Tag Archives: development

Masters of Disaster:  The UN Gives Hope a Chance, Dr. Robert Zuber

17 Mar

Far from the inspiring stories, crowded hallways and rhetorical flourishes of the Commission on the Status of Women, the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) is now taking place in Sendai, Japan (http://www.wcdrr.org/conference/programme/documentation).

We don’t normally comment on events where we aren’t physically present, but this United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) event is highlighting issues germane to virtually all UN policy priorities.   Moreover, several of the disasters featured at the conference are related to dangerous shifts in climate health which has become, rightly if belatedly, a major focus of UN concern.

The backdrop for the WCDRR event is a high-profile natural disaster which, as reported by Al Jazeera and others, is well underway after Cyclone Pam tore through Vanuatu early Saturday, “packing winds of 168 miles per hour, and leaving a trail of destruction and unconfirmed reports of dozens of deaths.” In quite an irony, the President of Vanuatu, Baldwin Lonsdale, found himself stranded at WCDRR along with some of the country’s top disaster management officials while a state of emergency had  been declared back home.

Also lingering in the background are the still-unresolved effects of the ‘triple whammy’ that affected Japan’s Fukushima, not far from Sendai – earthquake followed by tsunami, followed by radiation leakage.   Such multiple disasters seem hard to fathom but are actually becoming more and more plausible as levels of human damage to the planet rise.

On Sunday (Japan time) a WCDRR session was held to introduce the 2015 Global Assessment of Disaster Risks Report. The report provides “an update on global risk trends and patterns based on results from the first ever probabilistic risk assessment covering the world.” Participants were informed about current and emerging risks and projected economic losses associated with exposure and vulnerability to hazards, including cyclones, earthquakes, floods, landslides, tsunamis and volcanic ash.

This is quite a list which doesn’t even specify concerns like drought and the forced social mobility this causes.  These are all concerns we would do well to avoid but, failing that, to prepare for with sufficient urgency and thoughtfulness.

When I was younger, I lived in a part of the US that frequently ‘welcomed’ tornadoes.  While most failed to hit the ground, many uprooted trees, tore off the roofs of barns and houses, and greatly damaged homes and property, often in working-class neighborhoods that could ill afford the losses.

A feature of those times was that the most effective response was often in the aftermath of disasters – insurance agents processing claims, the Red Cross serving soup and assisting with health emergencies, crews helping to restore communications and navigable roads, police providing a reassuring presence.

But we soon realized that rebuilding capacity was not sufficient, that we needed more time and resources to prepare better for what, in some years, was literally a ‘parade’ of funnel clouds.   And, indeed, the focus slowly shifted, not away from disaster response but to more balanced approach that brought science and civics to bear on local preparedness.  Weather-related technology was able to warn us in time of impending crises so that authorities could be mobilized and valuables and loved ones protected.

But this doesn’t happen, can’t happen everywhere. As noted in the Al Jazeera story on Vanuatu, “People are really upset and it’s really hard, just because for the last couple of years, we haven’t received a really big cyclone like this one,” said Isso Nihmei, Vanuatu coordinator for the environmental and crisis response group 350.  Most people right now, they are really homeless.”

In such circumstances, many of us would want to know: Where were the weather forecasters?  Where were the warnings?   Where were the preparations that could have provided more resilient options to ‘weather’ the coming storm?

If we know anything with certainty, it is that the ‘holiday’ from disaster that Vanuatu apparently experienced is unlikely to be repeated soon.  Between increases in tropical depressions, widening areas of drought, flooding from land whose forests have been denuded, the erosion of shorelines, and other hazards – and this on top of the more obvious human-made disasters from armed violence, trafficking and other calamities – trouble is brewing in far-flung corners of the globe.

People facing such the prospect of such disaster need reassurances at two levels.   First, that there are competent professionals able and willing to respond when disaster strikes; and second that all possible efforts have been made to warn residents and promote resilience before trouble strikes.

Forecasting that ‘trouble’ can be tricky business.  But we have suffered greatly in the security sector from assistance – in the form of peacekeepers or military response to mass violence – that arrives too late to stem the violence in its earliest stages.   Disaster relief that arrives too late can also jeopardize lives needlessly.   As noted in the literature of the HOPEFOR initiative (Qatar, Dominican Republic, Turkey and others) to which GAPW has been attentive, when crisis response is needed, timing is always of the essence (http://hopeforinitiativedr.org).  Given extraordinary improvements in disaster technology, improved forecasting must be an integral part of any disaster response.

Not all disasters can be averted.  There are some tornadoes in the south of the US so massive that resilience is almost futile.  Earthquakes and tsunamis can devastate communities and landscapes in what seems like an instant.  And, as noted by several experts in Sendai, technical warnings can fail to reach the right people, or reach them in a way that is confusing in terms of preferred responses.   Or people can choose to ignore warnings (as we in the US sometimes do with hurricanes and floods) or simply have no viable response options to looming threats.

But for many natural disasters, there are warning signs that are far less expensive to heed than the price tag resulting from disasters’ aftermath. This is especially true given the disasters that will likely intensify as our climate continues to deteriorate.  In response to the tragedy of Vanuatu, the president of Seychelles was quoted as saying “Today it is the South Pacific, tomorrow it could be us.”

Indeed it could well be.

Disaster response is in part about running several races against time almost in tandem. We need better forecasting and more quickly.  We need funding to support greater resiliency and more viable options for communities in the face of disaster.  We need more civilian-based response services on high alert to get to the scenes of crises rapidly and even before any crises unfold.  But most of all, we need dramatic diplomatic movement on climate health and other human interventions to give hope to communities suffering from disasters of a magnitude that they simply could never manage alone.

The UN is well positioned to help states meet the challenges, changes and resource needs for highly competent, trustworthy Disaster Management.   Such management is no substitute for a political agreement to reverse climate damage.   But at least until such an agreement is forthcoming — hopefully soon in Paris — and made fully functional, disaster management must maintain this high priority for states and the international system.

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Animal Planet: The UN seeks more Effective Governance of a Natural World in Crisis, Dr. Robert Zuber

8 Mar

This space is normally taken up with grave matters like Security Council disagreements over Ukraine and the shape to come of peacekeeping operations.   But this week, another dimension of global gravity took center stage, one with security implications that go significantly beyond the urgent needs of Small Island (SIDS) and Lesser Developed States.

On March 4, the General Assembly held an informal plenary to commemorate World Wildlife Day.   Much of the content of this event was welcome, including Germany’s efforts on behalf of a ‘group of friends’ to remind other states, to quote the UK, “that we overlook wildlife trafficking at our peril.” There was also an admission by the US that ‘we have been part of the problem and wish to be part of the solution’ and a warning by Kenya that unchecked wildlife poaching could threaten fulfillment of the SDGs in many countries.

The next day, a group of states sponsored a ‘One Ocean’ event that was ostensibly focused on the value of ‘ocean sanctuaries’ but which also issued a deeper call for a more profound biological sensitivity than we are currently practicing.

One current theme in the “One Ocean” event was the important role of science in alerting us to environmental threats and helping to provide data sets to guide sound remedial policy.   As Ambassador Thomson of Fiji science can provide evidence of negative human impacts on climate and help us mediate the space separating “prophecies of doom” and living with our “heads in the sand.”

The two events were complementary in some measure, primarily in their insistence on more effective governance of eco-threats. The tenor of the “Wildlife” event was less about appreciation of the complex web of life we are still privileged to enjoy and more about the economic and security implications of insufficiently protected animals such as Tigers.   Needless to say those implications are considerable especially for states for which wildlife-related tourism is a major source of income as well as states fighting the insurgencies for which trafficked wildlife parts constitutes a major source of potential revenue.

But as the BBC reminded us recently in the context of a program on China’s elephants, the greatest threat to their existence (if not our own) is no longer poaching but habitat destruction.   In other words, while there are still threats from criminal elements and terror groups seeking to pad their accounts through the sale of Rhino horns and such, the larger threat of habitat loss is one that is our common legacy. And it is a quite dangerous matter, as we are now by many accounts in the beginning of what some describe as an epic species extinction, the repercussions of which elude firm scientific forecasting.

‘Habitat’ seems like a fairly simple matter, like putting up an A-frame house and turning on the heat and water. But in the natural world, life forms struggle to adapt to and synchronize with other life forms on which their very existence depends.   This linkage was especially highlighted at the “One Ocean” event. We have undermined functional synchronicity with an appalling lack of sensitivity, threatening to extinguish ourselves as much (if not as quickly) as the many other essential contributors to our web of life. In that context, the Netherlands’ insistence seeing oceans through a biodiversity lens as much as an economic or development lens was most welcome.

In addition, the words of Palau’s president Remeingesau rang particularly true when he insisted that the SIDS “are already living what science is telling us.” Science can, indeed, tell us much about the climate impacts of what Ambassador Thomson referred to as our “blind exploitation of resources,’ the status of our dwindling fish stocks and ice caps, the sources of pollutants that are affecting migrating ocean wildlife, and much more. And we need to listen carefully, as one senior diplomat after another insisted. But science can’t always forecast implications, it does not have the power by itself to “regenerate” entire oceans, and it certainly cannot provide actionable incentives to large scale behavior change. Science can (and thankfully does) provide ample evidence of our folly, but it can offer no clear remedial pathway. Such a pathway must come from another place, a place open to inspiration towards meaningful change. As Israel noted, we simply must do more at many levels to better help us resist “spoiling a world that none can fix.”

Human beings have become, sometimes even with glee, reckless predators that not only crowd out other life, but compromise our own existence.   With all due respect to the need for more global governance on oceans and biodiversity, we now seek to govern the movement of horses in a barn whose door has long been ajar.   We migrate to cities in record numbers, in part for economic opportunity but perhaps also in the mistaken belief that cities represent a fortress against an influx of degraded biodiversity that has our fingerprints all over it. Our policymaking is now very much a product of our increasingly urban mindset – ignoring the needs of farmers, consuming with little recognition or remorse, mistaking the predictability of our urban parks for genuine attempts to reacquaint ourselves with natural processes. This pattern is clearly not the pathway we seek.

When I was a child, I discovered that the only way to get out of a swamp when you’ve lost your way is to back out the way you came.   Trying to outsmart the swamp only gets you in deeper with even less control of potentially unsavory outcomes.   It may be time for us collectively to back out the way we came, to abandon the current obsession with using technology to ‘battle’ our way through global challenges rather than retreat to firmer ground on which we can reflect and assess. If we continue to defy and disrespect this ‘swamp’ of our own making, we might one day find that we and our closest, domestic animal companions are all that remains of a planet once teeming with life.

During the “One Ocean” event, Ambassador Sareer from Maldives reminded the audience that there are cultural and “national identity” implications of climate health. Ambassador Cardi of Italy insisted that the health of future generations was much more likely to be guaranteed with healthier oceans.   All of this is true and none of it is sufficient.   We need better eco-governance and more scientific input at every stage.   We also need more compelling norms to stimulate more urgent climate-healthy behavior. As a principle, norm-making, global institution, and as the origin of much of the international community’s current climate change interest, the UN’s role and responsibility in species and biodiversity protection should remain in the spotlight going forward.

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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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Working Assets: Development Infrastructure Worthy of Development Aspirations, Karin Perro and Robert Zuber

1 Feb

The UN’s final working day of January featured an odd mix of events, including a seminar dedicated to teaching about the UN, a full-day event promoting social media, and the Security Council’s debate on the Protection of Civilians with a special focus on women and girls.

The last of these is particularly germane to GAPW’s work and, as noted by the UK, represents perhaps the singular lens through which outsiders view the value of the United Nations. And there was much of value in the discussion which we attempted to capture through @globalactionpw. Not surprisingly, some of the presentations represented a mixture of now-familiar POC assumptions and a few needlessly repetitive political grievances.  And despite some passionate and convincing articulations on the common theme of Women, Peace and Security and its implications for protection, a number of delegations noted that 15 years after the WPS norm was consummated, it still ‘feels’ more ornate than embedded.

This lament is relevant to what could well have been the most far-reaching event of the day, held in Conference Room 2, a surprisingly small venue for a discussion as potentially significant as this one could turn out to be.  ECOSOC’s “Dialogue on the longer-term positioning of the United Nations development system” attracted a roster of high-level presenters including UNDP’s Helen Clark, Timor-Leste’s Amb. Sofia Mesquita Borges, and Colombia’s Amb. María Emma Mejía Vélez, vice president of ECOSOC.

GAPW’s Karin Perro spent the morning listening to UN officials and others discuss ways to make the full UN system more accountable to and engaged in the fulfillment of development goals, another one of those ‘core lenses’ for public assessment of UN effectiveness. Among the insights she gleaned were Helen Clark’s ‘delivering as one’ approach.’  Such an approach includes what Clark referred to as a ‘relevant and nimble’ institutional structure for SDG implementation. This warrants more sustained attention with caveats to ensure room for innovation (as the US suggested) and also to guarantee (as Albania noted) that UN development priorities avoid policy silos and fully embrace national contexts.

Perro also reported some echoes of skepticism in the room that went beyond caveats.  Amb. Borges wondered aloud about the ability of states with fiscal, security and governance limitations to successfully coordinate implementation of what will likely be wide ranging development goals.  And several African states bluntly questioned the UN system’s ability and effectiveness in coordinating with other development partners, including states.  Ghana was perhaps the boldest of these states, intimating that development ‘competition’ indulged by UN agencies can result in disrupted development flows, duplicated efforts, disempowered (or frustrated) non-UN development partners, and neglect of legitimate, country-specific needs.

As it turns out, space for this important and even innovative discussion was a non-factor as perhaps 2/3 of the seats in CR 2 were filled.  Apparently ensuring a robust and responsive development infrastructure isn’t as sexy for some in the UN system as formulating text outlining largely normative goals and objectives. Or perhaps state and NGO representatives were busy sharpening their twitter messaging in another conference room.

Regardless, the implications of this event for fulfilling the new goals of the UN’s development pillar were clear to all who participated.  All seemed to recognize that there is limited value to establishing development goals in the absence of viable development infrastructure. On this point, GAPW noted a general, if guarded optimism from delegations, including from those seeking more attention to national context, but also from those wondering if structures of governance in some states are sufficiently fair and robust to handle our new and expanded set of development commitments.

It was also clear that unless all relevant institutional and national assets can find complementary service in our development workplaces, our SDG efforts are likely to create the equivalent of lovely sprinkles on an ice cream cone that itself is not fit to be eaten. We are all the ‘responsible parties’ here, responsible to guide implementation of fair and transparent development priorities, but also responsible to prevent possible damage to the UN’s reputation from development goals and objectives that could regrettably turn out, once again, to be as ornate as substantive.

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New ‘Developments’ in the Council’s Sphere of Concern Dr. Robert Zuber

18 Jan

On Monday January 19, Chile (president of the Security Council for January) will lead Council members and other state representatives in a debate on Inclusive development for the maintenance of international peace and security.  It is anticipated that the Secretary-General will brief the Council as will Peacebuilding Commission President, Amb. Antonio de Aguiar Patriota (Brazil), and 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Leymah Gbowee.

In preparation for the debate, Chile prepared and distributed a fine Concept Note that provided a rationale for Council deliberations on this important linkage at this critical time.  Indeed, consistent with Chile’s competent and comprehensive grasp of security issues, the Note squarely hit a number of high points, including a focus on women’s participation in all aspects of peacebuilding, a reaffirmation of the primacy of states in the prevention of conflict, and a clear signal of Council recognition regarding the corrosive influence of “exclusion” on efforts to preserve peace and security. Highlighting  contributions to these sorts of discussions from the 2010 Dili Declaration was also most appropriate.

From our standpoint, perhaps the most important affirmation in the Concept Note highlighted the role of armed conflict as an obstacle to development, noting its potential to destroy “the political, social, economic and cultural fabric of societies.”   Indeed, the impacts of armed violence on all dimensions of development – including environmental protection – are staggering.  This is in part what seems to be motivating so many in the development community to advocate for a ‘peace goal’ within the post-2015 framework as highlighted in, among other publications, WFUNA’s latest issue of Acronym.

In addition, as noted in our own forthcoming publication with Mexico’s Instituto Mora, in sectors of Latin America and other global settings the reverse is also the case – poverty, discrimination and broken development commitments exacerbating trafficking in narcotics, persons and weapons, all of which undermine social cohesion at many levels.   This ‘violence’ might not rise to the level of ‘armed conflict’ that triggers direct Council response, but its exacerbating characteristics are clear and compelling, precisely what Chile’s admonition to pursue more robust ‘early warning’ mechanisms should motivate us all to address more actively.

As usual, we will be in the Council on the 19th listening attentively to member state concerns, and there surely be many, from suggestions of enhanced linkages to concerns about Council over-reach.   We share these and other concerns.   Regarding linkages, there are few examples of Council engagement as ‘ripe’ for recognition of complementary efforts as this one.  Indeed, during the time of this Council debate, the GA will be meeting on stocktaking in the process of intergovernmental negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda.  The Disarmament Commission (not noted for its wide-ranging commitment to UN system complementarity) will also meet during this time to discuss its April session goals.   Moreover, the coming week is full of relevant side-events, including a Netherlands-sponsored event on Women, Peace and Security, “Seeking Synergy with the Reviews on Peace Operations and Peacebuilding.”

While recognizing that the Council is not structured to be a ‘bulletin board’ of overlapping events, the failure of the Concept Note to make more specific mention of the timely and far-reaching efforts by the UN system to harmonize the development and security pillars seems needlessly negligent to us.   The Concept Note does mention the work of the Peacebuilding Commission, and certainly with good reason. But given recent, dramatic, systemic efforts on post-2015 goals and growing, global concerns about security relationships (with or without support for a stand-alone ‘peace goal’), it would have been wise for the Note to have been more generous in its complementary recognitions, especially given the ‘downstream’ nature of much PBC activity and the compelling ‘upstream’ mood characteristic of so many post-2015 discussions.

And this leads to our second point, that the failure to recognize these other, active agents of change on security and development reinforces for some a concern that the Council still has not yet satisfied its ‘appetite’ for the control of thematic interests more skillfully engaged elsewhere in the system.  We have commented many times on why an expanding Council understanding of peace and security responsibilities must come attached to more humble and accountable ‘seizings’ coupled with a robust and generous recognition of related work taking place elsewhere in the UN system.   We strongly urge member states during Monday’s debate to offer this recognition at every relevant opportunity.

The Council simply must learn to better engage issues of interest without appearing to control policy outcomes or undermine colleagues active in other parts of the UN system.  As it rightly prepares for security-related challenges posed by development inadequacies and outright failures, the Council still has a small ‘development’ issue of its own to deal with.

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Taking temperature, taking stock: Sustaining global efforts to combat endemic (and emerging) diseases

4 Oct

Editor’s note:  This post is written by Karin Perro who is currently finishing up graduate study at John Jay College of the City University of New York.   During her limited time in the UN Security Council, Karin witnessed the Council’s efforts to address the peace and security implications of the Ebola outbreak.  As she notes, however, Ebola is not the only health-related threat to peace and security, or for that matter to the fulfillment of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

Recently, the halls and chambers of the UN have resonated with horror over the growing specter of Ebola in West Africa. And rightly so – the current epidemic poses an urgent health threat to global human security, with the potential to undermine the already fragile economic and democratic vitality of afflicted states. While immediate, heightened efforts to staunch the deadly outbreak are imperative, we must be mindful that the current crisis not overshadow the need for continued vigilance in combating extant endemic diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera. Such diseases are largely curable with early detection and treatment, yet account for an alarming number of global mortalities, with some estimates attributing over five million deaths annually to endemic pathogens. The transmission of polio virus is on the rise after two decades of near eradication. The Center for Disease Control warns that the polio virus could conceivably paralyzed more than 200,000 children worldwide annually over the next decade if coordinated curtailment measures are not initiated now.

The combination of an insidious persistence of endemic diseases – and the potential for more Ebola-like emerging disease outbreaks – has the potential to undermine the objectives articulated in the Post 2015-Millennium Development Goals. Health is a fundamental human right, and crucial to global security. It needs to be prioritized.

New challenges continue to exacerbate the underlying malaise already stifling international health security. This month’s briefing to the UN by Every Woman, Ever Child (EWEC) noted impressive progress in reducing maternal and infant mortality, with Dr Robert Orr of the UN Executive Office of the Secretary General announcing that the lives of 17 thousand children are saved daily as a direct result of EWEC initiatives. While laudable, such goal attainments might ironically lead to an increase in those populations most susceptible to endemic diseases, and a further taxing of already resource-scarce national health plans. In addition, the disturbing proliferation of armed insurgencies worldwide are creating unrelenting burdens in delivering health care and essential medicines to those suffering in conflict zones.

Access to affordable, essential drugs and vaccines in developing countries is fundamental in combating endemic diseases. Greater political commitment and funding is needed to address the inadequate access to such drugs by undeveloped countries. In addition, many organized criminal networks have redirected their enterprises from the illicit drug trade to marketing in counterfeit drugs that often prove more lucrative. Current anti-counterfeiting policy measures have proven inadequate in stemming the flow of pharmaceutical counterfeits, particularly to developing nations where treatments based on fake essential drugs, such as anti-malarials, imperil the lives of millions in Africa, South East Asia, and parts of Latin America.

As we approach the final adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and initiate their implementation, it is incumbent on all stakeholders to take stock of the current overall global health “temperature” and reconfirm their commitment to their stated goals as they relate to global health security. The focus of the SDGs on eradicating poverty and promoting universal education is inextricably intertwined with the physical health of targeted populations. Poverty and endemic disease are tandem barriers to the overall socio-economic health of developing states, while the success of SDG educational goals are predicated on the physical well being of the communities they aim to serve.

Without adequate support for the prevention, treatment, and control of endemic diseases, malaria-stricken children will be incapable of attending SDG-inspired education programs and initiatives. Women debilitated by tuberculosis will be prevented from participating in community or regional governance in a sustainable and substantive manner. Adults weakened from cholera will be denied the ability to provide economically for their families through newly developed, SDG-inspired employment opportunities. And emergent diseases, conceivably affecting large swaths of regional populations, will only compound the severe obstacles already facing global health objectives.

For the moment, we must divert our energies to suppressing the dire Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The Secretary General’s formation of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) is a positive step in addressing the current heath crisis. However, with unabated world deforestation and climate shocks, deadly new pathogens will certainly continue to emerge. We need to take proactive steps now to avoid dilatory, reactive attempts at squelching pathogenic wildfires in future. To that end, it is hoped that the recently developed Crisis Response Mechanism of the United Nations will provide an effective framework for predicting and then responding to current and future health crises. At the same time, the Global Health and Security Agenda (GHSA) calls for accelerated progress in combating biological threats, including control and prevention measures, through a five-year implementation plan. But timely and intensified responses are critical. As stated by the Chair of GHSA, “a biological threat anywhere is a biological threat everywhere” and “the consequences of not acting are unfathomable”.  ‘Health keeping’ now rivals the importance of peace keeping in the struggle for global security.

Synergy across sectors (a considerable UN refrain) will be essential in achieving not only SDG health initiatives, but also rapid response strategies to avert future epidemics. Triangular partnerships will need to be forged between governments, the private sector, and civil society. Uneasy alliances will be required linking corporate sponsors and health NGOs. Moving forward, corporate partners must demonstrate transparency in achieving local health objectives consistent with national health priorities. They will need to ensure that their efforts are not predicated on profit bottom lines, and must be open to accountability if their credibility as health actors is to be maintained. ‘Might’ in this instance rarely equates with ‘right’.

Likewise, NGOs must refrain from appropriating bureaucratic, big business practices that can stifle flexibility towards the achievement of urgent health response.  The inclusion of all stakeholders must be real and substantive, not sidelined as merely rhetorical participation. Perhaps most importantly, political will is paramount in avoiding what might be seen as ‘anemic’ responses to global health challenges. Eradicating the ‘ills of the world’, as articulated within the SDGs, could well be undermined by more literal, health-related ills if threats from both endemic and potentially emerging diseases remain inadequately addressed by all relevant stakeholders.

Karin Perro, GAPW Intern

 

 

 

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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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The United Nations’ Annual Adventure

29 Sep

It is the Sunday after a long week of Heads of State, Foreign Ministers and a wide variety of other stakeholders all seeking to keep the UN on a positive, hopeful, practical trajectory, despite a myriad of global crises.

Side events on issues from the situation in Central African Republic to the abolition of child marriages occupied the attention of diplomats and select non-governmental representatives.   And then there was a most dramatic climate march as well as a media worthy presentation by Emma Watson on the need to encourage more male ‘champions’ for women’s rights.

The opening of the General Assembly corresponded with the re-opening of the General Assembly building.   While we have come to appreciate the North Lawn Building greatly, most participants in last week’s events seemed to enjoy the upgraded amenities of the new GA space, not to mention the reopening of the basement café. Guards and other UN personnel generally did a fine job of getting people in and out of meeting rooms and on and off crowded elevators.

It is not yet apparent how many compelling, new commitments were made this week by leaders.  There were, of course, some interesting ideas floated by civil society and governments – ideas that in our view still require more urgent scrutiny to minimize the possibility of unintended consequences.  We have already written about our cautions elsewhere on this blog with regard to both ‘veto restraint’ and the inclusion of a ‘peace objective’ within the post-2015 development goals.

There were many other things that happened this week that piqued our interest and even conveyed glimmers of hope that we can actually move confidently and urgently towards a holistic engagement of strategies to address some stubborn global emergencies.

  • At an event focused on nuclear disarmament, Brazil, Costa Rica and others properly highlighted the need for more investment in Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zones. At the same time, Chile called for the “delegitimizing” of nuclear weapons doctrines.
  • At another event focused on the death penalty, we were encouraged that so few states sought to defend their use of capital punishment. The President of Switzerland and Prime Minister of Italy made strong and convincing presentations exposing the fallacies of the death penalty.  At this same meeting, the office of the new High Commissioner for Human Rights launched the fine resource, “Moving away from the Death Penalty.”
  • In the Security Council, a US-led, co-sponsored resolution on foreign fighters passed unanimously, but Argentina’s president also noted the increasingly complex nature of terrorism and wondered aloud whether the Council’s responses are keeping pace.
  • In another Council meeting focused on ISIS, Luxembourg joined with other states in reminding members that (France’s reference to the ‘throat cutters’ notwithstanding) we are not going to solve deeper problems in the region through the application of threatening rhetoric and military power. In a similar vein, Rwanda described the ‘unbearable consequences’ that occur when the Council fails to use all available tools to maintain peace and security.
  • At an event on the role of education in the prevention of genocide, states noted the need to educate adults as well as children about the dangers of hate speech and other incitements to violence. Spain in particular spoke about the need to address conflict at its roots and noted its own, sustained advocacy work on behalf of more mediation resources.  For his part, USG Adama Dieng underscored the urgent responsibility to prevent incitement rather than waiting to address its consequences after the fact.
  • At a breakfast discussion focused on Women and Land, Ethiopia noted that land rights are tied to other rights and urged adoption of a holistic gender framework.  This sentiment was echoed by UN Women and other states in attendance.  It was also affirmed that land ownership by women lifts their general status in a variety of helpful ways.
  • At a ministerial event on Peace and Capable Institutions hosted by G7+ states, South Sudan highlighted the profound negative impacts of armed violence on fulfillment of development objectives, but wondered aloud about the wisdom of having a stand-alone ‘peace goal’ in the SDGs rather than, as others including the Prime Minister of Timor-Leste noted, a broader, more inclusive recognition in all SDGs of the importance of peaceful societies to development.
  • At a Sustainable Land Management event, New Zealand and others highlighted the degree to which restoration of damaged land constitutes a viable peace and security concern. During the same discussion, Germany highlighted some hopeful restoration initiatives while depicting hunger as one of the great “scandals” of our time.

There was so much more of note both within and beyond our hearing, of course: more hopeful statements, more missed opportunities, more rhetoric divorced from viable implementation strategies, more reminders of the connected, multi-dimensional crises that define our time.

All of this made up the past week at the UN, a highly political space that is often most effective at creating global norms to support change enacted at national and local levels.  It is at times like this when the need to simultaneously honor and demystify UN processes becomes apparent.  There are so many critical issues, including climate change, child soldiers and gender violence, that would have far less traction globally were it not for the UN’s sustained involvement.  On the other hand, the ‘talk shop’ reputation of the UN is only enhanced as a week’s worth of traffic-clogging motorcades and massive security bills result in modest outcomes as likely to disappoint public hopes as to inspire them.

As the barricades come down, the working-level diplomats resume their pride of place at UN headquarters.   Now is the time to take the most compelling suggestions from this week and turn them into strong resolutions that can leverage meaningful change.  We’ll be there to observe and reflect.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Women’s Security amidst Resource Scarcity

19 Sep

This past summer, Global Action to Prevent War and Armed Conflict (GAPW) introduced a program initiative to explore and address gendered security questions integral to the UN thematic nexus of Food, Water, Energy and Climate.

Our approach will look most directly at the multiple challenges of water access and quality, and their impact on rural women. Our policy involvement at the UN has stressed the evolving relationship of resource scarcity as a major contributing factor to armed violence.  As is so often the case, scarcity of supplies, restrictions on access, and the violence that increasingly erupts from such conditions disproportionately impact women’s lives in a multitude of ways. This program will speak to the growing concerns regarding the effective and inclusive governance of water while identifying the potential for conflict caused by water stresses – specifically related to access, quality and a lack of participation in water-related policy.

In the first half of 2015 UN member states will have set an agenda which will then determine local and national policy interventions and activities on climate and development. Climate change negotiations related to the Conference of the Parties  (COP) 20 will transition to COP 21, and the Millennium Development Goals will formally transition to the Sustainable Development goals, most likely finalized at the 70th United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. All of global civil society will be on hand and will be ready to encourage and support governments as they adopt and implement their development and climate commitments.

On a local level NGOs will define, underscore and help promote the security measures needed to ensure SDG accountability. As Bhumika Mucchala has suggested, a universal model of accountable security must accompany the effective realization of SDGs. During the first half of 2015 GAPW will share security-related perspectives with diplomatic and global civil society actors to ensure the effective realization of SDG goals. GAPW is also committed to ensuring that agreed targets of water and food security are assessed by gendered data indicators necessary for ensuring participation and preserving peace. In all of this work, we will remain gender-aware, context- sensitive, and rights-based.

In partnership with other NGOs we seek ways to minimize risk while safeguarding conditions of sustainable development access. For example, the often-perilous journey women face in water collection and overcoming water inaccessibility heightens levels of vulnerability to exploitation and abuse by unscrupulous traffickers, smugglers and employers. We seek to ensure that new implementation models for Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture and Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, will fully examine the security needs that can help ensure access and prevent water-related armed conflict and violence against women.

As we approach the Climate Change Summit (CCS) of 2015, where member states will seek to “advance climate change action and ambition,” UNSG Ban Ki-Moon has invited member states to “bring bold announcements and actions to the summit that will reduce emissions, strengthen climate resilience, and mobilize political will.” As a means to build global governance and climate diplomacy, the CCS 2015 will be a great opportunity for member states to pledge their support in a detailed, optimistic, and implementable manner. Deliberations of a “new climate economy” can raise the level of discourse, but can also change the narrative of geopolitics in ways that are welcome. While thinking about resources and conflict prevention with respect to climate change I pose three questions to member states attending CCS 2015: (1) What kind of development-related climate models are most likely to create fiscal dependencies in states? (2) Which models of sustainability are best able to ensure social stability and prevent conflict? (3) In which ways has women’s participation in water and other resource policies been enhanced to help ensure access and prevent conflict?

As CCS approaches, GAPW respectfully encourages member states to look closely at the impacts of water stresses on their societies. Indeed, the alarming rate of water stresses worldwide – related to sanitation, dam construction, sludge and other pollutants, and more — has resulted in and been exacerbated by local and state conflicts. Agribusinesses and other industries demand large quantities of existing freshwater, reducing water tables and increasing access challenges. Water, like any other resource essential to human life, represents not just a fundamental human need, but also a pivotal matter in the preservation of state and international security. In an Inter-Press Service article about water’s use as a weapon in war, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon comments, “Preventing people’s access to safe water is a denial of a fundamental human right [and the] deliberate targeting of civilians and depriving them of essential supplies is a clear breach of international humanitarian and human rights law.”

Water stresses clearly create heightened vulnerability and liability for less developed countries. One major issue faced by many small island, least developed and post-conflict states is the question of how these states can be asked to respond effectively to the SDGs when the resources used to tackle any particular issue are constrained by financial, water and other deficiencies. Many have argued that the lack of equitable assistance, whether financial, infrastructure related or strategic will invariably cause new sets of constraints. At the Climate Change Summit governments will have the opportunity to cite their own specific impediments to the fulfillment of SDG obligations and also share suggestions for remediation.

Climate health and its many implications is a direct by-product of our policy and consumer choices. Our climate “footprint” is large and growing, and showcases our successes and failures. As global leaders and a large numbers of global citizens gather in New York to discuss our climate future, the time has come to stop thinking only about risk mitigation and shift to a concern for risk elimination.  We are simply running out of time to save what’s left and make that accessible to all in a fair and participatory manner.

Sulekha Prasad, WPS Fellow

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Climate’s Impact on Hunger Games

18 Sep

I’m writing this on a plane returning from a week of visiting with new and longstanding colleagues working on an exciting range of security-pertinent issues as the UN seeks policy clarity and sanity on climate health this week.  From peacekeeping reform and the abolition of capital punishment to strategies for healing victims of trauma in post-conflict settings and demonstration projects in the Mediterranean to promote climate health, the range of conversations was breathtaking.   There are many fine people, it seems, who are both looking for meaningful connection to global policy and interested in the degree to which their core missions impact – and are impacted by – broad peace and security concerns.

Writing while flying is surely not the best way to advertise a commitment to sustainable futures.   My office does much less flying than in the past, and we need to do still less going forward.  Indeed, at this critical time, all of our material commitments must be carefully scrutinized.   As heads of state and concerned citizens converge in New York this week for climate discussions, it is clear that too many of us who accept the logic of climate change still resist the urgent lifestyle reform which that logic would suggest.

This next week’s key climate deliberations will take place alongside another core UN commitment – to the endorsement and implementation of a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  While diplomats have been reluctant, in part for good reason, to resist a stand-alone peace goal, there is wide recognition within this SGD process that armed violence has a major negative impact on development, and certainly on the types of development that can enhance climate health rather than accelerate the opposite trend.

These two major UN engagements certainly have points of convergence, but perhaps none so much as with the alleviation of poverty.   This clearly is a core issue for SDGs though vast obstacles remain related to debt, speculative finance, unfair trade practices, lack of access to markets and security for rural workers, a lack of public participation in national policies that have poverty implications and much more.

But one of the obstacles to poverty eradication is the degeneration of our climate itself.   Climate change is held more and more responsible – rightly in our view – for increased human migrations, food insecurity, the lack of access to potable water, and many more complicating factors.   And all of these features of our contemporary social condition – and more where they came from – have security implications.   The search for water increases the physical vulnerabilities of the seekers, especially women.   The control of water and related resources creates cross-border tensions and limits essential access. Shifts in rainfall dramatically impact crop yields and threaten local food security, shift internal migration patterns and further imbalance global trade agreements.

On September 20, Global Action will participate in a workshop on “Poverty and Peacemaking” at Princeton University.   Our specific panel will deal with food security issues.   In my 12 years running a food pantry in Harlem and in our work at GAPW with women farmers in Cameroon and elsewhere, there are several important things to communicate to the Princeton audience, including:  the impact of an increasingly sick climate on agriculture; the core insight that human security is not possible without food security; and the perhaps too-obvious insight that food security itself is severely undermined by conflict and armed violence, including conflict motivated by conditions of a deteriorating climate.

Indeed, one can make the case, and I will seek to make it at Princeton, that food security and other dimensions of physical security are intertwined at several levels.   In neighborhoods defined by heavy narcotics use and even heavier gun fire, a full refrigerator is only one of the security reassurances needed for families to break out of poverty and participate more fully in building stable and sustainable communities.

Security, we hasten to add, is as much a feeling as a condition.   There are metrics of various competencies pertaining to gun violence, child abuse, narcotics use, rape, domestic violence, etc.   There are statistics to measure welfare levels, average income, educational attainment, and more. But in the end, it is how you feel about your life and community that has the most to do with levels of personal commitment and engagement.   We choose to participate in poverty alleviation or peacemaking based on how we feel about conditions, prospects for meaningful change, and options for participation; certainly more than on how our community is tracking statistically.

During my many years in a Harlem parish and food pantry, I was sometimes called to help clean out the apartment of a deceased neighbor when there were no family members able or willing to do the job.  Often we found evidence of great hoarding, including many cans of pantry food.   In some instances, the food was piled to the ceiling with apparently no plans for it to be consumed.   Those cans represented security of one sort, a sort that is indispensable to community life.   But food issues represent only a start towards development that is fully participatory, context and gender specific, and integrative of many security concerns.  Full spectrum security must be our peacemaking goal, not merely a slice of security.

Especially this week, we must be mindful of the ways in which the grind of poverty is directly influenced by climactic imbalances.  As our climate deteriorates, more fields will lie barren and more communities will embark on new and more desperate migrations.  No matter how comprehensive and well-intentioned our MDGs, climate sickness might well make poverty harder to alleviate than ever before.

What happens this week in New York is no game, no mere diplomatic exercise. It’s time to step up, to feel the desperate urgency that many millions of people around the world just can’t shake as their crops wither and weapons proliferate around them. Indeed, it’s quite a bit past time.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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