Tag Archives: civil society

Profit and Loss: States Parties Rethink Contributions to Civil Society, Dr. Robert Zuber

14 Jun

Global Action is privileged to be part of several online ‘communities’ linking diverse NGOs, UN policymakers and place-based civil society organizations serving constituents around the world.   Such involvements on our part help us to keep track of developments impacting diverse communities, but also to remind us of responsibilities we have to help build local capacity and link that capacity to relevant policy discussions taking place in the international community.

Thus we were quickly made aware of shockwaves this past week when it was announced that Finland would significantly cut back on assistance to civil society organizations within its own borders as well as in areas of the world where it had previously made significant and helpful investment.  This decision was a blow to those who feel – rightly I might add – that Finland’s national identity is bound up with its capacity to share its abundance beyond its pay grade.   At the UN, Finland was an early supporter of UN peacekeeping and has consistently provided leadership disproportionate to its size in areas such as international law, the global arms trade and, perhaps somewhat ironically given recent policy shifts, international development cooperation.

Finland’s decision was not, however, a stand-alone incident involving a single country but is part of a larger trend within and beyond Europe.   Across the board, even as diplomats and NGOs seek to develop and endorse funding guidelines for post-2015 sustainable development goals, the donor terrain is shifting dramatically.   For a variety of reasons, commitments to end inequalities and promote peaceful, inclusive societies are being crowded out by institutional branding of one form or another.  Corporations are shifting their “giving” programs to serve the interests of advertising.   Private foundations are simply turning over funds to well-branded, existing grantees rather than keeping their funding commitments on the cutting edges of social change.  States at the UN are reassessing commitments to “general operating” funding in favor of direct grants to support programs and capacity within the UN that align more closely with the “national interest.”  And in the US (and likely elsewhere), what can be a toxic “noblesse oblige” has given way to an even-more-toxic narcissistic competition to see who can most effectively ‘game’ the system, reap its vast rewards, and brand the results.

A few of these shifts are somewhat understandable, inasmuch as donors have often wondered (even aloud) why they should continue to support organizations and structures that fail to produce even minimal results (UN Disarmament sometimes comes to mind). And funding commitments in whatever form are not “matrimonial” in nature but come with timelines and most often expectations of transition.  Here in New York, we have been blessed with enough supporters (none of them governments) to stay just barely above the line of basic solvency, but there are few guarantees going forward.  The only true guarantees are related to how badly we want to do this work and how creatively we can forge global partnerships to preserve some small and hopefully effective spaces at the policy table.

On the other hand, one of the things we have witnessed (and at times assisted) in various communities around the “developing” world is the enormous energies that local civil society organizations have invested in ‘getting up to code’ with their largely northern donors.   Despite sometimes horrific infrastructure limitations, as well as the many local needs which continually beg to be addressed, we know of many civil society organizations that have painstakingly adopted technology and procedures to meet the increasingly burdensome expectations of these donors.   To have made those infrastructure commitments and then to have the funding to sustain those commitments unilaterally dismantled is a particularly discouraging irony that should seriously grieve those of us working in more comfortable circumstances.

One of the responsibilities now for NGOs in the north is to find ways to respond to this creeping disregard for the non-governmental, non-corporate side of civic life. Indeed, one of the groups with which we regularly conspire is drafting a letter to the Finnish government, citing the “political” dimensions of its funding decision and asking for reconsideration.  It is important to remind governments and other donors that their sometimes cavalier and self-referential relationship to funding can have a traumatic impact on human lives.

But this is about more than money, and those of us facing threats to our budgets will also need do a bit more of our own discernment. We must think about our ongoing responsibilities to promote equity for the planet’s marginalized, but also more deeply discern our own relationship to money and to the institutions that provide it (and increasingly it appears skeptical of providing it).

The Finnish government has not suddenly become our adversary. Other states that have decided to reposition their global contributions have not necessarily become so either.  From Financing for Development (SDGs) and obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty to Ocean ecology restoration and the prosecutorial work of the International Criminal Court, we are rarely in UN conference rooms where requests for funding are not being made by one state (or NGO) or another.  Politics notwithstanding, states are under pressure to preserve multi-lateral space and fulfill ambitious commitments such as the SDGs, all while ensuring constituents back home that funds expended on international development and other key concerns also serve a national interest.  This is not an easy soup to bring to table under the best of economic conditions – and these are surely not that for most.

As civil society, our task is also multiple.   We must remind governments of what they are doing – and losing – as they “recalibrate” their funding commitments.  We must find ways to strengthen our commitments to diverse communities of social practice while rethinking our own relationship to money and its sources.   And finally, as funds are available, we need to make sure that we take no more than our share and accomplish as much with what we take as humanly possible.

A long time ago, a friend reminded me that “money changes everything, and only occasionally for the better.”  With full respect for those around the world with a different relationship to the funding community than we have here in our little New York office, there is a lesson here that we would all do well to consider.   Resources are not self-authorizing but need our very best efforts to ensure their fair, transparent and effective application. Thankfully, where funding is concerned, we have what it takes to ensure the “better” change.

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The UN Engages (and Learns From) a New Generation of Youth Leaders

7 Mar

Editor’s Note:  This piece from our Human Rights Fellow, Karin Perro, continues a GAPW commitment to the engagement of youth from diverse social and cultural contexts on matters of global policy. Participation is a core concern towards the full promotion of human rights and good governance, and Karin does well to lay out of the case for more serious engagement with an ambitious, energetic, technologically savvy, and growing segment of our global population. 

Both the first and last weeks of February found the UN inundated with exuberant youth representatives, here to engage (and be engaged) with the UN system and lend voice to the upcoming SDGs and their implementation. Braving the arctic blast of February, Youth Forum and NGO Youth Event attendees convened to share their vision of the future and demand a participatory seat at the post-2015 table. And rightly so – if any group has proprietary rights to shaping the future it is global youth who will be directly impacted by and even be tasked with meeting projected SDG targets by 2030.

Engaging youth in development policy becomes all the more imperative if we consider that more then half the current global population is under the age of 25.  In a post-2015 world, a burgeoning youth population might well be confronted by unprecedented climatic and environmental crises, human security risks, rights violations and rampant unemployment. They will also have to contend with a rise in ‘greying’ populations that will create additional burdens on national ‘safety net’ programs, with estimates indicating a tripling of the over 65 demographic in the next 50 years. Africa will be especially hard hit by rapidly shifting demographics at another edge of the age spectrum, due mostly to anticipate spikes in adolescent pregnancies and generally growing fertility rates, causing worries of unwelcome declines in educational participation by women and girls.

Two inextricably linked, youth-centric development cornerstones were recurrently addressed at the UN Youth Forum: a lack of educational resources and a paucity of employment opportunities. Young attendees expressed frustration at what seem to be their ‘empty’ school diplomas given the lack of available job opportunities, noting that their presumably marketable skill sets did not appear to be in sync with the rapidly changing and expanding needs of current labor market. Perhaps even more than generations past, youth face the conundrum of how to obtain practical experience as a precondition for employment when on-the-job training opportunities are often predicated on prior work experience. But unlike past generations, almost all youth attendees cited a dearth of available internship, apprenticeship and mentorship opportunities at all educational levels.  This cycle of inopportunity requires a systemic revamping of attitudes and best practices, not only within the private sector, but as addressed through national and regional government initiatives.

For its part, GAPW (with Women in International Security) has long advocated policy mentoring of young people to help prepare the UN system to handle a new generation of global issues in a thoughtful and responsible manner. The young scholars and advocates who have taken temporary residence in our office often return to national capitols and regional NGOs where their acquired skill sets enhance development of local capacity for meaningful change.  As we have perceived often and as several youth delegates at the UN also noted, girls in particular are likely to benefit from mentoring as their active engagement with trustworthy older persons builds confidence and strengthens decision-making and leadership skills.

Beyond mentoring, UN youth delegates clamored for greater, “full-partner” policy participation, not only in setting the post-2015 development agenda, but in tracking and accelerating progress, and holding governments accountable. Youth expressed interest in politics but also shared disillusionment with political processes that ignore younger stakeholders. As a corrective, Kenya’s Ambassador Kamau implored the Youth Forum to ‘embrace your transformative power as youth’ in determining whether ‘you will be part of the problem or part of the solution’ over the next fifteen years. Youth delegates were captivated, appearing galvanized by Ambassador Kamau’s inspirational ‘call to arms’.

When youth representatives at the Feb 26 UNDPINGO event were asked what they could do to help promote the post-2015 development agenda, they responded without hesitation: Youth can provide counter narratives to extremist recruitment strategies through social media campaigns and digital diplomacy, becoming ‘boots’ deployed in the battle for cyberspace. They can employ their entrepreneurial spirit and innovation skills to emerging development initiatives benefiting triangular and south-south cooperation. They can offer a new generational ‘plurality of thought’ and a ready adaptability to shifting scenarios in the rapidly changing world in which they’ve been raised. Youth indeed appear ready to accept responsibility for what appears to be a stubborn legacy of global insecurity. But ‘ownership’ will not come without a significant relinquishment of the policy reins wielded by the current, older incumbents of the current global governance structure.  Young people need more ‘space’ to operate as well as guidance while operating.

The February gatherings of youth delegates were undeniably impressive: as a group they demonstrated a confident resolve to tackle a deluge of post-2015 global development obstacles.  And no doubt they represent ‘the best and brightest’ talent of their host countries, already being groomed for leadership roles as the next generation of diplomats and policy makers. But if we are to truly ‘leave no one behind’ we will need to insure that a wide range of young people irrespective of class, gender, culture, religion or ethnicity are included at the table of engagement.  We will need to do more to cull and cultivate the untapped potential of youth residing on the margins of urban developments, on rural farms and remote villages, in refugee camps and tented settlements. Elitism and other barriers to inclusion can only be eradicated through universally accessible and needs-specific education as a pathway to full employment, economic empowerment and social leadership.

As March brings new Commissions and crises into focus, we should avoid allowing the welcome upsurge in youth participation to be obscured.  Maintaining youth momentum is indispensable to successful post-2015 sustainable development. As UN Youth Envoy Ahmad Alhendawi exhorted, it’s time to reach cross the generational divide to ‘unleash the power of 1.8 billion young people ready to lift the heavy agenda of the SDGs’.

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A Health Regimen for Peacekeeping Operations:   Becoming “Fit” for Purpose, Dr. Robert Zuber

22 Feb

One of the exxiting things about working with GAPW is having access to so many persons, some still  a bit too far off the UN’s radar, who are thinking and sharing ideas that can help ‘get into shape’ our guiding norms and strategies of implementation.

Recently, we received reflections from Paul Okumu of Africa Platform (www.africaplatform.org) which he recently shared at an African event intended to contribute to the UN’s peacekeeping review initiated by the UN Secretary General.  In his “We the Peoples: Will Civilians Triumph in Latest Review of UN Peacekeeping Operations,” Okumu wonders if this review will “deliver anything new” or end up as one of the “many reports that drown every year?” Many others are inclined to wonder the same, including those of us who highly honor peacekeepers and greatly respect the work of DPKO.

Okumu registers other noteworthy assessments of existing peacekeeping operations at the same time that he affirms the central role that PKOs should be (and sometimes are) playing with regard to the protection of civilians. Perhaps the best of these refer to the “elite bargains and quick elections” that constitute the UN’s “beaten path” to address threats of violence, a path that too easily compromises both conflict prevention and civilian protection which Okumu (and many others) consider to be core objectives of UN practice.  As we have noted often ourselves, peacekeeping is in danger of being discredited (and even of placing other UN staff in danger) the moment it is seen as a militarily ‘partisan’ substitute for robust diplomatic engagement to prevent violent conflict, a ‘substitute’ now tasked with managing the complex carnage left in the wake of our diplomatic inadequacies.

Okumu also points out the extent to which peacemaking and peacebuilding are being taken up, each and every day, by community residents, leaders of civil society, and other stakeholders.  We act, he notes, as though civilians are only the beneficiaries of our peacekeeping largesse but are not also and increasingly the drivers of sustainable peace.  Why, Okumu wonders, do PKOs so often ignore “the power of citizen-led mediation, the power of citizen mobilization?”  As peacekeeping mandates become more and more complex, and as we default too quickly to militarized responses to problems that should have been addressed at earlier stages, ignoring relevant local capacities is questionable practice. We have allowed ourselves to become too much in the business of ‘restoring’ the peace rather than maintaining it in the first place, and then attempting this restoration with far too many skills neglected on the sidelines.

Of course, the view of PKOs from UN headquarters, especially at this moment as the GA’s Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (C-34) deliberates on its own contributions to peacekeeping doctrine and practice, is a bit different from Paul’s in Nairobi.  He asked GAPW to reflect on some of the gaps in his paper.  There are no gaps to speak of, but perhaps some different points of emphasis.

First of all, we have to be careful insisting on more robust civilian protection measures without also insisting that the best ‘protection’ lies in prevention.   Once the house is fully in flames, options for more carefully crafted, humane response become more limited.   As Paul knows well and as some inside the UN articulate often, attention to the ‘drivers’ of conflict, including poverty, discrimination and environmental decay, are far less expensive in energy, money and lives than our seemingly endless efforts to restore destroyed infrastructure, broken lives and failed states from armed violence that probably didn’t need to occur in the first place.

Secondly, at the same time that many acknowledge stubborn limitations (albeit fixable) in peacekeeping training, in timely deployment, in logistical support, and in ready availability of highly skilled peacekeepers, we continue to heap more and more responsibility on peacekeeping operations.   This policy is a bit like asking nurses in an overstretched urban hospital to perform emergency surgery, counsel distraught families, clean messy hospital rooms and cook ‘special’ meals for sick patients.   It’s hard enough just being a nurse.   It’s hard enough being peacekeepers encountering deadly violence from actors in a culture not their own, while also being asked to monitor elections, counter terrorism, restore legal institutions and rebuild infrastructure – and all this while attempting to protect both civilians and the physical integrity of related UN operations.   Peacekeepers should never become the ‘secretaries’ on whom bosses can dump piles of confusing paperwork and other responsibilities for which they are still largely unprepared.  And real-life secretaries rarely, if ever, have entire human communities that they are obligated by mandate to protect.

Finally, it is essential to re-attach the business of “keeping the peace” to other UN business – eliminating poverty and other inequalities, ending impunity for gender based violence and human rights abuse, and many other responsibilities consistent with the three “pillars” of UN policy.  As there are assets “in the field” that could more fully be incorporated into a spectrum of peacekeeping activities, there are also assets at UN headquarters that should be energized and encouraged to contribute to a world where peacekeepers are not needed so very often.  The pillars, after all, are intended to identify with a full-fledged system of global governance, not with a series of discrete (and often distracted) policy offices.

Whatever “Health Regimen’ for PKOs arises from ongoing C-34 discussions and the SG-mandated review, it must insist on open and expansive access while affirming that ‘health’ is a fully systemic endeavor not given to restrictive obsessions over one or another part of the ‘body.’  If conflict prevention and civilian protection are to fully emerge as cardinal principles of UN response, that response deserves comprehensive, careful policy attention system-wide.   Such response must leave no relevant stakeholder behind, either as agents of conflict prevention or as recovering victims of operations that have become too complex and too militarized to protect the peace long-term. We must do more, consistently and respectfully, to encourage Council members and other policy leaders to interpret robust, militarized ‘protection’ mandates, not so much as a triumph of multilateral consensus but as more of a collective failure of preventive discipline.

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Money Ball:  The UN Navigates Investor Expectations and Urgency for Policy Innovation, Dr. Robert Zuber

8 Feb

This past week at the UN, in the shadow of the Commission on Social Development, a modestly attended but most suggestive event highlighted what is an increasingly perplexing conundrum for policymakers and their donors:  finding the proper balance between fiscal accountability and program innovation.

The event was actually a joint meeting of Executive Boards of diverse UN agencies including UNICEF, UNDP and UN Women. All agency heads and participating diplomats wrestled with, as the Secretary General put it, the task of remaining ‘fit for purpose;’ learning as much as we can from our failures but doing so without neglecting established patterns that have already yielded positive results.   While flexibility is to be praised, the SG noted, innovation must never be seen as an end in itself.

The dilemma of innovation is hardly unique to the UN:  Sports teams, entertainment corporations and many other businesses struggle with the dual demands of ‘staying fresh and relevant’ while satisfying the expectations of their investors.   But there is so much on the line at the UN, so many lives potentially impacted by policy decisions that can err on the sides of recklessness or caution. Given this, the willingness of senior UN officials to both interrogate their failures and offer new ideas to address stubborn development and security patterns with the potential to foment social unrest (as cited by the ILO’s Torres at a separate event) was most welcome.

The stakes in this discussion are higher than they might at first appear, and the SG’s remarks are one starting point.  The largest state contributors to UN operations are responsible to their own local constituents who are in some cases coping with economic crises at home.  But even those supportive of government assistance to UN programs seek assurances (as Japan has urged in several UN forums) that funds dispersed are used for the purposes intended.   Beyond this caution, Zambia urged more attention to ‘predicting’ failure caused in part by a lack of policy attentiveness to social and political context.

If states are not provided the assurances they seek, there is risk that donations will dry up further, or in the case of small states like Zambia that the trust issues lingering with respect to some UN agencies will grow larger.  In either case, the ability of the UN to deliver on its promises – from fulfilling SDGs to drying up sources of illicit arms – will be compromised.  Unlike the private sector, UN officials have hands that are tied a bit tightly by state interests, especially by the largest donor states.  But some of this ‘tying’ as Denmark noted has positive value – insisting that innovation in policy never be divorced from issues of cost effectiveness.  Clearly it is important to avoid throwing money at problems recklessly; but it is also important to think creatively beyond the matching of the most obvious short-term needs with the most immediately available resources.

It seems more and more apparent that currently funded policy and implementation strategies employed by the UN and its partners continue to lag behind both global challenges and response opportunities.  For all our good and reasonably well-funded efforts, we have not yet found the means to eliminate terror threats or gender-based violence, reduce weapons flows, stem chronic unemployment, or reverse the melting of the polar ice caps.  And it is equally clear that money, for all of its potential benefits, can have a negative impact on the innovation we still desperately need.   We see this in the NGO community all the time, where access to funding is as likely to breed caution as creative engagements with UN objectives and working methods. But even at senior Secretariat levels, funding impacts loom large, or at least larger than might be optimal for the development of more innovative approaches to longstanding planetary challenges.

As UNDP’s Helen Clark noted, it might not be funding per se, but rather the assessment of results that funders rightly require that leads to ‘risk phobia’ among some leaders, a sentiment echoed by UNICEF’s Anthony Lake.  While important, “results” can be like puzzle pieces essential to a fully completed puzzle but not to be equated with it.  There are formidable challenges afoot that require creative, if humble engagements beyond piecemeal measures.  And while there are certainly financial risks attached to creative innovation, we need to be reminded, as UNICEF’s Lake noted, that there are also staggering costs from NOT innovating.  It is widely recognized that we already throw too many of the world’s resources at problems that have already proven resistant to our standard working methods and operating procedures.   We would thus do well to share more openly the potential benefits and risks of our innovative policy options; not only with over-stretched donor states but especially with their increasingly anxious constituents.  And, as UNDP’s Clark noted, we should do more to create systemic ‘safe space’ for innovation, inviting the innovation-minded to leave the margins and find a place closer to the center of policy formulation.  Sports franchises and other corporations shrivel in the absence of such space.   International policy also suffers when innovation has no safe space to test assumptions and offer alternatives.

Some of this need can be addressed through greater institutional investment in creative policymaking that reassesses resources and their modes of application.  As one step in that investment, UN Women’s Lakshmi Puri floated an idea that we have also advocated previously – the need to promote the UN as more of a ‘learning community.’  This ‘community’ would not only take account of the SG’s urging that we learn more from our failures, but that we also take heed of opportunities to learn more from each other – including updates on current challenges, and how we might respond – and respond differently – if we are to one day fulfill the trust placed in us to bring ‘big’ matters such as climate change, atrocity crimes and weapons proliferation to successful resolutions.

Clearly we need to be more open to innovation in light of the evolving needs of constituents who, at the end of the day, constitute the core of our mandate.   UNOPS’s Grete Feremo noted with some irony that only small children seem immune from ‘change resistance.’   And UNICEF’s Lake noted that we who set the agendas for global policy must learn to ‘leave our egos and even our logos’ at the door.

This is wise, if elusive counsel.   Needless to say, the UN was not chartered to protect bureaucratic turf or provide employment opportunities for diplomats and NGOs.  It was chartered to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war (and, we might add, other threats to human security).  To ‘win’ at this ever-more critical responsibility, we must spend wisely but also learn sincerely and innovate constructively.  We cannot continue to stifle policy innovation while the global challenges we are tasked to address continue on their own, dangerous, evolutionary path.

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Elite Benefits, Dr. Robert Zuber

10 Dec

Those of us who try to stay current with multi-lateral, diplomatic affairs are acutely and sometimes painfully aware of the benefits that ascribe to being a large power at the United Nations, especially a permanent Security Council member.

Governments at the UN have become accustomed to playing by two sets of rules.   The permanent members routinely create narratives for their own behavior that, by any relevant international standard, should be heavily scrutinized rather than brushed aside.  Scrutiny, too often, is reserved for the smaller and often ‘outlier’ states that have fewer resources and less occasion to ‘spin’ bad behavior to positive political ends.

The release of the US Senate’s report on CIA interrogation methods is welcome, despite the political wrangling that delayed its release, citing ‘damage’ to US interests that might occur once at least a portion of the ‘truth’ is out.  And despite efforts by some to use the report’s release as a kind of moral ‘disinfectant’ to the deep psychic sickness which the report partially highlights and to which this nation has willfully descended.

There are of course lessons here that the US (and many other nations) would be wise to learn but probably will not.  The first lesson is that controversial behavior must account for that time when the full truth about the controversy is known.  People don’t much care about the day to day activities of most of us, but in the case of high government officials there will always be interest.    And in this celebrity driven age with personal gadgets at the ready, the chances of keeping ‘secrets’ secret in the long-term are quite low.

Second, we need to lose this idea, and especially its practical application, that some states stand above the laws they seek to hold others accountable to.   I’m not sure what happened to ‘modeling’ as a change strategy, but clearly the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ maxim that is so dysfunctional within family life has somehow found a leading role in international polity, and not to its benefit.

And finally, the noxious effort by some in the government and media so see the release of the report as a symbol of our collective moral virtue must cease immediately.   My country did not ‘own up to’ our mistakes until, in some instances, years after those ‘mistakes’ were made, and then only under pressure from the press and human rights advocates, and then again only after intensive political wrangling.   Moral virtue, indeed.  If ever there was a time to climb down from the bully pulpit and eat some humble pie, this is it.

The ability of elite powers to ‘spin’ their own bad behavior while pointing fingers at others is itself a moral travesty and one of the reasons why the status of the UN is not higher globally than it is.  I will likely pay more of a penalty for late payments of my office bills than lying CIA officials (and their defenders in the executive branch of government) will pay for sapping the very life out of persons who were, for the most part, only ‘alleged’ to have committed serious crimes.

Needless to say, this is not quite the ‘gift’ on Human Rights Day that we might otherwise have hoped for.

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Clear Channel Communications:  Saying What we Need and How we Need it

25 Nov

While spending this past week ‘in the field,’ I was able to follow a bit of the Security Council’s discussion on countering terrorism as well as the 25th anniversary celebration of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, one of the most ratified of all UN conventions and one of the organization’s  signature achievements. The Convention’s language is filled with caveats related to children’s limitations and vulnerabilities, but this really is about rights of children as much as about the obligations of adults.   In a world which for many of us would be borderline intolerable without the presence of children in it, the Convention reminds us that while we have not done nearly enough to ensure developmentally appropriate protection and education of children, let alone secure their future, the obligations to children contained in this Convention are, in some significant sense, the very least we can do.

Children were also on the menu at the Budapest Human Rights Forum, now in its 7th year, and more especially in the side event organized by György Tatar and his colleagues with the Budapest Centre for the International Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities.  The latter event was on education for mass atrocity prevention, a topic similar to one covered during this fall’s opening of the GA hosted by the UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dieng, along with ministers from Belgium and Ghana.   The Budapest Centre event, however, was a bit less about the control and potential of the internet (the focus of both the UN event and the Forum), and more about learning skills and materials needed to help stimulate understanding and involvement of young people in the struggle against mass atrocity violence.

Consistent with their reputation, the Budapest Centre brought together a wide array of stakeholders, from United Nations officials to the leadership of educational programs in Bosnia- Herzegovina.  Speakers were engaging though they tended to mostly highlight the activities and accomplishments of their own organizations.  There were few attempts to step back from immediate needs and activities to address larger governance and development concerns.

And this is the point at which some significant questions became relevant, two in particular.  The first was related to an issue that we have taken up previously in this space, the relationship between activity and impact.  How do we determine that we in our various venues are doing more than building up ‘our numbers,’ more than creating busywork for the cause of peace and justice?  This question was posed to panelists with mostly muted response.   Only a few even acknowledged the problem of transformational language that becomes incarnate in activities that are more likely to fulfill the expectations of funders and governments than change the core dynamics of schools and communities.

And the other interesting question, also largely posed without response, referred to the ways in which we seek (or don’t ) the clarification of what it is that we want from others, in this instance ‘others’ referring primarily to that elusive “international community.”   This particular question had two components, what we want bound together with how we want it.

You would think that this combination question would be easy for activists and policymakers to address, but this is rarely seems to be the case.   For the Bosnian representatives, as for many others, telling the story of wants and needs comes in the form of lots of complaining about conditions and an equal measure of pleas to the aforementioned (and also not particularly well understood) international community to ‘do something’ regarding the sources of our collective misery.

The obvious follow up to this combination of discouraging words and pleas for change is, well, what do you want?  What in your view would be the best way for the international community or any other interested party to assist?  And how would it be best to provide that assistance so that we, for instance, avoid dependencies, ensure local control, help guarantee complementary of policy responses, take a longer remedial view instead of just addressing the most current needs?

As someone who has spent much of his life counseling the problems of others, I remain surprised at the inability of people to really come to terms with what they want from others and provide some guidance as to the form that this assistance should take.  Many personal relationships are undone by this lack of clarity.  Remembering birthdays and anniversaries, of course  but with gifts that are thoughtful rather than perfunctory, putting care into selection rather than simply  buying the first thing that seems ‘good enough.’  People have desires, but few want things ‘thrown at them’ in a take-it-or-leave-it manner.  Faced with such a choice, many would choose the ‘leave it’ option.

It is much the same with international assistance.   Activists working in places like Bosnia face considerable challenges including often chronic resource deficits.  They need a hand from time to time, as we all do, if we are to reconcile an often unjust world.  But that ‘hand’ requires guidance of sorts if it is to find the most appropriate and effective end use.   For those seeking to assist, there is simply more they need to know beyond the fact that there are problems needing to be addressed. Needs and wants can be prioritized.  They are often linked to each other.  They have contexts. And there are times when inappropriate assistance is worse than no assistance at all.

In my view, a healthy collaborative exchange requires more clarity from potential recipients, more discernment about needs and expectations, more insistence that any assistance be about more than crunching numbers to fill funder expectations.  This successful matching of needs and resources, whether in development, education, illicit arms or any other areas of policy concern takes more sensitivity from those who claim to assist.  But it also requires more clarity from the assisted.

A common refrain in counseling personal relationships is the belief that he/she should already know what “I” want and need.   This is an understandable but altogether elusive claim that presumes more clarity on the needs side and less sensitivity on the assistance side.   The good human rights discussions held in Hungary  served as reminders that proper assistance requires sensitive assessment, but that clarity of needs and wants is equally an indispensable, if often overlooked, part of the assistance equation.   If we are not willing (or able) to explain clearly what types and forms of assistance would be most helpful to us and our constituent communities, the odds of getting what we want greatly diminish.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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A New Source of Skills for Crisis Prevention and Management

14 Nov

Editor’s note:  The following is from Gord Breedyk, currently in residence at GAPW where he is exploring ways that the UN can connect with his own work at Civilian Peace Service Canada. GAPW has long been supportive of this civilian-based initiative and plans to stay connected longer term. We need more of the skills and competencies that Gord and his team help to assess. 

I have recently been given the privilege of working with Global Action to Prevent War and Armed Conflict (GAPW) including observing and learning from UN meetings.  These meetings have ranged from Security Council briefings on Gaza, Mali, Syria and Ukraine to committee deliberations on: Human Rights; Disarmament, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control; Interstate Arbitration and Enforcement of Decisions; Peacekeeping Operations and Field Support; International Law and Asymmetric Warfare; Women Redefining the Terms of Peace Negotiations; the Peacebuilding Commission’s response to Ebola; the Power of Entrepreneurship; and a Report on the Economic and Social Repercussions of the Israeli Occupation. And this is but a tiny sample of all the meetings taking place in a relatively typical fall week at the UN.

Hugely impressive to an outside observer is the breadth and depth of subject matter deliberated by UN delegates; also the overall dedication, civility and mutual respect  practised by most of them,  often despite deeply held and contradictory views, and often despite  significant frustration at the apparent inability of the UN as an institution to a) prevent what often seem to be relatively predictable catastrophes and b) adequately deal with them once they do materialize financially, operationally and, yes,  politically.

For example (paraphrased), “Why bother rebuilding Palestine …it may be destroyed again in months or years?,” two delegates recently asked the Commissioner General for UNRWA. The Commissioner answered, “It is a human imperative to rebuild – we must.”

Rebuilding is one thing. Prevention, even transformation of conflict-related threats that can minimize destruction is quite another. But where is the capacity and skill needed to prevent and mediate conflict going to come from?  We feel that the UN would be well-served by engaging Accredited Peace Professionals as a supplement to the UN’s own recent commitments to involve more civilians in its operations.

Like well-trained doctors, lawyers, engineers, soldiers, etc., Accredited Peace Professionals are practitioners in the field of international negotiation, mediation, arbitration and diplomacy. These practitioners are held to high professional standards through rigorous assessment of values and competencies in the peace field and, once qualified, formally accredited as meeting the required standards.

To quote Cameron Chisholm of the International Peace & Security Institute (IPSI): “Doctors are educated in both theory and practice before they ever enter the operating room. Why should peacebuilding be any less professional?”  And he goes on to say “It shouldn’t be!”

How would Accredited Peace Professionals supplement Peacekeepers and other UN capacity?  Whereas  UN Peacekeepers are primarily military professionals providing (increasingly complex) mandated peacekeeping services in areas of conflict, Peace Professionals are accredited for competencies and values in preventing, mitigating and transforming conflict in all aspects. As with any other profession (including the military) these professionals will have met the standards relevant for their peace/mediation vocation.  In other words, Peace Professionals have demonstrated skills in areas that Peacekeepers struggle to address as part of their increasingly complex mandates.

What difference could this additional assessed capacity make?  The UN and its agencies could benefit from the skills and energies of hundreds, ultimately thousands of highly trained, thoroughly assessed Accredited Peace Professionals, persons focused on reducing the number of violent conflicts and the levels of conflict (where they still occur) and, significantly, minimizing the impact on civilians including damage to their infrastructure.  Such professionals would also ease demands on UN and member state resources.  A reduction in civilian lives lost and/or in the numbers of IDPs and refugees would more than offset the cost of deploying Accredited Peace Professionals.

Civilian Peace Service Canada (CPSC) has developed and piloted an assessment and accreditation methodology that has withstood academic and professional scrutiny. Its rigour ensures dedicated and competent professionals ready for service in peace and mediation related fields. We are now looking to significantly grow the number of Accredited Peace Professionals to meet the growing capacity gaps at the UN and elsewhere. (More on this at: www.civilianpeaceservice.ca).

We are aware and supportive of the need expressed in different UN settings for more gender balance in areas of mediation and other peace processes.  But there is a broader need as well.  We simply don’t have enough capacity to handle all of the crises (and threats of crises) that are the focus of so many UN briefings and discussions.   Accredited Peace Professionals can help fill this gap.

Gordon Breedyk, Civilian Peace Service Canada

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An Open Letter to our Readers — Dr. Robert Zuber

12 Nov

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

For the past two years or more, we have provided you with real time (and through the blog) analysis of major events, discussions, resolutions and decisions that make up the work of today’s United Nations.

From ECOSOC and the Security Council to Treaty Bodies and GA Committees, we have attempted to communicate — within the limits of Twitter — key ideas and developments from UNHQ that continue to shape the world, often for good, sometimes for outcomes more ambiguous than that.

Soon parts of GAPW will go on a short hiatus, traveling to Hungary and Central Africa to participate in the Budapest Human Rights Forum as well as a series of workshops and events organized by the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation in Cameroon.  Karin Perro (@KarinPerro) and others will remain in New York and we will all reach out when and where we can, but likely not at our normal levels of coverage until December 4.

It is vitally important to our work that we make these trips to consult with partners on issues and organizational matters, to be inspired by the important work occurring in places far removed from New York, even to have our own mission assessed and refreshed.   As many of you already know, it is hard to make honest assessments of our value — and our limitations – in places like this.  We ‘get away’ much less often than we used to, making those times when we can connect with diverse communities that much more precious.

In the interim, we would like to communicate three things to all of you.  First, to let you know how much we value your policy engagement.   Twitter is not to be confused with brain surgery, to be sure, but there is a skill to communicating important things in limited spaces, and we are enormously grateful that you value our communication and are so generous with your own.

Second, as some of you know we have welcomed many interns and fellows over the years, people who come to us to learn about the UN, conduct research, complete books, interview diplomats and much more.  As we move forward as an office, we welcome communication from others interested in sharing our hospitable and connected space.

Finally, as with your own work, ours doesn’t happen for free.   For the past 10 years, we have more or less lived on the edge, with modest budgets of $200,000 or less and uncertain cash flows.  Of course, this is how most of the world lives, and we didn’t get into this to occupy the high rises that now surround UNHQ.  Still, we have basic salaries to provide, office infrastructure to maintain, occasional trips to take, publications and policy analysis to complete, fellows and interns to support, and more.

If you can help us in any way, we would be grateful.   The easiest way to contribute would be to use the Just Donate button found on our homepage:   www.globalactionpw.org.

Donate Now

You can also send a check to GAPW, 866 UN Plaza, Suite 4050, New York, NY 10017.  Please feel free to pass on this message to others who might be able to help out or who would be interested in joining our policy discussions.

Thank you as always for staying in communication with us.  We promise never to abuse the privilege of your most welcome policy collaboration.

Warm regards to you,

Bob

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Ratifying a Torture-Free World, Dr. Robert Zuber

2 Nov

Of the many insight-filled side events this month at UN Headquarters, we were especially pleased to be present for a discussion on the Convention against Torture Initiative (CTI) launched in March by the governments of Chile, Denmark, Ghana, Indonesia and Morocco.

This eclectic group of governments, supported by the Association for the Prevention of Torture, has committed over a 10 year period to attain universal ratification of the UN Convention against Torture. Their commitment includes “identifying challenges and barriers to ratification” and “building a global platform” of diverse stakeholders.

This CTI event dovetailed effectively with other torture-related events taking place at UN Headquarters – focusing on issues such as medical forensics, solitary confinement, treatment of prisoners, and coerced ‘confessions’ — many of which included the presence of Juan Mendez, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment and his colleagues with the Anti-Torture Initiative at Washington (DC) College of Law.

Along with colleagues worldwide, including and especially Paris-based FIACAT, Global Action sees significant promise in CTI.   Protection from torture is a ‘first generation’ rights issue in part because of its corrosive impact on the promotion and protection of other rights.   Torture undermines the fabric of community life, sowing suspicion of neighbors and their government officials, impeding free speech, and severely dampening enthusiasm for participation in political and cultural life.   Indeed, torture has the power to significantly unravel the social contract between citizens and governments, a ‘contract’ already fragile enough in an age of terror, climate upheavals, unchecked trafficking in weapons and persons, official corruption, mass atrocity violence and grave economic uncertainty.

With all due respect to the early stages of CTI development, we would like to offer a couple of reminders, hopefully helpful.

First, we note that the last laps of any long race are generally the most challenging.  In this regard, it is important to note that those states which have, to date, resisted ratification of the CAT (see https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?mtdsg_no=IV-9&chapter=4&lang=en) have significant (if not often legitimate) reasons for resistance.  Ratification did not just ‘slip the mind’ of recalcitrant states.  Moving these states to full engagement with the CAT will take much conversation, negotiation, perhaps even a bit of horse trading and coercive prodding.   Achieving universal ratification of the CAT is no small matter under the best of global circumstances.  And these times are certainly not the best.

Second, it is imperative that we involve in this work as many willing and skillful hands as we can locate. The proposed ‘global platform’ must stage as large and diverse a group of stakeholders as it can handle. This of course includes many stakeholders without specific branding in the human rights area or access to centers of policy influence.  Torture is an issue that impacts development priorities, educational opportunities, the policy participation of women and marginalized groups, even fair access to water and other resources.   People who work on these related issues – or are directly impacted by their challenges – must also receive an invitation.

The key here is to ensure as much as possible that participation in this drive toward universal ratification is governed less by who has a professional interest and more by who has a personal stake.   From this perspective it is clear that the stakes are high for all of us, well beyond the domain of human rights experts and issue-specific advocates.  If CTI is to achieve its goal, and we all need for this to happen, the circle drawn to help identify and energize relevant stakeholders must be large and welcoming.

 

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The Role of Policy in Promoting Sustainable Development in Africa

30 Sep

Editor’s Note:  For the next month, we are pleased to host Tanyi Christian, who directs the Martin Luther King Memorial Foundation in Cameroon.  He is here as part of a genocide prevention exchange sponsored by NEXUS Fund.  We will reciprocate his visit in November at which time we will collaborate on programs focused on access to justice, civilian military dialogue, promototing security and access to markets for women farmers, and other projects.  We hope he will be a regular contributor to this blog moving forward. 

For the last fifteen years I have worked so hard to build LUKMEF-Cameroon from a small community based organisation to one of the most credible, visible and people-focused organisations in our region. We have moved from a founder-centered organisation to one that is departmentally structured with an established international board of directors. The number of projects completed and their impact on the lives of individuals and entire communities served by the organisation has witnessed remarkable growth. Local, national and international funding streams have been fairly stable with prospects for improvement based on the visible output from the different programs and projects conducted by LUKMEF.

Like many African and Cameroonian organisations, our focus in the past was to engage in “quick fixes” to problems without addressing the fundamental root courses of the problem or assessing the longer term implications of our work. While we would appear to be doing well and doing good, a fundamental aspect of the development equation – Public Policy — is largely absent from our organizational mission.   In the absence of sound policy guiding sound practice, our hopeful story becomes fragile and ultimately jeopardizes our work to promote sustainable development.

Efforts to end poverty, disease, the negative impacts of climate change, corruption, violence, and human right abuses, while at the same time promoting education and citizen access to resources and good governance, will never achieve the desired long term results without  greater attention being paid to the fundamental  need for sound and consistent public policy. By this we refer to levels of policy formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, with contributions from those whose lives are directly affected by these policies, including those who experience serious problems such poverty, hunger, violence and abuse.

In our view, 70% resource allocation on policy issues and 30% on direct actions would produce the most sustainable and long term impact in developing countries, as opposed to the current formula that generally allocates more than 90% of resources to direct services. This miscalculation has unfortunately been fuelled in Africa by the funding principles of donors.  Evidently, too many donors to Africa have confused program and project outputs with long-term impact.  We often wonder how anyone can expect an organisation or community to have lasting impact when projects are funded for only 3-12 months and given the total absence or insufficiency of effective, relevant government policies? Training women on how to stand up for their rights is good but training alone cannot be the sole reason for developing a program. Talking about gender-based violence is good, but effectively stopping gender-based violence should be the ultimate goal of the intervention.  This larger goal will require long and sustained efforts to formulate, review and advocate for effective local, national, regional and global policies on gender violence.

Corruption in Cameroon as well as other African countries is endemic but it is not natural; likewise poverty is human-made but is also not natural.  Individuals and whole communities too-readily acquiesce to the reality of issues like poverty in part through their reluctance to engage with local, regional and national policy communities.  Focusing on today’s needs such as access to water, food, shelter and respect for human rights without addressing policy issues that can sustain and build upon the small gains of today towards a brighter tomorrow seems needlessly short-sided. The situation in Cameroon and the Central African region as a whole will require better policies and actions on issues of governance and conflict prevention which will in turn require trust building among citizens who are hopefully expected, more and more, to play key roles in the development and assessment of such policies.

I have concluded that every organisation as well as every action that seeks to improve local or regional conditions must also address policy issues that can either impede or help sustain development.  Unless the Sustainable Development Goals promote policy access at all levels, we are almost certain to miss our targets in the same manner — if not worse — than we missed the MDGs.

 Tanyi Christian, LUKMEF Cameroon

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