Colleen Duggan1
UNDP’s Role in Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in Crisis and
Post-Crisis Countries2
Contents:
1. OVERVIEW OF UNDP INVOLVEMENT
2. ADDRESSING PROBLEMS OF DISCONNECT AND OPERABILITY WITHIN
THE UNITED NATIONS
2.1 At the Headquarters Level
2.2 At the Field Level
3. CONCLUSION
4. DIAGRAM: CURRENT SITUATION FOR CRISIS COUNTRY MANAGEMENT
1. Overview of UNDP Involvement
In recent years, UNDP has been increasingly called upon to
assist countries in the transition from crisis to post-crisis situations. During
this same period, more than 40 per cent of the official development assistance
managed by the United Nations has been dedicated to emergency relief operations
resulting from crises whose roots often lie in religious or ethnic cleavages and
the social exclusion of sectors of individuals from crucial decision-making
processes which will affect their lives and the lives of their children.
Clearly, most humanitarian emergencies, particularly those of the human-made
variety, are often precipitated by, and are always accompanied by the widespread
disregard of fundamental human rights.
By virtue of its large field presence, UNDP country offices
are at the forefront of response to complex emergencies. These flashpoint
countries not only pose a threat to international, regional or local peace and
security; They provoke massive population dislocations and obliterate the
results of years of Sustainable Human Development gains by destroying economic
infrastructures, decapacitating legitimate political systems, undermining
indigenous coping capacities and wreaking havoc upon the physical environment.
Where violations of humanitarian and human rights law have been particularly
egregious and widespread, chances for renewed nation building and reconciliation
among the civilian population become remote.
Any effective development strategy for response to crises and
the trauma of their aftermath must be cognizant of the cause and effect linkages
mentioned above. By addressing the social, economic, political and at times,
cultural human rights related causes of crises, development can often play a
crucial preventive role before crisis breaks out. In the same way, an enhanced
understanding of the complex interdependence between the strengthening of
democratic structures, respect for human rights, civic participation,
socio-economic development and peace building can prevent a reoccurrence of
conflict. The conclusion is that a human rights based approach to development in
countries undergoing or emerging from complex humanitarian emergencies
(euphemistically known as "Countries in Special Development Situations" in UNDP)
should prioritize initiatives for conflict prevention, recovery, rehabilitation
and eventually, reconciliation. The promotion and protection of human rights is
at the very heart of such a strategy.
The development problems posed by the complexities of
pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis environments have lead UNDP to reflect upon
the impact it can have in Countries in Special Development Situations. In order
to tackle the particular challenges of these countries, in 1995 UNDP’s Executive
Board allocated five per cent of core resources towards a new programming
arrangement. These resources (approximately US$ 150 million over a five year
period) are meant to be catalytic in nature and are earmarked to help coordinate
rapid response, promote reintegration and participatory processes, strengthen
governance and launch recovery programmes.
In the area of preventive development, UNDP is learning to
recognize signs of early warning such as parliamentary crises or discontent in
pockets of minorities who are perhaps discriminated against by economic or
social policies. Such cases merit immediate development initiatives; Protective
mechanisms such as electoral or human rights commissions can be strengthened to
backstop the overall national capacity for governance, thus reducing the chance
of political instability. The human rights of vulnerable groups and minorities
can be specifically addressed within national development strategies in order to
guarantee that these groups do not look to alternate sources for protection.
During periods of crisis, UNDP activities are in themselves
preventive in that they aim to avert the denial of the right to development. By
sustaining livelihoods and seeking to strengthen local coping mechanisms and
maintain social services, massive population dislocations, can be minimized or
avoided, thereby reducing the scope and duration of the humanitarian emergency.
In complex emergencies, the UN Resident Co-ordinator (not always, but most often
the UNDP Resident) is often called upon to act as the Humanitarian Co-ordinator.
This offers a unique forward-looking opportunity to bridge relief and
development activities by ensuring that dependencies are not created and that a
country’s development capacity for recovery and rehabilitation is not undermined
by prolonged relief assistance.
In may cases, governments undergoing or emerging from
conflicts have neither the time nor the capacity to plan for the future and to
optimize the vastly increased assistance that is associated with impending
peace. Strategic Frameworks for Recovery facilitate a holistic approach to
relief and development by promoting the primacy of national ownership and
complementing domestic resources with international support.
In the aftermath of war, through programmes of training and
employment, UNDP affords ex-combatants the opportunity to trade in their weapons
and become productive members of society. Area rehabilitation and development
schemes are designed to address the social and economic rights of returning
ex-combatants, internally displaced persons and returning refugees, by enabling
or reinforcing the capacity of receiving communities to reintegrate these new
residents. UNDP area development schemes start up in earnest when humanitarian
agencies begin to wind down. By aiming at alleviating war-induced deprivation,
they can be meaningful instruments of confidence building between estranged
groups, thus advancing community stabilization, ethnic or religious
accommodation and eventually, reconciliation. The above activities are often
preceded by mine action programmes that raise awareness of the danger of
landmines and strengthen national capacity for mine removal so that productive
agricultural land does not remain idle.
Reconstruction, recovery and reconciliation cannot advance in
the absence of basic human security and strong national institutions that
protect and guarantee the most fundamental human rights. In most post-conflict
societies, governance institutions charged with upholding the rule of law have
been polarized and face severe financial and technical difficulties resulting
from years of neglect. UNDP is instrumental in supporting countries in
democratic transition by providing necessary assistance for judicial reform,
prison administration and demilitarization through the training of civil police
forces. The promotion of genuine reconciliation requires supporting countries in
their efforts to come to grips with past history of human rights violations,
either through investigative or "truth-telling" commissions, depending upon what
mechanisms have been decided upon through democratic processes. The development
of peaceful methods of conflict resolution, particularly at the local level and
the inclusion of all actors in the development process are safeguards against
exclusive policies, which often generate conflict. In the final analysis, the
presence of a strong civil society that is aware of its human rights and expects
its government to promote and protect them, is the greatest guarantee of all
against crisis.
2. Addressing Problems of Disconnect and Operability within
the United Nations
In the most complex human right scenarios today, the
principle dilemma of the UN is how to tackle the problem of disconnect between
political, humanitarian, human rights and development objectives. Solving this
problem is at the heart of current proposals for UN organizational reform best
illustrated in the Secretary General’s report "Renewing the United Nations: A
Programme for Reform".3
Since the end of the Cold War, the UN has been increasingly
called upon to intervene in failing or failed States, which fall into
essentially three categories:
i) Fractured or disintegrating states such as Somalia;
ii) States whose governments enjoy varying degrees of
acceptance and legitimacy in the eyes of the international community, e.g.
Afghanistan;
iii) So-called "rogue states" where power has been seized
through undemocratic means, e.g. Sierra Leone.
In such states, intervention to end the worst war-related
human rights atrocities becomes exceedingly difficult when different UN bodies
are operating in function to their differing mandates. During complex
humanitarian emergencies, particularly those of a protracted nature, effective
conflict management becomes virtually impossible in the absence of ground rules
and clear policy directives to guide the multitude of international actors
involved (regional Organisations, international financial institutions, UN, NGOs
and bilateral cooperants). As is well known, humanitarian assistance is often
manipulated by parties to a conflict, an unfortunate occurrence when the
targeted violation of the human rights of civilians is being employed as a
method of warfare. For relief workers, any kind of human rights conditionality
is overruled by the cardinal principles of humanitarianism. An equivalent
divergence exists at the political level, where human rights protection often
takes a back seat to the delicate negotiations surrounding a cease-fire. In this
scenario, guaranteeing the protection of the most basic human rights becomes
close to impossible as human rights concerns are eclipsed by what are considered
to be more immediate and pressing needs for ending the conflict and the human
suffering associated with it. It all seems to make sense. And yet...
Ironically, human rights protection is the linchpin to any
effective political and humanitarian strategy for responding to, containing,
managing or brokering a solution to conflict. There is an indisputable body
experience being accumulated on the ground that is proving that the brokering of
fragile political agreements at the expense of human rights objectives does not
make for sustainable peace. That’s not all; as these fragile agreements collapse
in on themselves and violations recommence - often with increased virulence -
the UN and the international community lose credibility. Each successive attempt
to bring the situation under control becomes more difficult.
As conflict is contained or ends and when conditions are
finally conducive to the resumption of "normal" development activities, human
rights promotion and protection should been seen as the central component for
preventing a relapse into conflict - better know as peace building. And even so,
in the seemingly less complicated post-conflict environment, one can still note
within the UN, an ongoing schizophrenia related to the compatibility of human
rights monitoring and verification activities with capacity-building activities.
The debate is well known in human rights circles. However, most people,
particularly those in the human rights community and a growing number of
humanitarian relief and development practitioners (although fewer in this last
category) are realizing that the two are interdependent and must be carried out
simultaneously. One cannot take precedence over the other.
There is also a growing understanding within the UN system
that a belief in the so-called "continuum from relief to development" has done
more harm than good. Complex emergencies cannot be neatly sequenced into various
phases during which different actors of the UN System pass off the baton and
then sit back to watch the rest of the race. Humanitarian assistance is not an
effective instrument for response to complex crises when used in isolation.
Emergency relief, peacekeeping, diplomacy, human rights and development
activities must be carried out simultaneously and must be structured to be
mutually reinforcing. The complexities of intrastate conflicts call for a
carefully orchestrated, holistic approach which must go well beyond "business as
usual" if separate UN entities are not to be played off against one another by
parties to a conflict. The first challenge at hand, then, is to ensure the
widespread acceptance, first within the UN system and then outside, of all of
the above mentioned linkages. The second challenge relates to operability: How
to put to into practice multi-faceted, system-wide responses that recognize the
primacy of human rights and perceive their protection and promotion as a central
and cross-cutting concern.
Within the UN, a number of mechanisms are presently being
developed in order to tackle the problems of disconnect and operability outlined
above. These mechanisms are the result of hard-learned lessons in the field and
are by no means perfect. Still, they do represent significant efforts to address
in a meaning way the many problems associated with co-ordination arrangements.
2.1 At the Headquarters Level
2.1.1. Executive Committees
Within the framework of the Secretary General’s strategy for
reform, four Executive Committees were created in January of 1997 in order to
create policy and strengthen decision-making processes in the main sectors of
the UN’s work - Peace and Security; Humanitarian Affairs; Economic and Social
Affairs; Development Operations; and Human Rights. As a cross cutting issue in
the work of the entire UN system, it was decided that the fifth sector, human
rights, should be mainstreamed into all aspects of the Organisation’s
activities. As such, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has a
standing invitation to participate in all of the Executive Committees. UNDP
convenes the Executive Committee on Development Operations (now called the
Development Group)4 and participates in
the Executive Committees on Peace and Security5 and Humanitarian Affairs.6
The "Ex Coms" act as a critical nexus in the strategic
planning processes in each of the concerned UN entities. They provide a forum
for heads of entities to consult upon substantive and administrative matters
which have implications for other members of the Committee or for the
Organisation as a whole. The Ex Coms are intended to be more than a mechanism
for information sharing and co-ordination arrangements. Although they endeavour
to reduce duplication between entities, it is hoped that synergies between
entities will be stimulated, thus sharpening the contributions of all to the
overarching objectives of the UN.
2.1.2. Secretary General’s Task Force on Relief,
Reconstruction and Development
As a forum for information sharing and consensus building,
the Task Force concept is receiving renewed attention within the United Nations.
The SG’s Task Force on Relief, Reconstruction and Development was created in
May 1997 with the objective of developing a coordinated and strategic approach
for building stability in the Great Lakes Region. The Task Force, under the
chairmanship of the Administrator of UNDP, brings together the convenors of the
three relevant Executive Committees (mentioned above), in cooperation with the
World Bank and with participation from other agencies that wish to do so.
The primary function of the Task Force is to provide a
headquarters forum to ensure coordinated action among UN agencies, funds and
programmes, and other international organisations, in order to maximize
constructive and effective collaboration with the countries of the Great Lakes
region, especially the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. Not
surprisingly, human rights issues are hotly debated within the Task Force, as
they lay at the forefront of dialogue between the Great Lake’s governments and
the international community. Setbacks in the area of human rights including slow
progress being made in the Tribunal in Arusha and the many "false starts" of the
human rights investigation team presently in the Democratic Republic of Congo
have knock on effects upon progress on other fronts, namely reconstruction and
development. Similarly, the system as a whole needs to define a threshold, the
point at which human rights violations become so grave as to irreparably
undermine humanitarian mandates and thus lead to a decision to suspend
operations.
The general sense of malaise resulting from these unresolved
issues has prompted the Task Force to begin developing a set of "Principles and
Rules of Engagement", the underlying belief being that the UN can begin to make
a significant contribution to the Great Lakes region, only when it is in a
position to act in concert with a consistency borne out of shared principles and
objectives. The definition of principles of engagement is not in itself a
complicated task; Principles include the fundamental tenets of humanitarianism,
neutrality and impartiality, in addition to principles laid down in the UN
Charter, human rights instruments, the Geneva Conventions and their Additional
Protocols and customary international law.
The formulation of Rules of Engagement will prove more
problematic since they will in essence forge parameters for what is acceptable
behaviour and what are the "lines in the sand" for the Task Force members and
for the governments in question. When the "Principles and Rules of Engagement"
are system-wide, they should lay the ground for all agencies to speak with one
voice when fundamental mandates and norms are compromised or activities are
under threat. They will also help individual agencies to predict how other
agencies will react to different pressures and threat to both collective and
individual mandates.7
What remains to be seen is whether these rules, once
formulated, will be applied by the separate UN agencies during the course of
their operations on the ground. The existence of rules also implies the need for
an enforcement mechanism. In addition, the Task Force will have to grapple with
the issue of deciding whether these rules should be applied in other regions of
the world undergoing similar dilemmas (the precedent having been set), or
whether their application should be restricted to the Great Lakes region only.
2.2 At the Field Level
2.2.1 Field Co-ordination arrangements: The Resident
Co-ordinator/Humanitarian Co-ordinator System
In existence since 1981, the Resident Co-ordinator
System was set-up in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of UN
operational activities for development at the field level. Bearing in mind the
complementarity of the UN system, and the need for a division of labour within
the respective spheres of competence of funds, programmes and specialized
agencies, the Resident Co-ordinator provides leadership and promotes a
multidisciplinary approach to development.
As mentioned earlier, in times of emergency, the Resident
Co-ordinator is often called upon to wear a second chapeau, that of Humanitarian
Co-ordinator.8 For such cases, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee - IASC9 has
developed special terms of reference for Humanitarian Co-ordinators, and over
the course of the last five years, has hammered out detailed field co-ordination
agreements in order to ensure greater linkages between relief and development
activities.
The primary function of the Humanitarian Co-ordinator is to
facilitate and ensure quick, effective, and well-coordinated provision of
humanitarian assistance to those seriously affected by the complex emergency in
question. The Humanitarian Co-ordinator is directly accountable to the Emergency
Relief Co-ordinator (who is also the USG for Humanitarian Affairs). If a Special
Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) is appointed for the country in
question, the Humanitarian Co-ordinator will function under the overall
authority of the SRSG. In addition to coordinating humanitarian assistance on
the ground, the Humanitarian Co-ordinator is also responsible for ensuring the
protection of humanitarian mandates in conflict situations, for mobilizing
necessary resources (through Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeals), and for
disseminating information regarding humanitarian needs and operations to the
wider community (through the production of situation reports).
2.2.2 Strategic Frameworks for Recovery and Support to
Strategic Planning
In situations of crisis, government co-ordination of external
assistance can be sadly lacking, particularly in failed or failing states. In
view of this fact, the UN System has been increasingly obliged to itself
coordinate complex humanitarian assistance and recovery programmes and somehow
bring these initiatives into line with the activities of International Financial
Institutions. In such circumstances, the UN has lacked an overall framework for
its different interventions. Different planning and resource mobilization
mechanisms covering different activities of the UN and its partners all too
frequently contain overlaps or gaps, which betray the absence of a unitary
approach. With the onslaught of complex emergencies in the early nineties, the
UN perceived an urgent need to develop an inclusive agreement for a broad
"framework" for international assistance in crisis countries, including inputs
from the different elements of the system – humanitarian, political, human
rights and development – as well as from the wider donor and NGO community.
In April of 1997, the Administrative Committee on
Co-ordination (ACC), under the chairmanship of the Secretary General, endorsed a
new approach for peace building entailing the elaboration of "strategic
frameworks" for relief and development activities in countries undergoing
complex emergencies. The UN thinking behind the concept dovetailed with similar
discussions taking place in other forums including the Development Assistance
Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD). Within the context of the UN Reform, the Department for Political
Affairs, as the designated focal point for peace building is in charge of
overall leadership for strategic frameworks.
The Strategic Framework is foreseen as an evolving
multi-party consensus on an overall plan for United Nations and other
multilateral, bilateral and NGO activities. It is hoped that the Framework,
together with the political negotiating strategy of the UN system and its
partners, will form the foundation of more coherent, system-wide approaches to
varying country situations. The Framework is not a blueprint for the
disbursement of international assistance under difficult circumstances and it
cannot itself be a resource mobilization mechanism, for this would render it
partial and thus undermine its primary objective of providing a holistic
assessment and plan of action for a given situation. Rather, it is a policy
statement or recommendation that should inform the overall programme including
any fund-raising instruments prepared for the consideration of donors.
Although much effort is being expended trying to define
exactly how strategic frameworks should be structured, in most cases it is
agreed that as a minimum, strategic frameworks should:
- make an analysis of the situation and identify the underlying political,
economic and social determinants of the crisis;
- discuss the goals to be pursued and the policies that orient the road map
towards normalization, rehabilitation and recovery;
- describe the programme responses and operational modalities called for,
assessing the political and economic risks and defining the prerequisites of
success;
- provide the context and the logic for a rational allocation of resources,
domestic and external, destined for relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction;
- identify political factors affecting governance (and by extension, the
protection of human rights) and economic management;
- devise exit arrangements for forms of direct support (e.g. peacekeeping
and human rights operations, relief assistance) that risk creating
dependencies;
- be developed with the participation of the principal stakeholders and
reflect a broad consensus between the government (if possible) and major
donors.10
Seen in this light, it is clear that the process for
formulating the framework is all important and the product will itself become a
living document that will need to be reviewed and reshaped as changes occur over
time. As a pilot experience, it has been agreed that the Strategic Framework
will be tried in Afghanistan, Somalia and Sierra Leone. Similar strategic
planning exercises are being planned for other countries including Georgia, DR
Congo, Haiti and Tajikistan.
3. Conclusion
International efforts to expand the protection of human
rights during acute crisis do not depend solely upon improved standard-setting
and strengthened enforcement. Until the international community, and in
particular the UN, devise more preventive and holistic approaches to conflict
management which succeed in balancing the converging demands of politics,
humanitarianism, military considerations, and post-conflict recovery, avoiding
the massive violation of human rights during conflict will remain a difficult
goal. Nevertheless, current efforts within the UN system to address problems of
disconnect and operability and their relation to the global human rights agenda,
give cause for renewed optimism.
4. Diagram
