Tag Archives: youth

In Search of Solid Ground: A Student’s Thoughts on the Current Geopolitical Quagmire

11 Oct

Editors Note:  Carly Millenson is extraordinary young woman in high school who is working with Christina Madden on matters related to Women in International Security.  At her request, she prepared this essay describing some of the anxieties of her generation as she and her peers prepare to take up adult responsibilities. 

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way” – so begins Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, a truly timeless classic that describes the present as well as it did the era it depicted. To a student who hopes to one day pursue a career in international security this seems as accurate and concise a description of the pathos of our day as any. Times have certainly changed since Dickens penned this famous phrase, but human nature has not. As international tensions rise in an age when technological advances make the stakes of conflict higher than ever before, my generation is greeted with a bewildering and concerning mix as we begin to leave the stability of the classroom for the uncertainty of the real world.

A 2011 article published in Foreign Affairs warned that a nuclear Iran would “upend the middle east”, and crafted a disturbing narrative of rapid nuclear proliferation across the region resulting in an exponential increase in the risk of the outbreak of nuclear conflict. Meanwhile, pictures of Netanyahu drawing his famous “red line” interspersed with belligerent messages from North Korea and increasingly horrific reports on the violence scorching Syria have made for a grim new cycle, even by the standards of someone whose political consciousness begins with a post-9/11 world.

More recently, there have been some feeble glimmers of hope, yet these have been tempered by murky facts and unclear intentions. Iran’s new President, Hassan Rouhani, has taken a surprisingly conciliatory line, ending a three decade freeze on direct interaction with the US through his September phone call with President Obama. In his speech at the UN, he stressed Iran’s desire for peace with the international community and offered increased transparency in order to eliminate “reasonable concerns about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program” and said that his country “is prepared to engage immediately in time-bound and result-oriented talks to build mutual confidence and the removal of mutual uncertainties with full transparency.” If taken at face value, such statements mark a critical turning point for the better in regional politics and seem to signal a crucial step towards reducing tensions. However, in the world of politics, little is as simple as it seems and not everyone has a rosy take on Iran’s overtures. According to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, “the facts are that Iran’s savage record flatly contradicts Rouhani’s soothing rhetoric.” He added that “[i]f Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.” In a similar vein, a recent Foreign Affairs article warned that “Rouhani is no reformer. He is a man of the system, which is why he was allowed to run in the first place.”  The confusing mire of claims and counterclaims surrounding the Iranian nuclear question has become the norm for most major international issues. Understanding the news and drawing conclusions from it has become less about cutting to the quick and more about wading towards the least unstable ground.

It is in this foggy atmosphere of uncertainty and looming threats that my generation must find its feet. I hope to one day pursue a career as a policymaker in international security and promote peace by working to contain nuclear proliferation and to reduce international tensions. At the moment though, I am mostly limited to excelling in my studies and dreaming about the future. But what kind of future will it be? With the advances of technology the stakes have gotten progressively higher. Weapons have gotten more deadly and our growing dependence on complex equipment has brought with it new vulnerabilities – my world is one where enemies armed with hacking skills are quickly becoming just as dangerous, if not more so, than those armed with bombs. I hope that tomorrow will bring with it a new era of peace and worry that I am experiencing the prologue to an age of widening conflict and increasing bloodshed. In these delicate times, miscalculations by international policymakers will have major repercussions for decades to come. What they decide now will determine how I will spend my adult life. In the next thirty years, will international security be defined by closing rifts, preventing backslides, and blocking radicalism, or will it instead be characterized by putting out fires, minimizing damage, and trying to restart the peace process? Most likely it will fall somewhere in between those two extremes, but it is up to policymakers today to decide which way it leans.

My generation is slowly evolving from being today’s passive newsreaders to tomorrow’s active newsmakers, but most of us aren’t quite there yet. However, as with any group of people, there are always leaders who race out far ahead of the curve. At sixteen, Malala Yousafzai has gained international fame as a courageous champion of girls’ education rights whose close brush with death at the hands of the Taliban has done nothing to silence her voice. Her impact today could be the impact of my generation tomorrow. I want the chance to build a better, safer world. However, a world in conflict is not a ripe place for peacebuilding. Strife must be contained before we can take the next steps towards building trust. It is up to today’s leaders to lay the foundations for improved relations by preventing tensions from spiraling out of control. My generation is ready to step into the turbulent times and contribute to the search for clarity, however most of us won’t have a significant impact for a few more years. In the meantime, my hope is that policymakers understand our concerns and have a vision not only for short-term political expedience but also for long-term solutions that will last into our adulthoods. International politics has become a fog of paradox and contradiction, but I hope, perhaps with the idealism of youth, that the winds of change will eventually sweep away some of the uncertainty and reveal a trail – whether the road to war or the path to peace, only time can tell. In baseball terms, I am waiting for my turn to step up to the plate. Until my time arrives, I can only hope that the players who have gone before me will have already ‘loaded the bases.’

Carly Millenson 

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Care over Imprisonment: Alternatives to Detention of Migrant Children

5 Oct

Editors Note:   GAPW actively covered and, where possible, participated in the General Assembly’s High Level Segment on Migration and Development.   It was a particularly rich engagement, highlighting many critical security issues, including the increasing militarization of borders and criminalizing of migrants.  Tereza Steinhublova from the Czech Republic, who has had direct experience working with migrants in the UK, offers this analysis of an event focused on the needs of migrant children. 

In countries all over the world hundreds of thousands of people are being held in detention centers due to not having proper documentation or legal status in the country. This problem applies to migrants and refugees as well as asylum seekers. In many cases, people are detained for long or indefinite periods of time in cells, just as if they were criminals. They are not allowed to leave, and visits are limited.

The United Nations High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development was held at the UN Headquarters in New York on October 3rd and 4th, 2013. On October 2nd the International Detention Coalition (IDC), with the support of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Government of Liechtenstein, held a side-event titled Expert Meeting on Alternatives to the Immigration Detention of Children. The meeting had two main areas of focus – the legal framework for protecting children who face immigration detention, and the discussion of suitable alternatives to child detention, including a specific example from Belgium.

In opening remarks, Ms. Jyoty Sanghera, Chief of the Human Rights and Economic and Social Issues Section of the OHCHR, explained that detention centers are often run by police or prison authorities who lack appropriate training. Moreover, detention facilities rarely provide the necessary protection migrants require, such as basic healthcare, access to psychological help and legal assistance with their cases. This becomes even more of an issue for vulnerable groups such as children, especially if they are unaccompanied, because they easily become targets of violence. Mr. Francis Crépeau, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, provided a well-structured presentation on how child detention contributes to the violation of children’s rights as set out by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).  Both Mr. Crépeau and Mr. Grant Mitchell, the Director of the International Detention Coalition, emphasized that the detention of children can never serve their best interests. Mr. Crépeau also explained the effects of detention on children through a legal lens, noting that unaccompanied children are sometimes detained in adult facilities due to an incorrect age assessment in the immigration procedure upon arrival.

While studying at the University of Kent I volunteered with the Kent Refugee Action Network, which provides mentoring for unaccompanied young asylum seekers. In some cases, even if the person had been living in the country for a relatively long period of time and was granted asylum, psychological trauma was still something they battled. In many cases the migration journey itself is very stressful and even traumatizing. Being placed in prison-like conditions can further contribute to emotional stress. (Even if children are detained together with their families, the family often becomes separated by gender.) These children can become targets of violence, including sexual violence, which has serious negative effects on their psychological and overall well-being. In addition, children who leave detention centers are rarely provided with adequate care and often end up destitute. For these reasons many groups, such as the IDC, have begun to push for alternatives to detention, which would decrease the suffering of people in transition.

If so much evidence exists that detention centers are an inappropriate response, why do states continue to detain migrants? Mr. Crépeau explained that states often justify the confinement of migrants mainly in security terms or as a deterrent. However, he also stressed that there is no empirical evidence that detention deters irregular migration or discourages asylum seekers. Mr. Mitchell explained that asylum seekers awaiting a decision are much less likely to flee and therefore detention is unnecessary. Unfortunately, in many countries migrants are both criminalized and stigmatized, which contributes to xenophobia and fuels the growth of extreme right-wing activity.

What are suitable alternatives to detention? All panelists agreed on the primary responsibility to care, with most emphasis placed on case management, guardians and open family units. Mr. Crépeau argued that the state needs to respect the basic rights of children, such as the right to education, adequate housing and medical care, which cannot be achieved in detention. He argued that in cases where whole families are detained, the family should be eligible for alternative measures such as a supervised release or required reporting. Mr. Mitchell noted that many states have taken positive steps towards the reduction of detention facilities, such as implementing new laws that prohibit child detention, listing Panama, Belgium, Japan, Mexico, China, Venezuela, Australia and Sweden as examples. Mr. Mitchell explained that many countries are being innovative in dealing with migrant children who are alone. In the Philippines, for instance, children are placed into the family welfare system while their case is being processed. Similarly, in the Netherlands, children are assigned guardians from NGOs who then provide them with basic care.

Mr. Bertrand de Crombrugghe (whose surname turned out to be the biggest linguistic challenge at the meeting!!) explained how Belgium has been successful in implementing the alternative system of ‘open family units.’ The units have received international recognition by the UNHCR, the Council of Europe, as well as some states. Belgium has been using this system for regular migrants since 2008, and in 2009 they extended it to include asylum-seeking families as well. The open family unit system involves the placement of families into individual houses intended for temporary stay while they await the resolution of their case. Unlike detention centers, family units allow the family the freedom of movement. Most importantly, families are in contact with supporting officers who provide assistance towards a tangible outcome to their situation – a legal right to remain or a voluntary return home. Families are also given other necessary support such as legal assistance and logistical and medical support.  Unaccompanied minors are placed into the care of a guardian who serves a similar purpose as the supporting officer, but also accompanies the child to necessary legal proceedings.

What some states fail to recognize is that alternatives to detention would not only benefit the migrants themselves, but also the state budget. Mr. Mitchell explained that alternative measures tend to be on average 80% cheaper than detention facilities. Mr. de Crombrugghe noted that family units bear a lower cost to the Belgian state than detention facilities. All panelists stressed the need for continuous development and dialogue on alternatives to detention.

Overall the event was very well organized and although technical difficulties prevented the screening of the short film titled The Invisible Picture Show, all panelists provided well-structured arguments on the need for alternatives to detention. It was motivating to attend such an event, especially since the numbers of migrants are at high levels and difficult matters such as this are often not given enough attention by the international community.

 Tereza Steinhublova

 

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Youth-SWAP Meet: Walking from the Margins to the Center of Policy

28 Sep

Editor’s Note:   For the past few weeks, Kritika Seth has been examining opportunities and resources for developing a sustainable youth initiative through GAPW.   She will share perspectives from her search in this space throughout the fall. 

Youths are best understood as those undergoing a transition from the dependence of childhood to the independence of adulthood with an increasing awareness of the high level of responsibilities as members of a community.

Youth is often indicated as a person between the age where he/she may leave compulsory education, and the age at which he/she finds his/her first employment.  Today almost half of the world’s population (48%) is under the age of 24; of this 18% are youth. Moreover, while youth is growing in numbers, more and more of them are raised in environments that hinder their educational opportunities, increase the likelihood of unemployment, and force them to confront other burdens such as HIV/AIDS, war and other forms of violence.

In the wake of the recent and ongoing issues faced by young people all over the world, the Inter-Agency on Youth Development (IANYD) along with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) organized a unique meeting last week from September 18th to September 20th. . The structure of this meeting was different from the typical annual meeting that the two agencies conduct. In this instance, the decision was made to invite youth led organizations and networks to participate in open dialogue regarding the newly released System-Wide Action Plan on Youth (SWAP).  The SWAP is a document that teases out four thematic areas that call for our attention immediately – Employment and Entrepreneurship; Protection of rights, political inclusion and civic engagement; Education, including comprehensive sexuality education; and Health. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the SWAP is a framework document to support the World Program and Action on Youth and not replace it. Despite the urgent attention and development needed in youth affairs, the SWAP marks the first steps taken towards fulfilling a viable youth agenda.

During the three-day meeting, participants were given several opportunities to discuss and identify opportunities for engaging young people in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Youth-SWAP. There was also discussion of specific tasks that need attention, such as communication strategies, methods of partnering with other organizations and effective ways of participating in the process of youth development. In order to support all these concerns and provide a ‘reality check’, the UNFPA and INAYD team made sure to have a representative from related UN agencies: for example, the presence of the UN Volunteering Program during the discussion on participation; or the presence of the International Labor Organization (ILO) during the discussion on youth employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.

Despite the constant thinking and brainstorming that we were required to do, the room was constantly buzzing with good and positive energy. A horizontal flow of interaction amongst those seeking advice and those who were full of advice was an ongoing sight along with conversations that began with “you are?” and ended with “we should get coffee sometime soon.” Overall the meeting was of great value resulting in concrete recommendations such as the need to personalize the communication of SWAP for better implementation strategies and outcomes, for instance through the creation of a SWAP-specific website in order to more effectively spread the word.

It will be interesting and valuable to follow – and hopefully impact — the next steps on implementing the Youth-SWAP document and other pressing issues. As the Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth concluded at the MTV reception, “if you want to walk fast you walk alone, but if you want to walk far we will walk together.”  GAPW is prepared to walk beside this process and we will regularly engage our audience in this space regarding issues affecting youth participation in global policy.

 Kritika Seth

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Bookends: The UN Takes on the Challenges of Aging

13 Aug

August 12 was one of those interesting and even ironic days at the UN.   On the one hand, there wasn’t much happening in either the North Lawn or Conference Building as many delegations and secretariat officials have wandered off for a bit of pre-September rest.   What WAS happening though was certainly worthy of attention by all policymakers – a morning session devoted to youth empowerment and an afternoon session of the Fourth Open Ended Working Group on Aging.

For GAPW, which has long been involved in youth development, a focus on the elderly is both timely and directly relevant to our mandate.   Given general increases in life expectancy based, in large parts of the world, on increased access to higher quality health care, there is little reason to believe that our seniors cannot be productive contributors to the growth and maintenance of human security frameworks – in both local and international contexts — long past any arbitrary retirement ages imposed by our organizations and agencies.

One question that we struggle with almost daily:  How do we promote the transition in leadership to younger persons without disenfranchising older persons who, in many cases, provided the conceptual and logistical guidance that built and maintained our organizations over many years?

This is clearly a more challenging problem than it might first appear. The ‘cult of youth’ that plagues much of western culture and which is, so far as we can tell, more a marketing ploy than an intentional policy choice, has limited value for the development of the fair and robust human security frameworks that we endeavor to promote.  Creating narrow peer frameworks in a world that offers virtually limitless options for meaningful participation, friendship and intimacy seems almost a cruel rebuke to those who have labored over many years to dismantle barriers of race, gender, sexual preference and, yes, age.

We support the movement, suggested by the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and many other States, to create a process leading to the adoption of universal standards of treatment for older persons.  At the same time, we resist any policy that inadvertently reinforces the ‘ghetto’ that too many older persons find themselves increasingly restricted to.   Perhaps even more than younger people, older citizens require human connection as much as fresh air and mobility assistance.   Services for the elderly matter – and States are right to make this more of a priority — but what matters more is cultures that promote cross-generational interaction that is open to and respectful of diverse lenses on how the world works, and how it can work more effectively.

The elderly are not a ‘population group’ as some delegations casually referred to them, but rather a diverse set of human longings and capacities seeking to remain relevant in the eyes of those with skills and energy to whom they have (perhaps not quickly or gracefully enough) given way.

The peaceful planet we all seek will be characterized in part by the welcome extended to new life and the gratitude extended to those at life’s end.   The elderly represent the direction towards which we are all headed.   An investment in older people – not only their material conditions but their ongoing, respectful connection – will yield great benefit.  After all, the time will come soon enough when we will take their places at the end of the life cycle.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Conversation Starter: Civil Society Consultations

14 May

On the morning of the 14 of May at UN headquarters in New York, four panelists reflected on an important regional consultation that took place recently in Guadalajara, Mexico with the support of the Mexican government.  The Guadalajara meeting was part of a larger process designed, in part, to assess and integrate regional civil society concerns in laying out follow-up processes for the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework and the Rio plus 20 Conference on Sustainable Development held in June 2012.

The speakers highlighted the value of more regional engagement as a post-2015 agenda begins to take shape.   Also noted was the need for clear feedback loops that can help civil society track their impact on documents prepared by States and the UN Secretariat to help guide movement on development going forward.

In listening to the speakers, I was both grateful for this attention by UN stakeholders to the needs and wishes of civil society groups and also dismayed by what seems to be the unwillingness of speakers to publicly identify some of the enormous challenges associated with conducting a genuinely consultative process at this moment in our collective history.  There are now so many civil society groups, so little civil society consensus, and some particularly ‘muscular’ non-governmental organizations (especially in New York) that brand their work in ways that deflect as much civil society involvement as they invite.   We in New York are too often prone to gate-keeping more than assessing and promoting a wide range of voices from diverse social, geographic and economic circumstances to help address shifting circumstances. Gate keeping, perhaps more than any other NGO activity, is anathema to the kinds of consultations which the panelists envisioned.

It is probably valid to say, as one or more of the speakers mentioned, that the initial MDG process in 2000 lacked a clear consultative element.  It is also true that we were in a different period then with respect to civil society involvement.   For one thing, there are so many more of us than there used to be, a great blessing to be sure, but one which makes fair and transparent consultation difficult to implement.  What is the dividing line for involvement–   a history with the issue, connections to groups in New York, or perhaps a defined skills set related to some sustainable development priority?

There are certainly no firm criteria for participation in consultations and certainly no consensus by civil society groups regarding how development-related issues should be articulated and supported, both politically and financially.   It is wishful thinking to think that it is otherwise, and it is disappointing to hear people talk as though the key to a good consultative process is merely wanting it to be so.

Moreover, there is an issue about how civil society interventions in consultative processes should be assessed.  Is it solely about the number of times when language favorable to our own organizational mandates appears in resolutions of the General Assembly or its constitutive bodies?   Given the uneasy relationship between resolutions and practical engagements on the ground, is resolution language alone the bar that we need to be reaching for?  Are there deeper levels of engagement to which we should be pointing, engagement that continues to reach out beyond the most widely known ‘players’ to the many new leaders and organizational assets anxiously awaiting their turn?

This is not a critique of the specific panel hosted by Mexico, but rather a reflection on the degrees of difficulty that we face when we try to organize a field (civil society) that is expanding more quickly and in more diverse directions than we can map its movements.   There are many challenges and limitations in our sector that we must address, such as when we settle for new resolution language when so many in the world are clamoring for just and robust implementation of existing resolutions; or when we endorse existing ‘seating’ arrangements at a time when there are so many more chairs that need to be set up at the policy table.

It is possible to be thankful to the Mexican government and speakers that there is more consultation moving forward on development priorities, and still lament all of the ways in which civil society participation is still very much a work in progress.   While there is an abundance of responsibility to share among different stakeholders, including governments and the UN itself, much of this development-related work is the responsibility of civil society groups themselves. We need development in our sector that can complement and enrich prospects for development on the ground.

–Dr. Robert Zuber

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Green Lantern: UNGA Informal Debate on ‘Harmony with Nature”

23 Apr

As a nod to Earth Day 2013, the UN General Assembly was the setting for an ‘informal debate’ focused on ways to more effectively promote planetary ‘harmony’.

A half-full conference room listened to a short presentation from the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and more passionate speeches by the UN General Assembly President, Mr. Vuk Jeremić of Serbia, and by Ministers from Bolivia and Ecuador, two ‘left-leaning’ governments that tend to exercise a great deal of control over national economic outcomes.

There were some valuable reminders shared by these four speakers during what was a bit of an ideologically-imbalanced opening session.   From our own organizational standpoint, it is good to be reminded that consumption in the developed world is largely optional and has increasingly deleterious impacts on natural health in all global regions.  In addition, we should recognize that too much of the ‘green’ movement has been co-opted by those who seek to institutionalize levels of developed world consumption while attempting to ‘manage’ levels of growth in less developed nations.

At the debate, there were also renewed calls for a ‘universal declaration’ of the rights of nature tied to an alleged, if helpful, ‘right to recovery’ for nature that has been ravaged by a preponderance of short-term economic resource use disconnected from any reasonable capacity for future generations to access (and preserve) the same resources.

Our economic situation has been increasingly dark in recent times – inequities and shortages abound, as do the toxic effects of our mindless exploitation.    While it is not yet clear how ‘nature rights’ could be properly identified and enforced, nor is it clear how economic reform would result in locally based economies rather than state structures attempting to micro-manage large scale economic development, it is critically important to shine a light on alternatives that are urgent, viable and fair.  Needless to say, we don’t have sufficient alternatives at present. We need to keep the lantern lit as much as possible.

An office like ours has very limited access to deliberations on economic futures.   From our experience in meetings such as this one, it is clear that States too have limited options, more limited than they generally acknowledge.  Economic decisions, more and more, take place beyond the reach of states in board rooms and investment houses.  Whatever one thinks of “Occupy’ and other movements to expose economic inequities, including in economic decision making, it is clear that this current system is being driven by self-interested and unaccountable forces.   If such forces were merely accumulating wealth, there would be sufficient cause for general concern.  That accumulated wealth is driving so much planetary dysfunction should be cause for the loudest general alarm.

Simply put, there are biological limits to economic growth.   And those limits are not being acknowledged, let alone respected.   As one of the ministers from Ecuador wondered aloud and with some urgency, “Who precisely is going to bell this cat?”  How will that be accomplished? The cat has a defensive, nasty disposition and sharp claws.  It will take some real courage to bell it.  Until that happens, though, the rest of us will largely remain ignorant (willfully or otherwise) of the ways that our lives are about to become more painful and toxic than they need to be!

Our collective disenchantment with our economic system seems to grow daily.   At the same time, our resistance to economic change borders on the neurotic.   We have deep addictions to unsustainable and largely optional patters of consumption that remain stubborn in their remedial application and are also quite devastating to our long-term biological prospects.

On Earth Day, we need to shine more light on the structures and choices that undermine a ‘green’ agenda – unequal economic access, unsustainable (and largely optional) patterns of consumption, and more.  We also need to renew our connections with some of our more ‘intimate’ ecological processes – how our food is grown, where our drinking water comes from, what happens to our waste when we are ‘done’ with it.

Our ignorance of basic environmental processes as well as our insistence that we own everything we use are both planet-defeating attitudes. Our preference for owning a neighbor’s land to having a neighbor undermines community integrity.   Our relentless pursuit of non-essential consumer goods represents a psychologically defective, wasteful application of time and resources.   Our ability to simultaneously express a deep love for our children while contributing to the demise of the system that supports their lives is a dangerous inconsistency.  Clearly, we must continue to shine a light on these and other discontinuities, and then organize a viable, participatory strategy to overcome them.

 

–Dr. Robert Zuber

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Information in the Times of New “Social Journalism”

26 Apr

Traditional media outlets have experienced constant alterations since social media forums became new, revolutionary tools of communication and interconnectedness. Social media outlets have been establishing themselves since the late 1990s turning journalism as we know it into “Social Journalism”.  A cooperation between in-depth research and the striving for objectivity on one hand, personal opinion and instant news gratification on the other.

Woody Lewis, a social media strategist defines a social journalist as a person with a “premeditated watchdog role who uses social media to communicate and collaborate with readers.” As the impact of social media emerges, conventional journalists representing print, radio, and TV are gradually losing their status of final authority or opinion-making on a specific subject. We experience revitalization and an overall new definition of writers’ and audiences relationships. Traditional journalists have to endure a critical audience and implement checks and balances for media representatives. While salaries within the traditional media market have been decreasing steadily and lifelong contracts are highly unusual today, social journalists often contribute for free, which not only means that new media is frequently not reimbursed for its work, but it also means that prize standards for the entire industry are going to be redefined and often to the disadvantage of the traditional journalist/editor.

A realistic option exists, that necessary quality standards in social media reporting might not be maintained. Because social media sites are not reliable news sources, unless they have an official news section, fact checking while blogging and tweeting is crucial. Social media outlets are at risk of distributing false information, which can as a result, skew public opinion. At the same time certain traditional news outlets within the US-American and international media landscape are skewing public opinion deliberately. On the contrary, of course, a wide and strong flow of information can bring forward social movements and as a result democracy.

This summary of notes and research looks at how traditional and social media can produce profound results when in cooperation.

–Lia Petridis Maiello

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Secretary-General Presents New 5-Year Agenda: Focusing on Prevention

31 Jan

Just last week, the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon presented his Five-Year Action Agenda: ‘The Future We Want’ for his next term at the helm of the UN. He expanded further on the list of five imperatives laid forth last September: sustainable development; preventing conflicts and disasters, human rights abuses, and development setbacks; building a safer and more secure world, including standing strong on fundamental principles of democracy and human rights; supporting nations in transitions; and working with and for women and young people.

The Secretary-General made several important points regarding the changing dynamics of the world’s community that will require new and more dynamic responses by various stakeholders. The world’s population has officially exceeded 7 billion, new economic strongholds are emerging, social inequality is proliferating, climate change and environmental degradation are becoming harsher realities, and limited resources are continuing to shrink. These are no small challenges. It seems that any agenda,  not matter how far reaching and detailed, would be insufficient to tackle such gargantuan issues (the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] are not on track to be achieved by 2015 as was envisioned when they were adopted in 2000. Nonetheless, as Ban Ki-moon said, the myth that development does not work is false– there has been more effective disease control, more children in primary school, and significant reductions in poverty throughout the world.) Nonetheless, it is important to temper opinions regarding the reality of setting forth such sweeping and lofty goals. A critical element of making these goals a reality is transparency, information sharing, and inter-agency coordination that not only engages the UN and its agencies, but also civil society, the private sector, academics, and other engaged global citizens that have the resources, enthusiasm, and skills to make progress, no matter how small, on these ambitious goals. As such, a welcome development was the SG’s announcement that he would appoint a senior adviser tasked with coordinating system-wide partnerships.

It’s worth a discussion on prevention– a key component of the SG’s agenda that is a ‘cure’ that is both better and cheaper than emergency response. In a system that is often focused on dealing with spiraling-out-of-control crises, this is a welcome initiative. The SG noted that his agenda emphasizes early warning and action through conflict mapping and linking, collecting and integrating information from across the system. This is precisely where the focus needs to be in addressing conflict, including mass atrocities and genocide, and human rights. As emphasized in our own organizational mission and priorities, it is essential to promote more transparency for findings generated by the UN, by member states and by civil society groups that indicate a credible threat of mass atrocities such that these findings can be made actionable at earlier stages before full-scale violence flares up. Findings are ultimately limited in their usefulness unless there is an attentive and robust infrastructure to turn information into preventative policy.

The SG’s reference to ‘a new dimension for the emerging doctrine of the responsibility to protect’ is somewhat vague, but it is a welcome reference to a framework that, although the majority of news-grabbing political considerations have focused on the last resort (military) intervention piece of it, fully embraces prevention as a means to limit the worst of human rights abuses. ‘Pillars’ one and two of the R2P framework focus on capacity-building and assistance for governments to protect their own people as a means of prevention. It is only the third and final pillar that focuses on potential outside intervention as a means to ‘protect.’  Likewise, more effective mapping and integration of information across the international system is welcome initiative that would promote greater transparency in findings of potential human rights abuses so that it is not left exclusively to the Security Council to deal with a full-blown crisis, but rather the wider international community can engage in early action and preventative activities.

It is important that the international community looks at the most pressing issues of the immediate future on a macro level, in addition to the micro dealings of day-to-day UN work. It is in these broader assessments that the different challenges can be better understood in concert with one another so that better and more efficient coordination can be planned for and ultimately implemented. The linkages are clear– higher levels of participation from women and youth are linked to more sustainable development; preventing conflicts and development setbacks surely depend on building a safer and more secure world. The UN is an imperfect system, but it is a system that is universal in representation and replete with human creativity and skills to tackle, even if imperfectly, these difficult challenges of our time.

 

–Katherine Prizeman

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Challenges to Youth Development and Opportunities for Poverty Eradication

25 Jul

Although the morning session was quite disappointing at the Youth High-Level Panel, the afternoon session on challenges to poverty eradication and development was significantly more focused and valuable. Ms. Irina Bokova from UNESCO provided good background on the role of youth development for the MDGs.

I also had the chance to go to a side event on the role of social technologies for development. There was mention of an initiative co-sponsored by UNESCO and the ITU (UN agency for information and communication technologies) called the Broadband Commission for Digital Development. This commission explores how access to broadband internet is important to social and economic development. There is also a particular working group focused on youth. I thought this was a really interesting connection to development and timely considering our focus on social media as well as world events (i.e. the Arab Spring).

As one of the speakers at the side event made clear, in order to mobilize change through social media and new technologies, two things are necessary: connectivity and content. Broadband provides the connectivity and youth can provide the content.

 

-Katherine

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