Dili Consensus on Post 2015: progress but questions

“With the right policies, investments and global collective action on challenges beyond our control, we have the potential to build peaceful, vibrant, just, resilient, inclusive and sustainable economies and societies. The post 2015 development framework must help us realise our potential”. 

So said the G7+, a group of countries who have been forging a new way of doing development that actually works in states affected by violence, and all that comes with it, at the culmination of the Dili Conference on the post-2015 development framework this week.

In a communique issued after the conference the G7+ addressed a wide range of shared challenges, over which they noted they had little direct control. Having been joined by Pacific Island countries it was no surprise that climate change got special attention, itself a threat to the very existence of nations such as Nauru, who were there.

But most of their attention was reserved for the way in which development has to change to be relevant, effective and legitimate. And many of the observations they made have relevance far beyond the 1.5 billion people officially classed as living in fragile states.

The relationship between government and the governed was at the heart of this:

“We agreed that good governance is fundamental to the achievement of our goals, and that development progress in our countries, particularly in newly independent countries and those recently emerging from conflict is impeded by weak state capacity.” 

And that:

[The] “…effectiveness of the state and its institutions is critical to achieving national development goals”. 

This is a welcome re-statement of the centrality of how states emerging from war are able to invest in the institutional capacity to manage either localised or national conflict:s over resources, or wider contested visions of the state itself, frequently an unresolved issue even in the case of a military victory by one side over another. One reason why the implementation of the New Deal is so important - but that is strangely absent from the Consensus.

But there was much else on the table. Building on the insight of the World Development Report of 2011 this conference talked about jobs, more jobs and then even more jobs. Economic growth being critical for development, but the equitable spread of that employment being critical to peace with one being indispensable to the other.

Sign at UN post2015 Consultation for Africa: November 2012, Liberia

And there was a warning shot to donors too. Just as the conference re-stated that “business as usual is not an option” they also argued that the partnerships between rich states and poor needs to be just that – a partnership. While they made a very reasonable argument that there were far too many multiple international initiatives, all with different reporting requirements, they also had a more profound message which won’t have gone unnoticed in Western capitals, namely:

“…the importance of corresponding improvements in the policies and practices of many of the developed countries with whom we interact, including in the areas of trade, the regulation of the activities of multinational corporations and the management of aid. We recommend our development partnerships be based on mutual trust rather than conditionality.” 

While the Doha Trade Round, started in 2001 and currently frozen, stands as a monument to the unwillingness of donor countries to accept that the logic of free trade should also apply to their own markets, the specific mention of multinationals is also interesting. Foreign Direct Investment dwarfs aid money in any case, so they are clearly part of the picture. But stories such as those raised recently by Action Aid of tax avoidance by a British firm in Zambia on a grand scale, along with longstanding concerns about the extent to which companies act in ways that may provoke instability suggests that this area needs much more focus. Despite the active involvement of the private sector in the High Level Panel on post 2015 I have not seen much on the subject emerging from those discussions, simply a restatement of the importance of private capital. To coin a phrase, surely the question is “How” as well as “How much”.

On the post 2015 framework itself the Dili Consensus supports the emerging idea of a global set of goals with local targets:

“We support the pursuit of universal aspirational goals at the global level. At the same time, we emphasise that national ownership of the development agenda is imperative. Our national development frameworks must reflect our national priorities and circumstances. They should be aligned with, but not subordinate to global goals”. 

Again this is a welcome reflection of the need to ground approaches in the local context. The fact that the MDGs are unlikely to be met by any conflict affected country illustrates the nonsense of a one-size-fits-all approach. But the danger in proceeding too far down a “national ownership” path without corresponding measures to ensure that citizens can hold governments to account for how they are prioritising what they do with that money – which is conspicuously absent from the Consensus – would be to undermine that state capacity the G7+ argue they need.

In sum, the meeting concluded that the post 2015 framework should seek to address:

“…inclusive economic growth, state effectiveness, peace and justice, …climate change and environmental management.” 

While existing MDG goals on health, education and so forth should continue but be adjusted to be fit for purpose.

A useful meeting, and one which raises a series of important points. You have to hope that they make it into the final draft of the High Level Panel report that will be presented to the UN in April after their final meeting in Bali next month. But most eyes are now on the point at which that baton is passed to the Open Working Group, recently established and now the talk of every official in European Foreign Ministries I've met recently.

To be continued....

UN Peacemaker: coherence in peacebuilding?

A new set of tools has been launched by the UN aimed at supporting what it calls "peacemaking" efforts by UN agencies, Governments and NGOs. I guess we add "peacemaking" to the lexicon of peacebuilding but the interesting thing about this tool is that it seems to be intended as a resource that gets real investment and becomes well used rather than a website where PDFs of reports get uploaded once in a while, as seems to sadly be the case with other well intentioned initiatives.

This might be a valuable contribution to bringing some coherence to peacebuilding approaches between donors, practitioners on the ground and non governmental actors. And if it does that, then it will have made a really useful contribution. The challenge will be the extent to which the international financial institutions are part of that picture, with the World Bank already having launched something similar.

The UN seems to recognise this and describes the challenge:

"The actions of the international community, including the United Nations, regional, subregional and other organizations, States, NGOs, national and local actors, all have an impact on mediation, even if their engagement in a given mediation process may vary. This diversity can be an asset, as each actor can make unique contributions at different stages of a mediation process. But multiplicity also risks actors working at cross-purposes and competing with each other. Different decision-making bodies, political cultures, legal and normative frameworks, levels of resources and financial and administrative rules and procedures will make coherence, coordination and complementarity difficult".

Here's how the UN describes Peacemaker:

UN Peacemaker is an online mediation support tool developed by the Mediation Support Unit (MSU) in the Policy and Mediation Division of the Department of Political Affairs (DPA).

Intended for peacemaking professionals, it includes an extensive database of peace agreements, guidance material and information on the UN’s mediation support services.

UN Peacemaker is part of the UN’s overall effort to provide advice and support to the Secretary-General and his Representatives in their efforts to resolve international disputes and internal conflicts. It is also intended to be useful to UN partners actively engaged in peacemaking efforts, including Member States, regional organisations, civil society, non-governmental organisations and national mediators.

Re-launch in 2012

Initially launched in 2006, UN Peacemaker is the product of a multi-year learning project drawing on DPA’s leadership and experience in peacemaking and preventive diplomacy.

In the summer of 2011, MSU initiated an end-user analysis in partnership with Swisspeace. In order to adapt UN Peacemaker to the emerging needs of the mediation community, MSU undertook a comprehensive overhaul and update of the website, which was re-launched in 2012. UN Peacemaker has one of the most comprehensive databases of peace agreements with an advanced search function.

Content

Intended to support peacemakers in their efforts to manage peace processes and negotiate peace agreements, the website offers key tools and resources such as:

• A comprehensive database of more than 750 peace agreements.
• Guidance documents on mediation.
• Information on UN mediation support activities and services.
• A library of selected literature on key mediation issues (e.g. power-sharing,
• wealth-sharing, constitutional issues, mediation processes and strategies etc.).
• MSU will also be adding video interviews with mediation experts discussing strategies and tactics on how to manage mediation processes and providing guidance on specific themes.

The overhaul of UN Peacemaker was made possible by the generous support of the governments of Canada, Finland, Germany and Ireland.

Current Management

UN Peacemaker is currently managed by MSU in DPA.

IF revelations... embarrassing yes, possibly counterproductive?

Politics is a funny old game. It leads to unexpected alliances and, as we’ve seen in the UK recently, strains among partners.

Now it seems the large aid NGOs have become embroiled in an odd situation, which threatens to fragment the voices on the future of development just at the time when a coherent voice is arguably most needed.

The story seems to be thus: the large BOAG (British Overseas Aid Group) NGOs wanted to launch a campaign this year, which for a long time was widely known informally as “Make Poverty History II” but has since been labelled “If..”, complete with slick marketing materials and a focus on food, using four lenses of tax, land, aid and transparency. They wanted it to be this year in order to dominate the agenda of the UK’s Presidency of the G8, and influence the course of the High Level Panel on post-2015, of which of course the UK Prime Minister is co-chair. But it seems the campaign was actually planned in minute detail with Government officials who thus helped shape the nature of it. Which raises the pretty obvious question of why it is called a “campaign” at all since its primary target has itself helped shape its agenda, and therefore already shares its aims.

This was suspected by a number of organisations who would normally be part of a campaign such as this, but who have decided not to as a result of its perceived closeness to the UK Government. They point to the credit the campaign routinely bestows on David Cameron, and it was a Freedom of Information request from War on Want that obtained documents revealing just how much the campaign was jointly planned. Unsurprisingly the Trades Union movement has largely kept its distance too.

It’s all turned a bit nasty with War on Want criticising what they see as basically a sell-out. They are:

“..particularly concerned that the IF campaign in promoting a false image of David Cameron and the UK government as leading the fight against global hunger, at a time when nothing could be farther from the truth. A number of the aid agencies at the centre of the IF campaign have already praised the UK prime minister for his “leadership role” in holding a hunger event with Mo Farah and other celebrities at the end of the London 2012 Olympics”

Which brings the rather catty response from the IF campaign:

“Let’s acknowledge that when charities start falling out with each other over the organisation of their campaigns, we risk coming across to the public and to policy-makers like the Judean People’s Front arguing with the People’s Front of Judea in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. That’s regrettable”.

Well, yes. But replying to what seems on the face of it to be a fairly legitimate complaint with language like that is probably not going to do much for Judean national unity.



IF had the sort of launch in the House of Commons that lobbyists working in Westminster dream of – a packed room, addressed by each of the main party leaders, and introduced by the Secretary of State for International Development. Which itself took place after an event at Somerset House that wouldn't have looked out of place at a Hollywood awards dinner. Serious cash was splashed. Following the event one of the leaders of the campaign, Brendan Cox said on social media that he thought he’d witnessed the aid industry “shifting from defence to offence”, before jetting off to the High Level Panel on post-2015 in Monrovia.

I have a lot of sympathy for where those behind IF found themselves. Because their real target isn’t actually David Cameron at all – it’s the people who sit behind him, and as we saw farcically last week, are in many cases actively plotting against him. They don’t like this aid agenda one little bit. So the IF campaign is largely about giving Cameron cover from his own side, which is presumably why the Government was so keen to help.

I understand that. Everyone can understand that. But it might be that in flying so close to the sun, and getting their wings burnt by some embarrassing documents, they’ve undermined that central objective already.

Which is a shame.

Beautiful moon silhouette

Full Moon Silhouettes from Mark Gee on Vimeo.

Amazing film. That is all.

UK Parliament on Post-2015: A missed opportunity

The International Development Select Committee, which scrutinises the Department for International Development (DFID), has issued a long awaited report on the post 2015 agenda. And, frankly, it is a disappointing call to regress to the bad old days of the poorest and most vulnerable being left behind.

The post-2015 debate is about what replaces the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Those countries furthest behind achieving those goals are the ones experiencing armed conflict or emerging from war. It is unlikely any of them will achieve a single MDG.

The reason why, according to Governments and civil society in many of those countries, is the way that the international aid system works, and the fact that the MDGs which the system is geared towards do not address issues around conflict and fragility (or other critical issues such as human rights.)

You may think it common sense that progress against poverty would struggle in situations where the Government is shattered by the legacy of war, corruption is endemic and sections of the population remain subject to routine discrimination and human rights abuses. And you’d be right.

Towards the end of its life the Labour government published a White Paper in 2009 that highlighted conflict, the need to address the role of power and politics, along with corruption, as an obstacle to achieving progress against poverty. In Opposition, both Conservative and Liberal Democrats also emphasised the importance of addressing the conflict issue in development. In Coalition government, they developed new and innovative policies such as Building Stability Overseas (BSOS) while reforming DFID to be in a position to draw on a cadre of conflict and fragility expertise when designing its programmes in unstable areas.

World Development Report: business as usual "not an option"

 All of this new thinking was backed up by the definitive 2011 World Development Report produced by the World Bank, hitherto the lead backer of the MDG approach. This report was in depth, evidence based and authoritative, concluding that business as usual was simply not an option if the 1.5 billion people living in the shadow of violence were themselves to be lifted out of poverty.

Indeed, some of those countries themselves have already fashioned a new way of working, not wanting to wait until 2015, which is called the New Deal for Fragile and Conflict Affected States. In short, they have already recognised that the approach taken by the MDGs does not work, and have designed an alternative. Here’s how they describe themselves:

“The goal of the g7+ is to stop conflict, build nations and eradicate poverty through innovative development strategies, harmonized to the country context, aligned to the national agenda and led by the State and its People”.

So lots of new thinking, evidence based and already being pioneered by people themselves in countries at the bottom of the MDG league such as South Sudan, Somalia and Liberia. You’d think at least some of that might feature in a report on the post 2015 debate.

Yet the Select Committee report essentially calls for a return to a conflict insensitive model of development and, as if you can support development effectively while a country is unstable or ridden with violent conflict, places a premium on simple messaging to retain public support. You assume it is the public of donor countries they are referring to, since public opinion of the way in which the aid system works in many parts of Africa and Asia is far from complimentary and is clear on the need of ordinary people for security.

The report isn’t all bad.

Not surprisingly, it supports the Prime Minister’s declared ambition to eliminate extreme poverty, and echoes the call many others have made for an agenda of environmentally sustainable development.

The Committee offers useful recommendations on the need to disaggregate data collection to avoid persistent local poverty being masked by rapid advances elsewhere, and on the importance of job creation which they argue warrants explicit reference as a goal.

And they make a cogent argument for clarity on the opaque inter-governmental process ahead for deciding on the new development framework, and suggest some flexibility on timescales to be built in with the proposal for 5 yearly checks on progress.

An inconvenient factor

Yet in missing the big picture, and ignoring the references to the experience in conflict affected states that were contained in at least five separate submissions to their Inquiry, the Committee struggles to get to grips with the major factors preventing progress being made for so many people.

This is most evident in their section on Governance. Here, they chide the Prime Minister for having given, they claim, two different definitions of his “Golden Thread” theory, which he has defined repeatedly as being about “stable government, lack of corruption, human rights, the rule of law [and] transparent information.” They point out that in a different speech he erred by quoting “access to markets, property rights [and] private sector investment.”

Ignoring the fact that access to markets and property rights are manifestations of stable government and the rule of law, the Committee then goes on to suggest three vaguely defined additions to the concept: empowerment, fairness and collectivity.

It does not explain what it means by any of these concepts (empowering who? Fairness on what? Collectivity of whom?), just suggests them as useful additions. By contrast they have nothing to say about political participation of citizens outside of election time, nothing about the role of legitimate institutions building democratic as well as conflict resolving capacity and nothing about the inclusion of marginalised groups.

At the heart of this missed opportunity the Committee seems to understand “governance” mainly in terms of service delivery: health care, education and so on. Nobody would dispute the importance of effective public services, but in ignoring the pioneering work in refashioning approaches to development which first seek to understand conflict and then design ways in which jointly owned interventions can actually generate progress without risking harm, the Committee has issued a throwback and retrograde report which predates all of that, teleporting us back to the middle of the last decade.

And in doing so, it has done us all a disservice, not least the poorest and most vulnerable who depend on us learning from past mistakes.

Ireland: Flags or Fertility?

The last few weeks in Northern Ireland have stirred feelings of dread on both sides of the Irish sea as scenes have played out that all of us hoped had been consigned to the blood soaked pages of the history books.

A vote to lower the Union flag at Belfast City Hall has led to nightly rioting in which tens of policemen and women have been injured and countless families terrorised, including some who have had to flee their homes. The vote reflected the new balance of power in the City Hall, which now has a nationalist majority, albeit slim.

And therein lies the nub of the issue. Is this about a flag or is it about a birthrate?

Northern Ireland is global ground zero for the fetishisation of flags - I remember arriving in Belfast one evening to find Palestinian and Israeli flags fluttering from the same lampposts where previously Union Jacks and Irish Tricolours had once flown. Asking why I was soon told that some Loyalists had liked the idea of an Israeli crackdown on some Palestinian nationalist protestors so had flown the Jewish nations's colours. Immediately this brought the response on the nationalist side of Palestinian solidarity.

So their own conflict was not enough, they needed an infusion from the Middle East.

But is it really what it seems or is there something deeper at play? Specifically it seems to be a recognition that in a province where ethnic politics rules the numbers game is tipping inexorably toward the Catholic population. Northern Ireland, in common with most democratising areas, and unlike regions with established democracies, has an ethnic party system. In other words you vote on the basis of your kin, not the issues.

In that situation, replayed across many post conflict societies, you dont vote on issues but on ethnicity. Because it soon acquires a zero sum game status - your loss is their gain and vice versa - even if you agree with the other sides view on education, health or housing.

When the New York Times interviewed one protestor he said this:

“If we lose this one, we’ll have a united Ireland in 5 or 10 years, and we won’t accept it,” he said. “We’ll die to defend the flag. If we have to, we’ll go back to the graveyards and the jails.”



And that, it seems to me, is what all of this is about. Not a flag, not the City Hall, but a sense among the Unionist population that the tide of history is turning inexorably against them. And they may be right. The question now is whether the structures put in place by the Good Friday Agreement that I remember being signed as snow fell around the Stormont buildings can hold under the strain. I remember well the hopes we had for that, captured for me by the Cranberries at the time.

That agreement stipulated that the majority will would prevail - consent. With a changing population it will not be long before the will of the people changes with it.

And that, perhaps, might explain the venom behind the rocks these past weeks.

Being Jewish in Iran

Fascinating short film from France24 in their series on Iran this week, which profiles the large and apparently thriving Jewish community in the country. At one boy's bar mitzvah he is seen talking about his Muslim friends and Muslim diners are seeing mixing with Jewish party goers pouring each other generous portions from a large bottle of very alcoholic wine, judging by the slightly tipsy man carrying the bottle who claims "we've never had any problems"!

I spent much of last year studying Shia Islam and the social movements that have emerged from within it, particularly looking at how they frame their arguments and position themselves within the Shia discourse, in so doing mobilising supporters and resources in pursuit of change.

What became obvious was that the analytical tools we in the West use to try to understand those things fall at the first hurdle because the frameworks we use are based on western assumptions. For example, the assumption that such movements want to seize power at the earliest opportunity – when in fact they may envisage decades of altering society before wanting to do so, seeing themselves as part of a continuum of change lasting centuries. In many ways you could argue the seizure of power by Khomeini was a result more of the implosion of the Pahlavi regime than an active programme on his part to bring it about as soon as possible.

Imam Khomeini: not in a hurry?

Equally, wider theories of Iran’s pursuit of an “arc” of Shia influence across the Middle East, long put forward by some, is quite difficult to sustain when you scrutinise it.

The regime’s tolerance of a Jewish community, right at the heart of the Bazaars of Teheran that swept away the Shah, is also an aspect of the country not widely known, while the fervent nationalism of the Jewish surgeon and parliamentarian in the film runs counter to what a Western narrative might predict.

What all of that tells you, as ever, is that things are not always as they seem. No surprises there. But sometimes we need reminding, and this film is a really fascinating way of doing that.