by Charlie Edwards | Apr 29, 2008 | Africa, Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Economics and development, Global system, South Asia
What are the connections between climate change and migration? Not as obvious as one might think… one of the conversations we’ve been having in the coffee break is the lack of hard evidence when it comes to the relationship(s) between development, conflict, and climate change and the increasing difficulty to demonstrate cause and effect. Rhetorically making the connections between cause and effect (between climate change and migration) is pretty easy and serves a useful purpose – it highlights an issue and a set of tangible actions that the government can either deliver on or think further about. But there two things we need to take into account.
Firstly, everyone seems to agree there is a real dearth of evidence on the causal links between risks and issues. Much of what we know rests on stories, specific observations, estimates (or in some cases guesstimates) and anecdotes. All of these are time and context specific and yet they can have a major effect on the system often resulting in superficial and perverse actions. For one thing it is much easier for governments and international institutions to focus on ‘food bombing’, ‘blanket throwing’ and ‘water distribution’ than identifying and managing root causes which demands sophisticated, process driven approaches based on a shared awareness of the problem and a common agenda.
This leads to a second issue – that we don’t have a standard approach across the system to conflict or fragile and failing states and as we don’t always agree on the scale and nature of the problem we (government’s, international institutions and NGOs) end up taking quite differing approaches (so for example we focus on public education when we should be thinking of risk reduction)… this doesn’t mean we should be looking for a unified theory of development, as one NGO person scoffed at but it does mean evidence becomes a key factor in how we manage the problems in the future.
by Daniel Korski | Apr 29, 2008 | Conflict and security, Economics and development, UK
Despite having practically invented modern counter-insurgency, today Britain is woefully ill-equipped for this kind of complex, mosaic-style warfare. The Times, echoing David’s post from a few days ago, has picked up on the problems Britain has in spending money in places like Afghanistan.
As readers will know, even though the Labour government sought to overcome the problems of “departmentalism” in 1997 with the promotion of “joined-up” government and the creation of cross-departmental funding mechanisms, through the Global Conflict Pools, one of its main innovations – the creation of a stand-alone Department for International Development – militated against the kind of close civil-military cooperation necessary in post-conflict operations.
This stands in sharp contrast to the U.S, which – led by David Petraeus and his band of “neo-coins” – has revamped its approach entirely.
How to solve the problem in Britain is contentious issue, which I debated on the Guardian website a few weeks ago (see here and here).
The only way to resolve it is to rewrite the International Development Act. Yes, I know that the Act itself does not prevent DfiD from spending funds, but it creates a cultural ethos inside the department, which militates again the necessary kind of flexibility and cooperative links with the military.
(more…)
by Alex Evans | Apr 29, 2008 | North America, UK
Sam Coates at The Times reports from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in DC last week (“where the President and Washington press corps show Hollywood what self-congratulation is all about”). Along with “Ben Affleck, Colin Powell, Pamela Anderson, Henry Kissinger, Marcia Cross, Jenny McCarthy and other A-listers”, the guest list also included British Government Chief Whip Geoff Hoon and his special adviser:
According to one witness, they walked down the middle of the red carpet of the Washington Hilton, and about 200 teenage girls and boys behind police barriers started screaming. The informant claims Geoff thought this is for him and his special adviser, looks bemused and poses for the cameras. He fails to notice Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner right behind. Sadly the Hoon pictures haven’t made the international wires…
by Richard Gowan | Apr 28, 2008 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia
This just in from the BBC:
The head of the UN mission in Kosovo, Joachim Ruecker, has said he expects it to stay, throwing into doubt a planned June handover to EU officials. Mr Ruecker told the BBC that the extent of co-operation with the EU mission “had yet to be decided”.
“One thing is for sure,” Mr Ruecker said. “As long as [UN Security Council] resolution 1244 is in place, we will always have a UN responsibility for Kosovo, and the exact shape and form of that UN mission is yet to be decided.”
Mr Ruecker indicated that the UN might have to work alongside the EU’s police and justice mission (Eulex). “We do take note of the fact that Eulex is coming in, Eulex is deploying, and in principle we do not want to duplicate, also for the international tax-payers sake. But whether and how there can be co-operation with EULEX has yet to be decided.”
Well, you can’t say I didn’t tell you this was coming over the weekend- and don’t forget that Balkan Guru Korski and I also have a plan about what to do next…
by Richard Gowan | Apr 28, 2008 | North America, UK
Would you rather be a member of the liberal left on the western or eastern side of the Atlantic right now? Not easy. Labour’s in free-fall. The Democrats are devising innovative ways to lose an election that they should own. But Jackie Ashley at the Guardian still sees cause for hope: Gordon might be the new Hillary.
There can’t be a lot that cheers Gordon Brown over his morning porridge, but if he turns to the foreign pages he might ponder the Hillary effect. In Hillary Clinton, we see a politician loathed by a big section of the population, written off, jeered at, ordered to leave the stage, who, by sheer dogged determination – and by fighting, not quitting – has not only managed a comeback but earned grudging respect.
We have become very used to demanding resignations and calling “off with his head” at the slightest provocation. There has been a strange, semi-hysterical mood around Brown, a kind of national rage that he doesn’t either crumble in public or just bog off.
But all is not lost. Gordon is displaying “gritty determination” just like Hillary:
There may come a time when people begin to tire of the hysteria and see this. The Hillary effect is that just buggering on, to use Churchill’s phrase, can win people round.
Stirring stuff. But stirring stuff that suggests that the author is not entirely au fait with the mood among her U.S. counterparts. You want “a strange, semi-hysterical mood”? Then turn to the op-ed page of the New York Times. You’d think McCain was already ensconced in the White House. Here’s Bob Herbert (admittedly an Obama advocate, if now a jittery one) writing in Saturday’s edition:
Anger is growing like a cancer among Democrats. The Clintons have more than lived up to their polarizing reputations, slicing and dicing the electorate and then gleefully exploiting the myriad divisions. Their message varies, depending on whether it’s in public or behind the scenes. But the mantra is roughly as follows: Obama won’t win! He can’t win whites. Jeremiah Wright! He can’t win women. He can’t win Hispanics. He’ll lose Jewish voters. Farrakhan! We’ll nuke Iran.
The share of Clinton voters who have been telling exit pollsters that they will not vote for Senator Obama if he wins the nomination is inching toward the red zone. At the same time, there is growing resentment of the Clintons’ tactics among Obama partisans, especially the young and African-Americans.
What we’re witnessing here — in what was supposed to have been a championship season for Democrats — is a potential train wreck.
Herbert immediately goes on to say that this isn’t just the doing of the Clintons: Obama bears responsibility too. But while Ashley talks about “buggering on”, the Democrats look like they’re buggering up. You want a piece of this, Labour?
