focus on the sources of the trafficking industry. The UN should provide outlets for funding locally based NGOs that work with trafficking issues and victims. This will make it possible for NGOs to publicize the reality of human trafficking, show how women and men can avoid becoming involved, or even help to stop the practice. Then the UN could consider exposing the identities criminals involved in trafficking to the international community. This could create international pressure as no country wants to have leaders of the trafficking industry publicized as coming from their nation. The criminals should be brought from underground into the public eye. Impunity for their abuses needs to end.

It is unclear the extent to which the UN and other international organizations are addressing human trafficking on a global scale. We need to make human trafficking one of our main priorities. The UN has the power to organize more global events based on the realities of trafficking. The trafficking industry controls more than we realize. It needs to be confronted robustly by the international community with UN guidance.

Danielle M. Peck, Junior Associate

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Gender Equity in Context

23 Jul

Editor’s Note:   This is the first post from Marine Ragueneau who has come to us from France via Seattle  For the past six weeks, Marine has covered extensive UN discussions on security and sustainable development goals in the Security Council, ECOSOC and the Open Working Group on SDGs. Marine’s policy interests include gender justice and here she makes several important points — specifically on the need for full participation by women in sustainable development, as well as on the need to provide space for a much more diverse range of voices and contexts than is normally the case at UN headquarters. 

Coming to Global Action (GAPW) and having studied international relations with a focus on human rights and gender, I was thrilled to see how theory was applied to practice in the UN, a center of global governance. In the last month, I have gotten the chance to attend various meetings and side panel discussions dealing with issues ranging from evaluating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to increasing women’s participation in peace processes and other leadership positions, as well as Security Council meetings dealing with urgent matters from Ukraine to Gaza. The following are personal observations I have made concerning matters of gender, inclusion of marginalized voices in genuinely participatory processes, and the possible implications these realities have on the effectiveness of UN security and development policy.

It is widely agreed upon amongst governments and civil society alike that gender equality remains an urgent and imperative step in furthering the human rights agenda. Last month, a particularly engaging discussion occurred – Maintaining Human Rights Momentum for a People-centered Post-2015 Agenda – at which three panelists assessed improvements of the Sustainable Development Goals compared to the unevenly fulfilled Millennium Development Goals of 2000. The conversation remained on the critical side, however, with Alexandra Garita, the gender specialist on the panel, making noteworthy remarks on the difficulties women continue to face, emphasizing the importance of incorporating context-specific, gender realities into the SDG agenda. More specifically, Garita stated that as women make half of the world’s population and give birth to the other half, greater emphasis on achieving universal, holistic, and accessible health care services is crucial. This would include women having access to information on their sexual and reproductive health, as well as control— access to contraceptives, safe abortion services, maternity care, and resources preventing STIs, HIV/AIDS as well as non-communicable diseases such as breast and cervical cancers.

It became clear throughout the conversation that for a comprehensive, integrated health care approach to be effective, the SDGs need to maintain and further reinforce amendments pertaining to climate change and corporate accountability. Such factors are critical to our current social and political context, and those most vulnerable to the degradation of the environment and economic exploitation continue to be women and children. It is in the interest of the UN, therefore, to work on deconstructing the existing power paradigm in order to create systemic, sustainable, and meaningful progress for women’s rights and human rights as a whole. If the SDGs are to help create a future we want, continued mainstreaming of gender issues is vital to its success.

The mainstreaming of gender issues proves to be useful regarding SDG policy development, but through attending other discussions, I found that mainstreaming gender issues can also be problematic. When discussing issues pertaining to women, it is essential to the legitimacy of the conversation to address and assess the differing experiences of women based on geographical and socio-political situations as well as differences experienced due to race, class, sexual orientation, and disability. In the discussion on Gender Equality in Public Administration organized by UNDP, facts and statistics were provided on the current involvement of women in administrative positions, which was helpful in that it contextualized this particular gender issue. During the Q&A, it was briefly mentioned that diversity is still an issue for women seeking administrative positions, but the topic was not elaborated on. I believe this to be a serious weakness in the gender discourse, as it creates division among women who feel not only excluded by the patriarchal structures of our societies, but within the feminist movement as well.

Specifically, the lack of participatory involvement of rural and indigenous women in UN processes and decision making is a setback in what seems to be an otherwise promising step towards achieving greater gender quality. Giving traditionally marginalized women more direct consultative power within the UN and other international organizations is imperative to making sustainable advancements in women’s rights. In the Economic and Social Council during the panel discussion on Effective Humanitarian Assistance, for example, we were able to see a live webcast from the Philippines where people who had direct encounters with UN assistance were able to openly discuss their experiences. This created a balanced discussion; had they not been present, the conversation would have been largely biased in representation and lacking in necessary, context-specific content. Unfortunately these kinds of appearances by civil society, especially from the Global South, remain scarce. In order to create a more just and representative, as well as ethical and progressive human rights agenda, the UN should consider ways to increase such involvement. It is particularly imperative that this develops in the women’s rights sphere, as it is a great injustice to women worldwide to simplify the female narrative based on just a few experiences, too often from women in ‘western’ contexts.

As a place of convergence for governments, UN agencies, and civil societies alike, the UN is a promising platform for advancing the human rights agenda. But with promise comes responsibility, and the UN should be held accountable to the people it seeks to represent. If policies regarding the health of women are to be effectively implemented, then the institutions responsible for addressing these sometimes dire circumstances must be held accountable. Moreover, if the UN is to effectively address women’s rights issues, voices of women in all contexts and realities have to guide the discussion. It is imperative to the advancement of our international community to ensure that this happens.

Marine Ragueneau, Junior Associate

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Council of Doom

20 Jul

For the first time at least in our memory, the Security Council had two discrete ’emergency’ meetings last Friday -one focused on the downing of the Malaysian Airliner and the other on the escalating violence in Gaza occasioned by frightening waves of Hamas rockets and the Israeli decision to launch an invasion into an area that the French Ambassador described as ‘an open air prison.’

It was a long and largely unsatisfying day for Council members and others in chambers. USG Jeffrey Felton had the unenviable task of briefing the Council at both meetings, needing to sound fair and competent in his judgments as events swirled and condemnations of all kinds escalated alongside the horrific images of violence and wreckage.

There certainly were important insights communicated by Council members over this long day of painful disclosures.  Chile’s Ambassador made the unusual request for the Council to rethink the way in which it engages mediation. Jordan’s Ambassador noted the ‘suffocating’ misery in Gaza and demanded that Hamas accept the Egyptian cease fire plan.  The Palestinian Ambassador read off the names of several of the victims (including many children) killed in the Gaza assault.   On Ukraine there were many strong calls for fact-finding and accountability for perpetrators, even if some might have “jumped the gun” when it came to anticipating culpability.

Perhaps the most poignant and sensitive comment was made by the Ambassador of the Netherlands, the country that of course suffered the most casualties from the downing of the Malaysian airliner.   Ambassador van Oosterom vividly described the ‘darkness’ that had descended over his country, but he refused to engage in condemnation pending a thorough investigation into the causes of the crash.   Argentina and others directly supported this profound and mature response amidst deep national mourning.

As we listened over several hours, we wondered (as we often do) how these Council discussions are ‘playing’ to a global public increasingly fearful and frustrated at state and non-state actors’ growing recourse to aggression and disregard for international law.   Indeed, on this day there were several pointed critiques of Council processes.  The Palestinian Ambassador, speaking directly to people back home, told them that they have ‘every right’ to be angry with the Council. Earlier in the day, Malaysia warned the Council that it badly needs to ‘step up its game’ in Ukraine and echoed calls by other states that more must be done to stem prospects for new levels of violence occasioned by what Nigeria referred to as this  ‘apocalyptic’ event.

Despite these passionate remarks, the day was given over to largely redundant statements rather than concrete proposals that could reassure onlookers that the ‘maintenance’ of international peace and security remains in good hands. In fairness, even legitimate caution by Council members is anathema to those thirsty to ‘do something,’ persons whose ‘narratives’ regarding the causes of one or another theater of violence admit of little or no compromise.  Much like the rest of the UN, the Council has to accommodate a variety of perspectives and strategies and, despite its coercive mandate, cannot always move forward with a resolve needed by victims and respected by their advocates.

That said, after hours of statements on Friday, the conclusion is hard to ignore that ‘concern’ and even indignation used up most of the energy that would have been better served by strategic engagement linked to public reassurance.  Few Council members, especially permanent ones, seem able to resist the political spinning of crises for national gain.  Too many in the global public now anticipate ‘spin’ even at those times when Council members do their best to avoid it.

It is a bit unseemly that an air tragedy and an invasion do not seem sufficient to evoke even modest reflection on how Council working methods might be shortchanging anxiety levels of the global community.   Neither has growing chaos in Libya nor late arriving peacekeeping operations to quell the catastrophe in Central African Republic seemed sufficient to force the Council to reexamine its capacity for vigilant and preventive action.  After many statements of interest and concern, successful crisis strategies for both Ukraine and Gaza seemed painfully beyond the available operational skills and capacities of this Council.  More than anything else the public now needs assurance that the Council has what it takes to resolve such disputes or, at a minimum, can describe what else is needed beyond its own resolutions and coercive mandates.

Of course, much of what the Council says and does regarding crises remains beyond the reach of onlookers, and this certainly applies to our office as well.  Like others, we essentially have a prime viewing perch to witness a process about which we have little if any impact. But we know what we see, and what we see now is insufficient diplomatic engagement coupled with a deficit of forthrightness regarding our failures to protect and prevent and what can now be done about each.

It is a gloomy time in the Council.   Even the leaders of the most powerful nations seem overwhelmed by the fires burning in so many corners of the world.  In this space we will soon share some modest recommendations to help reduce combustibility and restore the reputation of the Council to a level at least generally commensurate with its Charter authorization.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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The Sahel Crisis: Politics, Prevention and Lessons Learned

10 Jul

Editor’s Note:  The following is the first blog post from Vanessa Mosoti, a talented junior associate from Kenya who has joined us for the summer from Princeton University, where she will finish her undergraduate studies beginning in September. In this post, Vanessa reflects on several UN events, including Security Council briefings, where issues involving states of the Sahel have been addressed.  Vanessa’s recommendations for moving beyond the current impasses and embracing a prevention-oriented framework are wise and worthy of adoption by UN officials with responsibility for Sahel response. 

The eruption of the crisis in Mali, a foreseeable denouement of a decades-long protracted conflict in Northern Mali coupled with a series of internal governance problems, should not have come as a surprise. Despite early warning signs, there is a marked lack of preventive diplomacy in the narrative of the Malian crisis. The international community had specific and identifiable opportunities in which to limit the eruption of conflict, but the statecraft was flawed, inadequate, or absent. Perhaps there is no amount of preventive measures that could have completely preempted the eruption of the crisis in Mali, but there certainly exists a litany of missed opportunities in which timely interventions at several key junctures might have significantly reduced, defused, and contained the violence.

UN dialogue surrounding the Malian crisis focuses understandably on the symbiotic relationship between security and development. And while the recovery of security and the realization of developmental goals must remain a top priority, issues relating to government legitimacy and accountability alongside the creation of a viable economy must also be addressed with similar vigor. As stressed in U.N. event “Countering Violent Extremism and Promoting Community Engagement in West Africa and the Sahel: Strengthening Multilateral Engagement” co-hosted by the governments of Burkina Faso and Denmark on the margins of the June 2014 review of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, state fragility remains one of the biggest challenges to sustainable peace in the region. Any coherent response to the crisis must prioritize the building of a coordinated state from the bottom up—with national checks and balances, as well as participation from all citizens. Indeed, seeking a comprehensive response by all relevant actors underscores the challenge that the crisis in Mali is inherently political in nature. Of course, divergent views on the political roadmap to be adopted have had an impact on the crisis response, but continued Tuareg exclusion, as well as the exclusion of other marginalized groups (particularly in the North, where people remain bereft of critical security and social services), in the Malian political system virtually guarantees the continuation of the conflict and/or outbreak of future conflict.

A thorough solution requires that the Malian state address the fragmentation of Malian national identity. They are not alone, however. Issues relating to national identity pose challenges with which no African state is unfamiliar. The global spread of the nation-state is arguably the most significant institutional transformation of the modern era. The world today is a conglomeration of diverse nation-state driven societies. The rise of the modern nation-state, one can argue, precipitated the current world order and, subsequently and perhaps more importantly, modern formulations and understandings of concepts relating to identity—national, or otherwise.

A nation-state can be defined as a form of political organization under which a relatively homogenous people inhabit a sovereign state. Societies create national identities that separate people, suggesting fundamental differences between members of different nations. The formation of states and the ability of states to deploy their powers in a variety of social, economic and security contexts create these concepts of national identity. It is from the construction of a state that a nation is created, and not the other way around.  However, this requires important economic and political processes as a condition for the establishment of this combined nation-state—as it is, imaginably, difficult to create a homogenous community to replace the multiple communities of various faiths, peoples, and languages characteristic of preceding empires/kingdoms/colonies/chieftaincies. The nation-state attempts to form a singular identity from these multiple identities; therefore, national integration, the purpose of state power, requires a strong state—defined especially by military power—and the formulation of an image of a shared past based on some common experience and/or of a projected common destiny. African nation-states, however, are the legacy of Europe’s cavalier partition of Africa and their disregard for the complexities of African social, political, and geographic autonomous orchestration. National integration and the perception of this image of a shared past, reflective of the ability of a state to construct a singular identity and project power and legitimacy to all regions of said state, are especially difficult in the African setting—and the Republic of Mali is no exception. Thus, the eruption of conflict, when viewed in context, is utterly unsurprising.

At the Counter-Terrorism event, speakers also emphasized the need for a national infrastructure for peace—citing Ghana’s National Peace Council as one example. Multilateral engagement is key to sustainable regional peace. The purported goals of various interventions in Mali include at least some aspects of humanitarian aid, peacekeeping, and nation building. The intervening bodies seek to mitigate the conflict, alleviate some of the pressures of desertification, and create some semblance of a functional and peaceful governmental structure with high prospects of longevity. The establishment of security, obviously, also remains a priority. As I attended various U.N. meetings dealing with violent extremism, counter-terrorism, and specifically the Sahel crisis, it occurred to me that there are a series of lessons the international community can gather from these endeavors (implemented with varying degrees of success) that can inform future policies concerning intervention in conflict situations similar to that of Mali (i.e.: in the Wider Sahel):

1. Malians must possess ownership of their own peace processes. Ownership refers to Malians determining objectives, scheduling, and negotiation procedures. International actors, while critical, should play peripheral roles (as facilitators) to local and regional actors during negotiations.

2. There needs to be a thorough understanding of political and cultural norms by all parties involved. There is also a need to understand the range of local and regional actors involved in the crisis. There was, in negotiations and interventions in Mali, a lack of understanding of the nature of the conflict, the diversity of the actors, and the nature of the cultural processes behind individual and collective actions and decision-making.

3. Complete representation in mediation—of the wider Malian community and all parties involved in the conflict, civil society, military, etc.—matters in the success of negotiations. There needs to be a general, nation-wide consensus if there is to exist any hope of easy facilitation and long-term implementation of any denouements.

4. Mediators should develop strategies to better deal with spoilers—intrinsic spoilers (those who don’t want peace as it is not in their self-interest) as well as situational spoilers (those who don’t agree with specific provisions/arrangements but are generally seeking peace).

5. There should be provisions for political space for opposition in which groups can express their unhappiness without being shut out, termed rejectionist, or otherwise excluded from the entire process.

6. Regional bodies should provide adequate support to state institutions in crisis. Long-term commitment to provide resources and support after an agreement has been reached and a framework is implemented may be key to stabilization. This help should come in the form of new/repaired infrastructure as well as civic and civil society building measures, but not necessarily in the form of arms transfers or other incentives to state violence. It is nearly impossible to impose a victor’s peace in Mali, and providing the means for a monopoly on the use of violence to a fragile state increases the probability of the rise of rejectionists and spoilers.  Good societal structures and institutions can uphold the peace, legitimize the government, and establish an effective system of governance that serves as a model for the rest of the region.

7. Responsibility for carrying out any agreed upon terms of negotiations should fall onto local institutions as well as the government. The international community should assist these local actors especially (in ways delineated above) for as long as possible/necessary.

8. All potential solutions to the conflict should be derived from public opinion or they will not hold in the long-term. Negotiators/mediators/facilitators should make sure that the opinions of the public are well represented and prioritized in all peace discussions

As the Malian crisis is but one in a wider regional crisis, the biggest ‘lesson-learned’ is that preventive diplomacy is key. “Actions and inactions of international actors have a major impact on whether domestic actors make a conflict or cooperation calculus”[X]. Early action can lead to early cooperation. Trying to contain a conflict after it has already erupted is much more expensive (in terms of time, money, resources, and lives lost) than trying to prevent the conflict from erupting in the first place. Signals of impending conflict, as was the case in Mali, can be very clear. Policy should be geared towards the execution of preventive diplomacy at this time, before the situation is too difficult to contain. However, it is imperative that efforts of preventive diplomacy do not actually create additional incentives for violence, or exacerbate tensions in already fragile periods. The U.N. tends to act as a response agency instead of a prevention or containment agency—that is, the U.N. reacts to spills, instead of working to prevent the spills from happening in the first place. The world expects more than a glorified cleanup agency. More could have been done early on, so more should have been done.

[X] Hamilton, L. H., George, A. L., Goodby, J. E., Holl, J. E., Hurlburt, H. F., Jones, B., … & Zartman, I. W. (1999). Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Seized: Preventive Diplomacy in the PostDCold War World. B. W. Jentleson (Ed.). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Vanessa Mosoti, GAPW Junior Associate

 

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Reservations for Five:   Building Confidence in the UN’s Peacekeeping Response

5 Jul

GAPW was fortunate to be present in Conference Room 1 on July 3 for a special panel “United Nations command and control arrangements: Progress, opportunities and challenges,” for an audience consisting largely of senior diplomats and military advisers.

The meeting featured Ambassadors from Ireland (the Sponsoring Government) Pakistan (a frequent contributor to PKOs) and Rwanda (current Security Council president) along with USG Henri Ladsous and Lieutenant General Joseph Owonibi, a former field commander from Nigeria.   These five shared perspectives on the range of responsibilities now undertaken by PKOs and how command and control (C2) structures must further adjust if they are to be trusted to meet those challenges.

In many ways the tone of the discussion was framed by USG Ladsous and General Owonibi.  Ladsous had the fewest ‘reservations,’ taking the view that peacekeeping operations are mostly functioning as they should.  He expressed particular pleasure (as he has done in the past) with the Force Intervention Brigade, part of MONUSCO’s operation in the DRC.   As much as we hold DPKO in high regard and have expressed great admiration for its capacity to navigate increasingly complex and demanding mandates with limited resources, we continue to have our own reservations about the implications of the Brigade, about the lack of a robust, preventive architecture at the UN, as well as some of the specifics regarding how the Security Council discharges its ‘business’ of formulating, issuing and assessing peacekeeping mandates.

As the one panelist with significant field experience (and given that there were few contributions from the audience), it was largely up to General Owonibi to provide a dose of ‘field reality.’   Owonibi admitted that PKO demands and challenges have increased since he was in the field, and he was thus properly modest in his assessment of DPKO’s level of response to such demands. Nonetheless, he was able to pinpoint some of the communications problems, mandates inconsistencies, and layers of Troop Contributing Country (TCC) resistance that combine to hamper PKO effectiveness.

One issue that came up was related to training, or more precisely its absence.   Owonibi and others described the almost unimaginable scenario of field commanders responsible for troops with whom they have not previously trained.   To summon up what for some might be a compelling, current analogy, this would be like a football coach sending a team onto the pitch without anyone having a clue regarding the strengths, limitations, career backgrounds, playing habits, etc. of his/her players.  In the life or death scenarios increasingly faced by PKOs, such knowledge limitations can be deadly for troops and civilians alike.

For all of the welcome references to the need for C2 flexibility to respond effectively to new and often sudden security emergencies (such as those emanating from terrorists), Owonibi also communicated the concern that field commanders too often operate in a bit of a policy vacuum, with little access to clear evaluations that can help commanders implement mandates (and protect troops from needless danger) more effectively. Authority, he noted, can be delegated, but it should not be divided.   He might also have added that the application of authority can and must be flexible, but the sources of that authority should be clear, consistent and, as noted by Pakistan, readily available for consultations and assessments as needed.

Another critical issue raised several times during the panel is that of national caveats, TCCs that identify ‘conditions’ for mission participation that become part of the equation that drive responses from field commanders, putting them in the position of not only responding to threats but attempting to do so in a way that does not undermine agreements with contributing countries.  Again, a football analogy is in order here – the puzzling scenario wherein coaches must take into account the contracted limitations of players before deploying them in the match.  While no specific troop or equipment-related caveats were stated by panelists, the need to reduce such caveats within Memorandum of Understanding has been recognized for some time (see for instance https://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/WP973-Report.pdf).  It is challenging enough to find commanders who can lead effectively in multinational security environments. Reducing caveats that can complicate C2 and potentially deflect attention from compelling external contingencies (including civilians under siege) would seem to be the highest priority.

It should be noted that the ‘caveat’ problem was attributed by Owonibi to ‘national interest’ which of course is a persistent and anticipated component of any seconded force.   But perhaps ‘national interest’ as the singular rationale for caveats needs a bit of interrogation in its own right.  Perhaps it would also be wise to take more seriously the logistical and policy impacts when national contingents are deployed in dangerous situations under highly complex mandates with insufficient training and limited equipment, all of which are ‘authorized’ by permanent Security Council members whose direct involvement in PKO command and control is limited at best.  Such scenarios would legitimately raise ‘reservations’ for military leaders from many national contexts.  Clearly, if we want fewer of these ‘reservations,’ we need to demonstrate more sensitivity to their origins.

For many reasons, these are the sorts of briefings that ought to happen more often at UNHQ.   At the UN, among NGOs and within individual missions, there seems to be only modest interest in the logistical successes and challenges of PKOs.   Given how many diverse responsibilities are being heaped on PKOs, the deficiencies attributed to inadequate resources, and the impact of PKO success and failure on the public’s general assessment of the UN’s institutional legitimacy, more system-wide attentiveness inspired by events such as this one would seem to be in order.

Dr. Robert Zuber

 

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