New Deal Postscript: Time for action

Last week I wrote about real concerns over the future of the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States, ahead of a meeting on the fringes of the World Bank’s Spring Meetings in Washington. It seemed as if despite best intentions, innovative thinking and early momentum old habits were creeping back in to even this new model of doing development.

On the ground relations between local civil society and their national governments were being stymied while meetings were increasingly being dominated by power politics, rather than collective visioning of a better future which dealt with the complex drivers of conflict and instability. Despite this, we were still seeing a series of communiques and declarations proclaiming the bright new future that the New Deal was delivering; it had begun to look like nobody could spot the elephant in the room.

So, how did they do in DC?

Well they have a sense of humour these policy elites, as I understand the room was informed that the communique was final, not for debate and could we all applaud it please. A ripple of polite acclamation ensued as eager eyes scanned the detail, haggled over behind closed doors hours earlier. 

It was, as ever, a compromise and probably the best they could do. It clings to the idea that the New Deal has already been transformative:

“the New Deal has had significant impact in influencing the discourse and policies of international and national partners, at both global and at country levels”

But introduces a welcome note of humility:

“The initial progress and results achieved in the implementation of the New Deal in a number of self-nominated pilot countries give grounds for optimism and provide the basis for increased efforts”.

Grounds for optimism. I can live with that. But then it gets a bit better:

“We now urge g7+ governments, bilateral and multilateral development partners, civil society, and the broader international community to step up their efforts to translate New Deal commitments into concrete changes in behaviour and practice, in support to country-owned and country-led priorities, and consistent with national law and internationally agreed principles”.

Note concrete changes changes required – not delivered – required. And:

“Development partners are encouraged to implement policy and operational reforms to align with the New Deal, in particular the TRUST commitments. Efforts to manage risks, increase the use of country systems - with appropriate financial management in place and consistent with national laws and internationally agreed principles - and to support the building of national capacities, including of civil society, for example, should be enhanced”.

Not perfect, but attention to building civil society capacity also good.

Much of this was not in the original draft communique, and reflects the fact that some of the hard truths told to power at this meeting were at least heard and reflected upon. Attention to actually changing policies and practices, and embedding local consultation with communities in the business of development and governance, receives a welcome shot in the arm.

So the meeting seems to have made a positive contribution. But a communique is only ever a communique. And the acid test for the New Deal, surely, is what now happens on the ground, particularly in those countries currently piloting its implementation.

Civil society, at national and international level, has a vital role to play in monitoring and assisting that process, with governments and donors held to account for what they do next. A positive focus on that, rather than shouting about what we don’t like in the latest communique might be the most productive strategy to follow.

There’s a lot riding on how the New Deal works in practice, and not only for the G7+, or other countries nominally classed as “fragile”. Experience since 2000 teaches that building participatory relationships between communities and those that seek to govern them goes to the heart of whether development itself works; get that wrong, and the poorest stay poor while the vulnerable remain so.

Get that right, on the other hand, not just in rhetoric but in reality, in the run up to 2015 and we might be looking at a fundamental and positive re-casting of international development itself as the rest of the world takes notice.

High stakes indeed.

Global elite address conflict

Heads will be collectively scratched in Washington on Friday at a mystery. Why do the world's elites not spot an emperor with no clothes on?

As the great and the good gather for the Spring Meetings of the World Bank they will also be mulling over what the international development agenda could or should look like after the expiry of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). They are not short of ideas, as we saw in London when the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons established by the UN Secretary General were subjected to a two hour mass lobby.

Tony Blair recently said "to decide is to divide" and there is no doubting the difficulty of making the priority call on a long list of vital issues to include in the next global set of targets to measure how the world is doing by its most vulnerable and poorest citizens.

Yet there is one subject, almost uniquely, that both the elite and the development lobby agree on: we have to do something about conflict. A quick look at the MDG league table reveals the stark reality that the poorest and most vulnerable have been left behind by the old way of doing things, with no conflict affected country set to meet a single MDG.

It's not difficult to see why. Conflict is political but the MDGs are technical. Conflict takes generations to tackle, but the MDGs set a 15 year deadline. In short conflict goes to the heart of the relationship between the governing class and the governed. And that raises all sorts of tricky questions. Best stick with counting the schools we've built. Even if the children can't get to them for fear of kidnap.

And, worryingly, the emerging post 2015 consensus seems to be repeating the mistake if you judge by recent communiques, speeches and statements.What seems obvious - a development goal on peace - is being quietly side-stepped.

Last year the chief author of the MDGs, Mark Malloch-Brown, told me that for the next generation of development goals to tackle the political, long term and tricky issues of governance would be the achievement of a generation. And those countries affected by conflict agree, with the G7+ group of nations having formed a new partnership with donors called the New Deal for Engagement with Fragile States, or the New Deal for short. It sets out a new partnership for doing development, based on transparency, local ownership, accountability and trust.

The good news is that the New Deal learns the lessons from the MDGs. It establishes that:

• Peace and security are essential for broader progress on development, and that this should be explicitly acknowledged in the post-MDG framework;
• That transitioning out of fragility is a long political process that requires country leadership and ownership; 
• That fragile countries need to set the priorities for the way aid in which aid is spent in their countries while; 
• Mutual accountability mechanisms need to established between donor and recipients based on transparency and trust. 

Led by East Timor and a group of fragile states from across the world the New Deal was hailed at the time. Ban Ki Moon said the New Deal was a

"...significant – and welcome – contribution to a more equitable and productive partnership between fragile states and their development partners"

While US Secretary of State Clinton was equally impressed:

"The New Deal for Fragile States, which [the g7+] have developed from the very beginning, is an exciting and fresh approach that has the chance to deliver real results."

UN Post 2015 Consultation for Africa

The problem is, it hasn't. At least not yet. Implementation has been slow and meetings designed to steer its implementation have started to be characterised by a lack of willingness by governments to engage local civil society while at the international level there seems to be a conspicuous lack of reference to the New Deal in almost any post 2015 debate. While I was at the UN Global Thematic Consultation on Conflict, Fragility and Disaster in Liberia last year, President Sirleaf had to make a personal intervention before it was put on the agenda at all. Powerpoints were hurriedly updated over dinner.

Are we in danger of repeating the same mistakes of 2000?

Amid the enthusiasm at the new way of working represented by the New Deal we knew this point would come. Power politics was always going to take centre stage. Muscles flexed and quiet words had.

The meeting on the 19th is a chance to air those issues and get the New Deal back to being centre stage. It's not perfect, and this is also a chance to discuss its shortcomings. Questions to be posed to participants, which will include Jim Yong Kim President of the World Bank, Rajiv Shah the Director of USAID, Helen Clark Head of the United Nations Development Programme,  Judy Cheng-Hopkins Director of the UN Peace Building Support Office and  Klaus Rudischauser Deputy Director General, Development and Cooperation at the European Commission include:

• What are some of the key achievements, opportunities and challenges to deliver change through the New Deal at the country level?
• What can the New Deal and the International Dialogue contribute to redefine the new development agenda?
• How can states and societies affected by conflict and fragility best make their voices heard, taking a lead role in shaping such an agenda?
• What does it take to implement the New Deal?

Difficult questions, all. But with a participant list consisting of the global policy making elite, who themselves will be joined by Ministers from across the world, including fragile states, Friday will be the time to ask them. If you're in Washington, go along. The event, billed as "The New Deal: Achieving better results and shaping the global agenda", will take place at the Willard Hotel, 1401 Pennsylvania Ave NW between 1400-1600. There may be sandwiches.

You have to hope the answers coming back from the panel inspire more confidence than many of us trying our best to support this process feel at the moment. 1.5 billion people depend on them. The emperor must be clothed. 

Rebels & Army talk across the battlefield

Extraordinary scenes captured here by Free Syrian Army forces of a dialogue between a defected Sergeant, who identifies himself as such complete with his unit, and an unidentified Army soldier a few yards away. The subject of discussion starts with what the Army soldier says was the killing of a relative by the rebels, but soon moves on to the nature of the Syria they are both fighting for.

What's incredibly sad is that they both pretty much want the same thing, a multi ethnic Syria based on freedom from fear. And then they start negotiating another defection. Such is the irony of war.

Civil Society issue "red flag" to High Level Panel

Bali: final stop on High Level Panel tour

A select group of civil society groups met last week in Bonn, Germany, to discuss the last lap of the High Level Panel on post 2015, meeting this week in the Indonesian resort of Bali. Several members of the panel itself joined the NGO-ers, and commended them on the work of the Beyond2015 coalition and others thus far.

In fact, in clear signs to my mind of eyes turning to a post-High Level Panel world, several of them urged civil society to see themselves as the real custodians of the debate as opposed to the panel who would soon disband, following the presentation of their final report to the UN Secretary General next month.

Amina Mohamed, the UNSG's representative to the panel, urged national CSOs to lobby national parliaments to shape the agenda while Homi Kharas of Brookings, lead author of the final report, spoke at length on the central role of inequality. While the global measure of $1.25 a day was a useful barometer, he argued that achieving transformative change had to go beyond dollars and cents and mean the removal of barriers to opportunity for all. Music to the ears of the rightly vociferous disability lobby, for example, which to my mind has emerged as one of the more well organised and influential lobbies among the many runners and riders we heard back in London, at the panel's first meeting.

Kharas: lead author

But amid the love there was discord and concern, and this has been captured by a "red flag" communique issued by the CSOs to the panel as they meet in Bali. And it seems the role of the private sector is central to their ire:

"...we are deeply concerned about the direction that the High Level on Post 2015 Development may take, particularly as regards the roles that government, business and multilateral institutions in any sustainable development agenda"

Having warned against a model that would exacerbate existing inequalities they went on, pointedly turning David Cameron's metaphor of a "Golden Thread" on its head, in wording that will not go unnoticed by Justine Greening, DFID Secretary of State representing the British Prime Minister at the summit:

"The 'poison threads' in society -- like corporate land grabs that impoverish communities, an unjust global trade and financial architecture, corruption and privatisation of social services like education, health, water and sanitation -- must be addressed. We must create some rules and remove others to ensure that the global frameworks do not constrain human rights and development goals."



Cameron: rhetorical target

Tough stuff. And I fear the anti-corporate tone of it, along with the dubious political wisdom of rhetorically poking David Cameron in the eye, may distract from the very relevant point that conflict insensitive business practices can inflame sensitive situations and reverse development gains. I'm also not sure how clever the choice of "red flag" as a motif for a lobby seeking to influence right-of-centre politicians is, but that's a minor point perhaps.

On a positive note they have this to say about peace and conflict itself:

"No society can develop in an environment of fear and insecurity. Peace is not simply the absence of violence nor is conflict limited to fragile states; it is based on dignity, social justice, the fulfilment of human rights and well-being for all. Violence and conflicts are often products of struggles for resource control, lack of decent work and livelihoods, inequalities, failed structures and corporate interests.”

“The Post 2015 framework should be conflict-sensitive and ensure the safety, security and sustainability of life, ensure an end to gender-based violence, promote social cohesion, people’s participation and foster an environment where people live in freedom and with ownership and control of their own resources.”

The document itself is generally quite a strong series of normative pegs to measure the panel’s final report against: planetary boundaries, gender justice and accountability feature large as they should, for example.

And as all eyes start to look beyond the horizon to a post-panel world, with the Open Working Group already having had their inaugural meeting and set to take on the baton at the September General Assembly debate, it is beginning to look like the outlines of the global civil society shopping list are slowly starting to emerge.

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.