Tag Archives: expectations

Word Play: Expectations Fit for a World in Crisis, Dr. Robert Zuber

19 Sep
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Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack. Brandon Sanderson

If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. William Shakespeare

Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own. Paulo Coelho

To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect. Jane Austen

It wasn’t that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn’t expect. Lev Grossman

After all, what was adult life but one moment of weakness piled on top of another?  Tom Perrotta

You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. John Steinbeck

Earlier this week, my dear friend and Green Map colleague, Wendy Brawer, sent me a photo of a group of young people staging a “die-in” in front of UN Headquarters to protest the lack of movement on climate change from the world body and, more specifically, from many of its member states.

This protest occurred on a week when the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report which reached conclusions more discouraging than shocking – that at our current rate, we will not only fail to reach the Paris Climate agreement goal of remaining at or below 1.5 degrees C, but that we are likely to exceed 2 degrees C of warming leading to a bevy of unwelcome consequences including exceeding “critical tolerance thresholds for agriculture and health.”

The Secretary-General, as is his want, warned states yet again of the “insufficiency” of current efforts to reduce emissions, proclaiming that we are running out of time to do so while acknowledging in public (as we and others have been warning for some time) that the COP 26 climate conference scheduled for later this year in Glasgow carries “a high risk of failure.”  Indeed, we have been concerned for months that COP 26 might well generate more emissions than its outcome document will mitigate; moreover that we don’t need yet another major conference to underscore the urgency of the moment, an urgency well documented in a bevy of UN reports as well as at prior COP events which, collectively, do not seem to have yet inspired anything akin to a proportionate response.

The young people lying on First Avenue are certainly taking climate warnings seriously.  Their youthful years already compromised by a raging pandemic, personal debt burdens and shrinking economic options, these activists recognize a threat to their future that may soon reach a point of no return, the effects of warming that will keep their adult lives pivoting endlessly from one crisis to another, from drought to flooding, from farmlands which no long yield their bounty to pandemics and hurricanes creating fresh human emergencies with equal frequency.

That they chose to lie down in front of the UN was, to my mind at least, communicating a dual signal; on the one hand a recognition that the UN as a body has not met expectations, has not converted the warnings it liberally proclaims into tangible and proportionate responses by many of the member states which pay its bills and authorize its policy commitments.  At the same time, there is a sense that, if only it could speak with one voice, the UN is still a place where aspirations for peace, equity and environmental health could be converted into something more concrete and results-oriented than large conferences making even larger promises unlikely to be kept.

Assuming that I have this pegged correctly, this dual assessment by these youth activists closely mirrors our own.  As we start to wind down nearly 20 years in and around UN Headquarters we are inspired by the range (and sometimes depth) of issues on the UN’s agenda, but also discouraged by how many of those issues get bogged down in matters both political and procedural.  We are dismayed at how often statements by governments are as likely to cover up key truths as to magnify them, how often the things left unsaid are more significant to the future of the planet than what states actually share, how much easier it is for states – whether on climate or armament, whether on vaccine distribution or aid to Yemen — to make pledges than to honor them.

Like others around this UN system, our assessments are largely a function of our expectations.  We know that people can observe, even without preconceptions, the same institutional circumstances at the same moment and come away with quite different assessments of their value and significance, depending of course on their expectations of those institutions in the first instance.  If we expect little and those expectations are exceeded, assessments are likely to be positive.  If we expect much and such expectations are not met, assessments are likely to be considerably more pessimistic.  And if we expect too much, more than the UN or perhaps any institution can bear without cracking apart altogether, we risk deep disappointment much more inclined to cynicism than to activism.

We have long been in this second camp and sometimes had to struggle not to be in the third. We have always been of the belief that the UN community –including we NGOs — has been insufficiently willing to match policy to urgency, has been insufficiently willing to convert its institutional processes and commitments into actions which demonstrate that we truly understand the times we face, the burning of forests and bridges, the flooding of waters and excessive armaments, the states that talk a better game on multilateralism than their domestic political situations allow them to play.  We have witnessed, time and again, states verbalizing support for urgently-needed policy change or even institutional reforms only to undermine either when the time comes for the UN to meet the moment.  We have also witnessed, more than we would ever wish, states equating national interest with global interest or other stakeholders assuming that one single policy lens or set of recommendations would ever be suitable to reset a world now characterized by such cultural, economic and ideological disharmony.

But to be fair, there are pockets of forthrightness in this multilateral system which give credence to higher expectations that the UN itself continues to both encourage and frustrate; states, UN agencies and NGOs insisting that we talk about reducing the production of armaments and ammunition as well as about arms diversion and trafficking; states and others insisting on fair and equitable representation in Secretariat offices and even in the Security Council; states and others which have shown the way on sustainable energy and ocean health critiquing those still addicted to fossil fuels and/or oblivious to biodiversity loss; states and others urging “readiness” for future pandemics even as we struggle mightily, if unevenly, to contain the current one. 

As this strained planetary moment unfolds, we are compelled to honor all who dare to elevate levels of expectation for the UN system. To that end, one of the signature events of this UN week was the handover of the presidency of the General Assembly from Turkey’s Volkan Bozkir to the Maldives’ Abdulla Shahid.  During his final remarks as president, one which we felt he was a bit sad to relinquish, Mr. Bozkir provided what characterized his entire term, what he himself called a “blunt” assessment of our planetary conditions and the role that the UN should play – must attempt to play – in shaping a more peaceful and sustainable world.  He noted here as he did throughout the year the heavy lifting which must be assumed by this “most representative” Assembly in meeting our responsibilities to sustainable development, to peace and security, and to the reduction of global inequalities.  He implored colleagues to abandon nationalist lenses and “go it alone” approaches, including on climate change, and urged greater attention to how this “unique body” can be used more effectively in the pursuit of a sustainable peace.  And as though any of us around the UN should ever need this reminder, he reminded us anyway that “words are not enough.”

Not nearly enough.  Not now.  Not at this precarious moment in history.  Not for the millions of global constituents longing for peace and the development “dividends” which peace brings.  Not either for youth lying prone on First Avenue hoping both for a voice in global policy and for a clear sign that those working a stone’s throw from their street protest can match the urgency of the moment with leadership and resolve to take at least some of the grave threats facing these young people off their collective plate.

If such an expectation is too much for the UN system, if the bar of an inclusive and sustainable peace proves to be just too high, then we would do well to wonder if the institution will ever be, as we say over and over, “fit for purpose.” Whether we are strong enough to pursue this or not, whether the UN is ultimately able to assume a loftier mantle or not, that “purpose” now is nothing short of saving us from ourselves, of peventing the symbolic “die ins” of our activist youth from becoming an omen of our collective future.



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Justice League:  The UN Hesitantly Manages its Peacekeeping Expectations, Dr. Robert Zuber

26 Feb

justice-league

That was the thing about the world: it wasn’t that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn’t expect.  Lev Grossman

Expectations are dangerous when they are both too high and unformed.  Lionel Shriver

When I was a child, far back in the last century, I was enraptured by the exploits of a group of superheroes known as the Justice League.   This formidable group – from Wonder Woman and Green Lantern to Batman and the Flash – kept us on the edge of our chairs as they battled the forces of evil, sometimes alone, sometimes together, but almost always successfully.

In retrospect, what made these imaginary heroes so compelling is their complement of imaginary attributes.   They were mighty.  They essentially answered to no one.  They were kind to all but the evil doers.  They responded to crises without hesitation.  They possessed extraordinary skills allowing them to simultaneously fight the “bad guys,” repair damaged infrastructure and reassure nervous populations wondering if the values their make-believe parents taught them any longer had relevance in their make-believe world.

Our real world of “evil doers” is considerably more complex.  The lines that separate the “good guys” and “bad guys” are less obvious than our governments and media make it seem.   We tend to replicate the behaviors of our adversaries more than renounce them, fighting bombs with bombs, offering threatening rhetoric in response to threatening rhetoric,  demonizing those who demonize us.  And when we do renounce this pattern, our collective responses (such as through the UN) are often far slower than is optimal, based on preparations that are political as much as technical, that are often more about “what we can do with what we have at hand” rather than what is actually needed.

In real life, there is no Justice League available to resolve our conflicts, no heroes in costume with power on permanent standby, determination in their hearts and kind smiles on their faces.

We have written often in this space about the need for the UN to better manage the full complement of its expectations, which far too often run apace of any relevant strategies or capacities to end conflict and/or sustain peace.  Our public relations pitches, our Security Council mandates, our Commissions and Committees, all seem designed to convince the public (and perhaps ourselves as well) that we actually have what it takes – on hand right now – to discharge fully and successfully the weighty responsibilities to which we have been entrusted.

Within the UN, this burden of expectation falls heavily on peacekeeping operations, the most expensive of UN operations but also the operations that bear grave field responsibilities that are essential both to the UN’s peace and security reputation and to the successful implementation of other UN country team activities – from development to mediation.

Others more focused and knowledgeable on peacekeeping matters have written extensively about the extraordinary and widening responsibilities now laid at the feet of peace operations – seeking out “spoilers,”  interfacing with terror threats, rebuilding entire sectors of states under siege,  enabling access points for humanitarian assistance,  offering protective services to threatened civilians.

And defending human rights, a complex matter under the best of circumstances, but certainly for peace operations facing threats from insurgents in “ungoverned spaces,” staffed by recruits from Troop Contributing Countries” with limited knowledge of (or at times interest in) the intricate political and social circumstances of the places they are mandated to “defend,” seeking to fulfill expectations both robust and multifaceted,  expectations that more than a few commentators would call “unfeasible.”

An example of this “heaping” of responsibilities on peace operations is the last Security Council renewal (2323/2016) of the UNSMIL mandate, the peacekeeping and special political mission in Libya.  Despite a security situation that is so dangerous and unpredictable that many key UN functions (ICC, UNMAS) must operate largely from outside the country, UNSMIL peacekeepers are somehow expected to

  • help consolidate governance, security and economic arrangements of the Government of National Accord;
  • provide support to key Libyan institutions;
  • provide support, on request, for the provision of essential services, and delivery of humanitarian assistance and in accordance with humanitarian principles;
  • monitor and report on human rights;
  • secure uncontrolled arms and related materiel , and counter their proliferation;
  • coordinate the provision of advice and assistance to state-led efforts to stabilize post-conflict zones, including those liberated from Da’esh.

Faced with such daunting difficulties — and this mission’s mandate is not unique — it is miraculous that peacekeepers can be assembled with even a reasonable chance of successful outcomes.   I wonder if even the mythical Justice League would have signed on to such obstacle-laden responsibilities.

This week, in the margins of the (C-34) Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, some of the inconsistencies of Peace Operations associated with our sometimes grandiose mandates came to the fore.   During an excellent briefing on “human rights at work in peace operations,” Sweden’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs noted the many places worldwide in which “dignity is now under pressure,” urging a higher level of rights consciousness in peace operations. A peacekeeper from Somalia cited the damage to the UN when peace operations commit (or fail to respond) to rights abuses, including (as noted by a peacekeeper in the DRC) those committed by host governments.   And, echoing a theme highlighted later in the week at another superb peacekeeping side event, this time hosted by Indonesia, several speakers urged higher levels of women’s involvement in peacekeeping in part to help open new pathways to community communication that could meet Sweden’s request for clear and “early warnings” of impending violence and the rights abuses which so often follow.

The promotion and protection of human rights is an indispensable pillar of UN activity.  And yet, we find that peacekeepers lack sufficient training in these responsibilities, nor are they equipped to manage the sometimes tragic dilemmas for which peacekeeping operations must find a way forward.   Perhaps the most challenging of these dilemmas was mentioned this week by both ASG (DPKO) Wane and ASG (DPA) Zerihoun who cited difficult ethical dilemmas faced by mission command – having to temper actions to defend human rights in order to preserve access granted by the host state; and having to engage in reconstruction activities – including security sector reform and civilian demobilization and disarmament – alongside persons who have themselves committed severe rights abuses.   Coupled with the ongoing tragedy of civilians in the field abused by the very persons (peacekeepers) tasked with protecting them, it is clear that peace operations continue to face human rights challenges that, one after the other, threaten to compromise expectations and undermine our collective credibility.

Our peacekeepers are not superheroes; nor are the government officials that create their mandates, fund their operations and raise (often excessively) expectations.   Given this, we would advocate for more attention to the front end of expectation management rather than the back end — when the unpredictability of politics and conflict intervenes to complicate and restrict performance in ways that, once acknowledged as they were in the C-34 this week, sound a bit too much like excuses for failure.

This past Thursday, a female Indonesian peacekeeper made reference to the “power of smiles” in peacekeeping operations, a power that can in its own way help expand community “access and acceptance” beyond what is granted through formal “status of forces” agreements and other political arrangements.   Perhaps this is one mostly-missing ingredient towards a more realistic merger of expectations and performance within the realm of our peace and security responsibilities?   At the very least, it’s a start.

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