by Richard Gowan | Jul 14, 2009 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Global system, North America
Ban Ki-moon has given a long and enlightening interview to the Wall Street Journal (which duly responded by publishing a rather mean article about his time as Secretary-General). It contains quite a lot of interesting stuff on individual crises and his leadership style. But what dominates the conversation is his pessimism about the UN’s shrinking place in the world:
Mr. Ban: There should be a clear understanding what kind of a role do you expect, and what kind of a role the United Nations should play at this time, in the 21st century. Your philosophical views of the United Nations may be still like in the 1960s, ’70s or ’80s at the latest. Your view of the United Nations is not 21st century. During the Cold War era, the United Nations might have been the only and most universal organization in the international community. But you are still looking at the early stage of that time of the United Nations. Now you have the European Union, African Union and League of Arab States and many regional and sub-regional and quite big organizations. There are many actors now. It used to be the United States and the Soviet Union until lately. Now you have all the European leaders, Germans, French, the European Commission. Many other European powers with quite high economic development. The European Union has now emerged as a political player, a global player.
It used to be only the United States. Now the United States is still the global power, but still one of the global powers. The United Nations has become one of the global players, it’s not the only one. Therefore you cannot expect all from the Secretary General. Those days are over.
At this point in the interview a “senior aide” steps into point out that the UN is very busy with peacekeeping, aid delivery, etc. – which was not exactly the SG’s theme. What’s striking about this passage is that Ban seems to have a pretty strong analysis of the way the world is going (i.e. away from the UN) combined with a nostalgia for a time that never existed. There was never a moment where the UN was a sole, unquestioned source of authority in world affairs. Yes, people talked like that in 1945 – and again, very briefly, in the early 1990s – but it was always rhetoric not reality. Every Secretary-General has had to struggle against global divisions. This is not new.
But Ban has not finished on the subject of his limited power:
Well, there are many areas where I can’t do, where even the Americans can not do. I’m not supposed to be responsible for anything happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan–all this political situation. But we are concentrating on how can we mobilize humanitarian assistance for all these affected people, displaced persons. We have no peacekeepers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The whole dynamics have changed.
[ . . . ]
You have seen North Korea, you have seen Iran, you have seen many countries who have not implemented Security Council resolutions, which are binding. There really isn’t any forceful enforcement capacity of the United Nations, legally speaking. That’s why President Bush took that action by creating multinational forces in Iraq because the Security Council was divided. So all this kind of blame and criticism comes to the Secretary General, that the U.N. is not able to address these issues. I want you to understand.
I can see what Ban is trying to do here, showing that he is a realist. But even if the Secretary-General has a limited conception of his role, he should still have a strategy to make use of what power he has. He needs to lay one out.
by David Steven | Jul 14, 2009 | Africa, Influence and networks
Despite being oil rich, Nigeria is desperately energy poor. Per capita electricity consumption is half that of nearby Ghana and even this limited supply is shockingly unreliable.
When the power shuts down – which it does all the time – people sit in the dark or, if they’re lucky, fire up generators that cost the country $140 billion to fuel (add a chunk more for capital and maintenance costs).
On Twitter, there’s an online demonstration going on at the moment against this crazy situation – with huge numbers of tweets using the #lightupnigeria hashtag. “I know a Doctor that once operated in moonlight because the generator refused to come on!” Olunfunmike writes, “Let’s make a change.”
Please join them – and spread the word. (Cool photo – courtesy plastiqq. Find me on Twitter.)
Update: There’s a newish Facebook group too.
Update II: NEPA – Nigeria’s National Electric Power Authority – needs $3.4bn investment over the next five years. At present, however, it’s operating at a huge loss, in part because it only manages to get customers to pay for 60% of the electricity they use (as one customer puts it, “NEPA doesn’t give me light, but at the end of the month a bill would arrive and they would expect me to pay? I don’t think so.”)
President Obsaanjo has pleaded with the company to at least warn customers of impending power cuts (load shedding) before they happen, but many Nigerians believe that’s all he’s doing – pleading for change.
Last year, a Parliamentary investigative panel claimed that $16bn has been spent on the power system, without delivering much increase in supply.
The House of Representatives investigation alleged that Mr Obasanjo’s government had paid millions of dollars to 34 “non-existent companies”. The committee visited the sites where power stations were meant to be built. It found no work had been done at some sites after several years.
Defending his record, Mr Obasanjo said his government had inherited 18 years of neglect in the power generation industry, and had done well to more than double power supply. Gas pipeline vandalism had hampered power generation. One damaged pipeline took two years to repair, he said. To “the uninitiated” it would seem like no work had been done on the power stations, but the reality was that millions of dollars had been “invested”, he said.
But he said the investigation into the power sector may actually hamper improvement, and jeopardise Nigeria’s development. Private partners were being chased away by the probe because they feared being “criminalised”.
Update III: There’s a logo now.
(more…)
by Alex Evans | Jul 14, 2009 | What we're watching
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzrAht2Ob1o[/youtube]
by Alex Evans | Jul 14, 2009 | Cooperation and coherence, Influence and networks, North America, UK
The State Department announced at the end of last week that it plans to undertake a ‘Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review’, the rationale being that,
Our success in exercising effective global leadership depends upon a robust and effective State Department and USAID working side-by-side with a strong military. By using all the tools of American power, we can pave the way for shared peace, progress and prosperity. This comprehensive approach is the essence of smart power.
The final report will lay out:
The baseline: An assessment of (1) the range of global threats, challenges and opportunities both today and over the next two decades that should inform our diplomatic and development strategies; and (2) the current status of our approaches to diplomacy and development, with emphasis on the relationship between diplomacy and development in our existing policies and structures.
The ends: A clear statement of our overarching foreign policy and development objectives, our specific policy priorities, and our expected results, with an emphasis on the achievable and not merely the desirable.
The ways: A set of recommendations on the strategies needed to achieve these results, including the timing and sequencing of decisions and implementation.
The means: A set of recommendations on (1) the tools and resources needed to implement the strategy; and (2) management and organizational reforms that will improve outcomes and efficiency.
The metrics: A set of recommendations on performance measures to assess outcomes, and–where feasible–impacts.
The links: An assessment of how the results and recommendations of this review fit into broader interagency, whole-of-government approaches, and into the Administration’s larger foreign policy framework.
The review will be led by Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Jacob Lew, and co-chaired by Director of Policy Planning Anne-Marie Slaughter and by the Administrator of USAID (still to be appointed). All this is of course very much in keeping with recent National Security Council reforms that set up a new Global Engagement Directorate tasked with driving “comprehensive engagement policies that leverage diplomacy, communications, international development and assistance, and domestic engagement and outreach”.
It also raises the question: why can’t we have a similarly integrated strategy process in the UK? DFID’s just done a White Paper; the Ministry of Defence has announced a strategic defence review; FCO revised its strategic priorities last February; but at what point do all of these get melded together into a coherent overall strategy? Surprise: they don’t.
David and I argued two years ago that the UK government needed to undertake an overall global issues strategy – a goal that remains as distant as ever, it seems…
