How The Health and Welfare of Women and Girls Became an International Development Priority

UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem. Credit: Mark Garten/UN Photo

Twenty five years ago the city of Cairo, Egypt hosted a UN-backed gathering of international development professionals from nearly every country on the earth. That 1994 meeting was called the International Conference on Population and Development, or the ICPD, and it became one of the most significant global development gatherings of the last quarter century. At the conference over 170 countries signed was was known as an “action plan” that for the first time recognized fulfilling the rights of women and girls is central to development.

That Cairo conference 25 conference firmly established what is now taken as a given around the UN and in the development community more broadly: that development is not possible without promoting the health and eduction of women and girls.

That was 25 years ago. And this month, in Nairobi, Kenya global development experts, government officials and other key stakeholders are meeting for what is known as the Nairobi Summit ICPD25, to mark a quarter century since that landmark Cairo conference.

On the line with me to discuss why the International Conference on Population and Development was such a watershed moment for the international community, what progress has been made since then, and what to expect at the Nairobi summit is Dr. Natalia Kanem.

She is the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund and very much at the helm of planning the Nairobi conference. More importantly though, her agency, UNFPA, is very much the focal point for global efforts to promote the health, rights, and eduction of women and girls around the world. So, our conversation today serves as both a curtain raiser to the Nairobi summit and also a stocktaking of what kinds of progress has been made on the rights and health of women and girls since the ICPD 25 year ago.

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How The Top LGBTI Rights Watchdog at the United Nations Defends Human Rights Around the World

Mr. Victor Madrigal-Borloz, Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity

Victor Madrigal-Borloz is a Costa Rican jurist who serves as the United Nations Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In other words, he is the UN’s top watchdog for LGBTI rights worldwide

The fact that this position even exists in the UN system was at the time controversial. In UN lingo, this position is known as the IE SOGI, or Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. It was created in 2016 by votes in the Human Rights Council and General Assembly, the latter of which includes every UN member state. Some of these states are actively hostile to LGBTI rights, and accordingly sought to block establishing this role. They were unsuccessful, and Victor Madrigal-Borloz has now been on his job for two years.

When I spoke with Victor Madrigal-Borloz he had just briefed the General Assembly on his latest report on LGBTI rights globally so we kick off discussing that report and have a broader conversation about how he goes about his work, fulfilling his UN mandate to protect LGBTI individuals around the world.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn how the UN LGBTI Rights Watchdog seeks to defend human rights worldwide, have a listen.

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Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg on How 5G Can Drive Sustainable Development

Around the United Nations you will often see CEOs of major companies participating in meetings and events around sustainability. Meaningful corporate participation is fairly commonplace at the United Nation these days. But this was certainly not the case ten years ago and more, when I’d regularly see Hans Vestberg around the United Nations as one of the very few corporate leaders engaging on development and sustainability issues.

Hans Vestberg is the CEO of Verizon and he is on the Global Dispatches podcast to discuss the role of 5G technologies in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals.

We kick off with a discussion about what exactly 5G is, and how it can be used to advance sustainable development. We then have a discussion about his own commitment to sustainability issues and how Verizon has integrated the Sustainable Development Goals into its corporate strategies.

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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres discusses climate change in this special episode of the Global Dispatches podcast.

On Tuesday, September 17th Antonio Guterres sat down with Mark Hertsgaard of The Nation and Mark Phillips of CBS News for an interview conducted on behalf of Covering Climate Now. This is a global collaboration of over 250 news outlets, including the Global Dispatches Podcast and UN Dispatch, to strengthen coverage of the climate story. The interview with Antonio Guterres was conducted on behalf of all participating members of this coalition and I am glad to be able to present the podcast version of it to you.

If you are listening to this episode contemporaneously, I’d encourage you to check out the episode from earlier this week that gets into a little more detail about the UN Climate Action Summit; and later this week, I will have an episode that previews all the big stories that will drive the agenda around the UN Week in New York.

After the interview concludes, I offer some short commentary about my big takeaways. I’ve covered the UN for nearly 15 years and I think Antonio Guterres’ remarks in this interview for reasons I explain after the interview concludes.

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The UN Climate Action Summit, Explained

A solar-powered well and desalination system installed by Oxfam in Ceel Midgan in eastern Somaliland treats salty ground water and makes it drinkable for people and animals. Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

The UN General Assembly convenes at United Nations headquarters in New York next week. As in every year, UNGA is an annual opportunity for heads of state to come to the United Nations to meet each other and address the world.

What distinguishes the UN General Assembly this year is a series of key events and meetings focused on climate change.

Of these events and meetings the most high profile is what is known as the UN Climate Action Summit. This will take place on Monday the 23rd of September. Thiswill include top government officials, business leaders, and civil society members bringing to the table concrete action plans to accelerate progress on addressing climate change.

Today’s episode of the Global Dispatches podcast is dedicated to explaining just what that Climate Action Summit entails and what to expect from this major climate meeting at the United Nations.

On the line with me to discuss the significance of this summit and what it hopes to achieve is  Cassie Flynn, she is the strategic advisor on climate change in the executive office of the UN Development Program, UNDP. She is the someone who has very much been involved in aspects of planning the summit and in this conversation offers a curtain raiser for the summit itself, and discusses some of the broader expectations for this event.

The Climate Action Summit at the UN is the capstone to several climate related events happening at the UN, including a Youth Climate Summit that will feature young leaders from around the world. In this conversation we discuss how these events relate to each other and directly to the Paris Climate Accord.

If you have twenty minutes and want to better understand the UN Climate Action Summit, have a listen.

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This podcast episode is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. Covering Climate Now parters are free to reproduce this episode. 

How Aung San Suu Kyi Went from a Human Rights Icon to a Bystander to Genocide

When Ben Rhodes first met Aung San Suu Kyi she exuded the all traits that made her such an international icon for human rights and democracy. The year was 2012, and Ben Rhodes, who was the deputy national security advisor, was accompanying Barack Obama in an historic visit to Myanmar. As he puts it, this meeting was the high water mark for her moral authority. There was a hopefulness, surrounding her, he says.

Now seven years later, she has been stripped of many international accolades, honors and prizes.  At issue is the fact that as the most powerful civilian leader in Myanmar she refused to intervene against, or even publicly condemn, a genocide committed by the government against a religious and ethnic minority.  Some 700,000 ethnic Rohingya have fled Myanmar amid what a UN official has called a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. All the the while, Aung San Suu Kyi was silent. 

So what happened to Aung San Suu Kyi? How did a Nobel Peace Prize winner who spent decades under house arrest in an elegant pursuit of democracy and justice in Myanmar fall so from grace? And was the international community, including the Obama administration, wrong about her all along? 

Ben Rhodes grapples with these questions and more in a new piece in The Atlantic that combines some of his own self-reflection with fresh reporting, which he discusses on the podcast.

We kick off setting the historic context for Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to prominence and the circumstances of her persecution and house arrest before having a longer conversation about the causes and implications of her becoming a bystander to genocide. 

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Note that next week on the podcast, I’ll be doing whole episode more directly focusing on the Rohingya genocide, including ongoing human rights abuses and the current humanitarian challenges facing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. So, stay tuned to that–it will compliment this conversation with Ben Rhodes.

 What’s up first?

Aung San Suu Kyi has really been the defining figure of Burmese politics over the last several decades. She is the daughter of Aung San, the “George Washington” of Burma. He was assassinated right before independence when she was only two years old. She ended up growing up in India where her mother was an ambassador. She moved to the UK, married a British citizen, and entered politics by accident. In 1988, her mother had a stroke and Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma to be with her. At that exact moment, student protests were rocking the country against a brutal, reclusive military government. Aung San Suu Kyi addressed half a million people in the then capital. She became the leader of the opposition and won the next election overwhelmingly. However, the junta put her in prison, largely under house arrest. She became a Mandela like figure. She was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. For the next two decades she was under house arrest and after she was released, she re-entered politics.

During her time under house arrest, she displayed profound personal courage.

When she was campaigning in 1989, a firing squad of soldiers faced her and told her to turn around. She refused and kept walking towards them. They were given the order to shoot, but they could not kill the daughter of their national hero. Under house arrest, she was in extreme isolation. During one of her releases, a mob of men were released around her vehicle and there was a riot where dozens of people were killed, but she somehow escaped. She was subjected to a lot of trauma and had to demonstrate enormous courage. For instance, her husband died while she was under house arrest. The military said she could go back to the UK to be with him, but obviously they would not let her back into the country, so she chose to stay. She wrote passionately about human rights in series of essays that were embraced by the likes of Desmond Tutu. She earned her reputation as a human rights icon.

Going back to those early years of the Obama administration, what did diplomacy towards Myanmar look like?

Obama campaigned on the return to diplomacy. When he said that line, “we will extend a hand if you unclench your fist,” one of the countries in mind was Burma. We had an envoy, Derek Mitchell, and he began to explore whether they could open up and change their governance. We saw some initial signs that they were prepared to go in a different direction. Then, in 2011, a new president from the military started to allow for more media freedom, released political prisoners, allowed exiled Burmese individuals to return, and freed Aung San Suu Kyi. The Obama administration reciprocated, appointing Derek Mitchell as ambassador and welcomed them in from the cold.

When was the first time you met Aung San Suu Kyi?

It was in 2012. Barack Obama travelled to Burma shortly after his re-election. It was extraordinary, because we landed in the airport and it was really a backwards infrastructure. We went to Aung San Suu Kyi’s house, which was powerful. There was a real sense of hopefulness. She had re-entered parliament and was discussing learning the intricacies of parliamentary maneuvers and how to make the democracy that she had been writing about real through institutional mechanisms. After we left this meeting, I was in the car with Obama and he said, “I used to be the face on the poster and your image always ends up fading.” When you’re in politics it is hard to maintain your status as an icon. Suu Kyi said she was not an icon but a politician, which kind of foreshadows some of the things that have happened.

It was in 2012 that she came to the U.S., right?

Yes, it was kind of a victory lap. She travelled around the country and thanked different constituencies that had supported her. Obama welcomed her to the White House and it was a very hopeful moment.

I remember her from a press conference at the United Nations. She refused to say the word “Rohingya”. That signaled to me that there could be something dark lurking under this icon. What was the moment you realized that the Rohingya issue might be something in which her moral authority would be undermined?

In 2012 the Rohingya issue was prominent. In Burma, both Muslims and people of South Asian descent are discriminated against. There have been previous incidents in Burmese history where the Rohingya were targeted and driven across the border to Bangladesh. They were a persecuted minority. In 2012, there was an outbreak of violencedue to an alleged rape of a Buddhist woman by a Rohingya Muslim. When Obama sat down with her, he said we needed to work to resolve this issue and that she needed to use her moral authority. In private, she would say the word Rohingya and acknowledge the difficulties they faced. However, she would indicate that this was a very complicated issue and that the vast majority of Burmese were prejudiced against Rohingya. If she made that central to her agenda, the military would use that against her. Her plan was to democratize the country and put herself more in power to where she could help with such issues. While there was a warning sign that she did not want to spend her political capital on this issue, she did privately say the right things. So how do we try to work on the democratization of Burma while also trying to help this persecuted minority that does not have any popular support?

It seems that by 2015 in her landslide victory with the NLD party, the central tension was between her desire to act like a politician and help the persecuted Rohingya minority.

When she was elected, I would raise these issues with her. She would say she was trying to democratize the country and reform the constitution. There are constitutional amendments that prevent her from being President. It is a strange amendment that says if you have foreign born children, you can’t be president, clearly targeting her. Her argument was always that she had to finish the job of reforming the constitution before she could do anything about the Rohingya population. Our argument was that she needed to speak out on this and use her moral authority as the most popular politician in the country. She was always reluctant to do so. Her answer was, after she became State Counsellor in 2016, to appoint Kofi Annan to chair a commission that would look into this issue and make recommendations.  

But then, the Annan Commission said the Rohingya should be granted full citizenship rights and she did not implement that recommendation.

Well, two things happened. In October, 2016 violence broke out again and this time a new group, the Rohingya Salvation Army, attacked Burmese police outposts and killed several people. The response was way disproportionate displacing tens of thousands of people. This problem had begun to boil over. In the summer of 2017, the Annan Commission issued its recommendations that the Rohingya population needed to be granted citizenship to be protected. Days later, there was another attack from this Rohingya insurgent group that killed more Burmese police. This time it felt like the military had a plan to ethnically cleanse the Rohingya. 700,000 Rohingya were driven into Bangladesh. While this was happening, Suu Kyi said nothing or denied it, which is what drew international condemnation on her.

What is going through your mind at this point?

With her, I just felt profound disappointment. She basically chose her own power over fighting for human rights. She famously wrote that “the ultimate freedom is freedom from fear” and that “people who don’t have power fear the scorns of power, and those with power are corrupted and don’t want to give it up.” She transformed into what she argued against, a politician who would not take a moral stand if it compromised their politics.

Is it possible that she is a racist?

She is not in charge of these operations, so to be fair to her she cannot order or terminate these operations. If she could, I do not think she would perpetrate an ethnic cleansing. She is prejudiced enough to where she sees the Rohingya as less Burmese than other people in Burma. The majority ethnic group is Burman and the majority religious group is Buddhism. She is Burman and Buddhist. I think she does harbor some of the prejudice you see throughout the country. She is a traumatized individual herself. It is hard for us to know what 20 years of extreme isolation, house arrest, and threats do to compromise your ability to empathize with people who are different.

I went back and talked to people in Burma about what had happened. One of the things that has occurred is an explosion of social media. A country that had almost zero internet penetration went to 95% penetration in a few years. The entire internet experience is through Facebook. You see an explosion of hate speech against Rohingya. The tragedy of Burma is something that is unique to its country, but it also shares this global trend of nationalism, religious identity, and social media presence supercharging that.

Are there any broader foreign policy lessons you could draw from this?

There are trends that are really important for people to see. One is social media and this rise in nationalism. The Burmese National Security Advisor told me quite candidly that this would be easier in the 1990’s when democracy was spreading. Now, Burma is in a neighborhood where that is not a trend. The role of China here is critically important. They do not care about human rights and the Burmese know they can turn to the Chinese. I do think what this means is that the international community needs more tools to deal with crises like these. Accountability through the International Criminal Court is important. Further, spotlighting instances like this and putting Burma on the diplomatic offensive at the UN are tools that could moderate their behavior.

I also discuss the debate over sanctions. To be fair, the Obama administration got a lot of critique for lifting sanctions on Burma. I have come to think that the bad actors in the military are the best sanctions evaders as it is. China is a hedge against sanctions because countries can turn to China if the U.S. cuts them off. But you have to debate the role for sanctions, and there is a role that is targeted at bad actors. I think mobilizing international diplomatic pressure is really all we have to fight back against these trends. One lesson is that we can’t put all of our eggs in one basket. I wanted to draw out through this story how essentially, it is tempting to view other countries through the prism of a single icon, but we have to see the whole picture.  

Shownotes by Lydia DeFelice

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, The Podcast Interview

What made former Ash Carter so unique among his predecessors was that by the time he became the Secretary of Defense in 2015, he’d already spent nearly 30 years working at the Pentagon. This includes stints as both the deputy Secretary of Defense and as the number three in the department, a position often referred to as the acquisitions tsar.

Ash Carter, who served as Barack Obama’s Secretary of Defense from 2015 to 2017, is out with a new book Inside the Five-Sided Box: Lessons from a Lifetime of Leadership in the Pentagon. This is not your conventional Washington memoir. Rather, what I found so valuable about the book is that offers a grounds-eye view of how how the world’s largest national security bureaucracy operates. Decisions made at the Pentagon — from the kinds of weapons bought, to the bases that are opened, to personnel decisions — have world-shaping implications. This book takes you inside that decision making process.

We kick off discussing the sheer vastness of the Pentagon. The annual budget of the Pentagon is about half of all discretionary spending in the US —  money spent on government programs excluding things like Social Security and Medicare. This comes to over $700 billion. (For comparison’s sake the budget of the State Department is about $50 billion. And UN peacekeeping budget is under $7 billion.)

We then discuss what he thinks the US–and world–get for that huge investment. We also discuss his views of the role of the United Nations and UN Peacekeeping; and also the significance of the fact that the US has not had a secretary of defense since Jim Mattis left on December 31.

If you have 25 minutes and want to learn some insights on US foreign policy from the leader of the world’s largest national security bureaucracy, have a listen.

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Your book almost offers a user/executive guide.

That is exactly how the book is supposed to function. It is an executive guide for future leaders for the Pentagon. It is not a Washington memoir, it is different.

What are we talking about when we say the Department of Defense?

Firstly, employees. It has more employees than Amazon, FedEx, McDonalds, Target, and GE combined. It does more R&D than Apple, Google, and Microsoft combined. It has the largest real property ownings than any institution in the world. Its budget is larger than the GDP of all but very few countries. It is the largest enterprise in the world. Most people think of the Secretary of Defense as a policy maker, but they are also the manager of the world’s largest enterprise.

Taking a step back, what does US foreign policy get for its return on that investment?

The opening chapters of the book are about spending money on high-tech systems. It is necessary for the leadership to do that in a way that there is not the waste and abuse that discredits the enterprise. As Secretary, I would be embarrassed to ask the taxpayer for that much money if I knew it was being wasted.

During the time I was Secretary, we never got a budget at the beginning of the fiscal year except for once. What was happening was a big concern over deficit. That is what drove the size of the defense budget. Dick Cheney, my predecessor and friend, presided over the largest decrease ever. Not because he wanted to, but because the Soviet Union ended, so the budget wasn’t supported. So there is a lot of history that comes with this. If you ask me if the budget needs to be that big, I would say we can make use of that money because we have five major competitors – China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorism. We are all they think of, but we have to think of all five of them.

If the budget were cut by 10%, over 70 billion dollars, is the world a meaningfully different place?

I wouldn’t go that far, but I will stress the consequences of what seems like a modest reduction of the budget. If you did that in one year, how would you take that much money out? A lot of the funding is locked into how many troops you have and it is illegal to just kick them out. You can’t change their retirement and health care expenses. So then that 10% is reflected in “principal readiness”. So if you suddenly impose that cut, it turns out to be inefficiently deployed. If you ease into cuts, we can plan for that and minimize damage. You have contracts and people that you cannot just throw overboard.

Suppose it is gradually reduced, is international relations affected? Is there a guns vs. butter argument to be made?

I think what would happen is that we would prioritize our commitments more than we do now. Our current guidance is to be able to dominate any potential threat to the US. If you want less than that, you pay for less than that. It might also mean that we invest less in the long term to stay safe in the short term, which is what many governments do that do not invest enough in themselves. It catches up with you over time. It is not the end of the world, but it is less security for the US and maybe less wisdom in how we deploy budget cuts.

When you say guns vs. butter, it is important to me to clarify one thing. I have never argued my budget at the expense of another – and I was invited to repeatedly. Other kinds of government spending are important parts of our long term national strength. That is the larger mission that I was charged with, so I would not argue that my mission was more important than another.

What do you see as the value of UN Peacekeeping?

First off is the question of why we cooperate with the UN as a matter of security. They fill a niche in the ecosystem that is needed to keep the world safe. It does things that no individual country is incentivised to do. It reflects our higher values of collective good, and it reflects the values of enlightenment, which underlie the founding of this country.

As to peacekeeping itself, it is a type of military operation. So in the context of that clarity, I support UN Peacekeeping. It is most easily accomplished if it is keeping the peace, however, and not making one. I had the miserable experience of  watching Srebrenica in the 1990’s. I was in the Secretary of Defense’s morning staff meeting and CNN was showing UN Peacekeepers surrendering a helpless population to barbarians who were intent on slaughtering at least the males. They were UN Peacekeepers that were meant to be keeping a peace, but there was no peace in Bosnia. If you are going to make peace, you have to go in much heavier and ready for war. I would be wary of putting our people at high risk under a command that we do not control.

A lot of peacekeeping missions these days are a messy balance between the two. For instance, there are a few thousand peacekeepers in the CAR, and perhaps if they were not there, there would be a mass atrocity and the US would feel pressure to deploy troops.

You are describing a situation where you are trying to keep the lid on. Generally speaking, if things break out that are really big, national governments will intervene. When national governments do intervene, there is a natural division of labor. In South Saharan Africa, France has a historic role. It made sense to me in certain contingencies that we support the French and they take the lead, because they had the most local knowledge. However, there is a flip side. The western countries that have the most knowledge of a place tend to be those that colonized the country before.

What is the impact of the absence of a Senate confirmed Secretary of Defense on US foreign policy?

The Secretary of Defense is the counsellor and advisor to the President as he makes policy. Normally, having no Secretary of Defense would be a big loss. However, President Trump has not seemed to listen much to his Secretary of Defense. Things will go okay for a while as the department is very professional. However, without a leader, they cannot move into the future.

Is there a specific example you could cite?

What new technologies should be supplanting and eventually replacing surface combatant vessels? There are big questions which will take time to figure out. That is not possible without a Secretary of Defense.

Who is your ideal embodiment of the Secretary of Defense?

This is not a dodge, but I have known them all and I think we have been pretty lucky. They have all been solid and experienced. The people who have been most helpful to me are Jim Schlesinger, Bill Perry, and James Mattis. One of the reasons I wrote the book is so it can serve future leaders as they helped me. I want to inspire younger people, in part, to join in public life.

Update: Senate confirms Trump’s Defense Secretary.

Shownotes by Lydia DeFelice

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Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher

Representative Mike Gallagher is a rising star in Republican foreign policy circles. The 35- year-old congressman represents the eighth district of Wisconsin, which includes the city of Green Bay. He was first elected to Congress in 2016 and served in the military before earning a PHD in International Relations.

He’s very thoughtful, and this conversation offers listeners some key insights into how an emerging leader in Republican foreign policy circles considers American global leadership, the value of multilateralism and international institutions, and role of a values-based foreign policy.

We kick off discussing Iran, before having a broader conversation about US foreign policy writ large.

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The bonus episodes I’ve posted this week for premium subscribers includes my conversations with Joseph Nye and Carolyn Miles. Joseph Nye is the international relations theorist who coined the term “soft power” and Carolyn Miles is the longtime CEO of the global humanitarian organization Save the Children. In both conversations they trace their career path with me and tell stories from their life and career. To access those episodes, and other rewards like complimentary subscription to my news clips service, please visit Patreon.com/GlobalDispatches or follow the links on GlobalDispatchesPodcast.com 

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You listed yourself as an Eisenhower aficionado on your Twitter. I like it when people self-identify that way.

It is a very cool thing to do these days amongst the kids!

Through the Atoms for Peace Program that Eisenhower started, Iran got its first nuclear technology transfer for medical purposes in the 1950’s, and here we are today.

You have out-nerded me on Eisenhower, which is not an easy thing to do.

We are speaking at a moment of profound crisis. Would you support some sort of congressional mandate that Congress use its authority to authorize the use of military force against Iran?

It depends on the content of that authorization. I do not believe that the administration currently has the authority to conduct a sustained campaign against Iran. I think under the War Powers Resolution, should one of our assets be attacked, the President would have a time stamped flexibility to respond in time, but would eventually have to seek congressional authorization.

A strike, such as the one envisioned after the downing of the drone, would not have qualified?

You could make the argument that it is permissible under the War Powers Resolution. But, if Trump were to continue to conduct legal operations against Iran, then he would need authorization. This gets difficult because the Obama administration, in their campaign against Iraq, would trigger separate War Powers Resolutions clocks every time they conducted a new operation in Iraq, effectively extending the clock to infinity. It is always a wise decision, when there is ambiguity, for the President to come to congress and seek authorization.

What would you advise as an appropriate diplomatic course of action for the US?

We need to reinforce the parameters that Mike Pompeo announced a few months ago. Now, these parameters may seem impossible, but they are a sensible starting point. In order to drive Iran to the negotiating table, we need to continue our policy of maximum pressure. We need to slowly and steadily increase economic pressure against the regime in Iran. Most importantly, we need to remember that while the situation is volatile, we hold the upper hand.

How do you balance alienating key allies like France and Germany who consider this a key pillar to their own security against the policy that you just advised, maximum pressure, which includes pressuring European countries against doing business with Iran? How do you balance those priorities?

It is difficult and it is not easy. All of the promises in European businesses immediately inking agreements with the Iranian regime and businesses flooding into the country did not happen as rapidly as some predicted. When we got out of the JCPOA, we did not see the chaos that many proponents of the deal predicted. That shows us something. When given the choice of doing business with the US or Iran, the answer is clear. That is not to be insensitive to our allies. Everything we do on the world stage is stronger in concert with our allies. So, even where we have a disagreement with our allies on this issue, we need to be making the case in good faith about the nature of the regime and the failure of the whole theory of the JCPOA.

You referenced the value of multilateralism. Can you discuss multilateral alliances and the value you attach to institutions like the UN?

I sense there is a sentiment right now that is growing more hostile to multilateral institutions. I understand to the extent that we are surrendering our own sovereignty, that is probably not the right thing to do. However, in defense of the international order, it is one that we built. The US was the author of all of these institutions. At that time, it was in our interest to bring the world to a forum of cooperation. Unless we want to be in the business of doing everything by ourselves, we have to find a way to work by and with our allies. If you buy the premise of the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy, you are left with the conclusion that our most valuable asset in this competition with the Chinese is that we have friends around the world that want to work with us. The core of competition between the US and China comes down to who has better friends. Those of us in public office need to do a better job of explaining to people why it is useful for us to work through IMF, through the UN, and the value of NATO. We are having new versions of old arguments.

There is an argument to be made that the US is not nurturing these alliances.

It is a mixed bag. In the Middle East, the Trump administration has done a great deal to restore our relationships with our traditional regional allies. The Trump administration is astutely harnessing the historic level of cooperation between the Sunni-Arab gulf states and the Israelis in opposition to Iran. In that sense he has restored and enhanced our alliances in the region.

In Asia it is more nuanced. There are a lot of countries that are welcoming renewed attention, and then in Europe there is a bigger question mark. There is a disparity between statements made by the President on Twitter and some of his speeches that talk beautifully about Western alliances. We do need to have a conversation, however, about modernizing NATO.

So, on China, you are sponsoring a resolution to impose restrictions on the transfer of technologies that could be used to abrogate the rights of Uyghurs Muslims in terms of things like facial recognition, which Silicon Valley has provided to the Chinese Government.

There is the Uyghur Act that would mandate that the US create a website for confidential reporting of harassment or surveillance by Chinese Communist Party agents. There is separate legislation that would restrict any US technology that could be used as surveillance technology by the Chinese. Basically, what we are seeing with the concentration camp with over a hundred Uyghur Muslims is a harbinger of things to come. Regardless of whether or not you think we should do something or criticize them; we can do better to make sure our technology does not facilitate this human rights abomination.

It is interesting that people on both sides are willing to engage on Chinese human rights issues now in ways we have not seen before.

In a time of intense partisan division, there is a lot of bi-partisanship on this issue. This is a case where human rights concerns are in alignment with our broader strategic concerns. We can talk loudly about their human rights abuses and get a strategic effect at the same time.

Is there any blowback against the US ability to press human rights in other countries when we have abominations in our own country?

Not at all. In the US, we have a messy political system and that is by design. Our history is rife with mistakes, but ultimately, America is a force for good in this world. We are a generous country. There are complaints that we spend so much on our military and the rest of the world doesn’t. We do that in part because it is in our own interest, but it also provides an enormous service. We are not perfect, but we are the good guys.

Finally, how do you think Eisenhower would judge Trump’s foreign policy so far?

He’d be like – what the hell is Twitter?

Eisenhower was a master of using the press in a strategic way. He may scratch his head at the usage of this new communication, like Twitter. Eisenhower might like that we have tried to modernize and throw more money at the military. He was a master of using his military experience to convince the American people to go along with something that they might have at first been uncomfortable with. He would have been an advocate for staying engaged in the world and talking with people about the value of having friends to work with. The world we built is far more peaceful than the one China and Russia want to build.

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Shownotes by Lydia DeFelice

What You Need to Know About Internally Displaced People Around the World

Over 41 million people were internally displaced last year due to conflict and violence, according to a new report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. This is a record high and excludes an additional 17 million people who were internally displaced due to a natural disaster.

When we say “internally displaced” we mean people who are forced to flee their homes, but do not cross an international border. This distinguishes “internally displaced persons,” or IDPs, from those would be considered international refugees. This distinction is significant because, while there is a robust international law obligating governments to treat international refugees in a certain way, there is not much that international law or norms governing internal displacement.

My guest today, Alexadra Bilak, is director of the Internal displacement Monitoring Center which just released its flagship report on global displacement. In our conversation, Alexandra Bilak describes the drivers and trends in internal displacement and also explains why cities are becoming a major focal point for interventions to support potentially vulnerable people who are internally displaced.

When policy makers reference the “global refugee crisis” that has caused over 65 million people displaced around the world, they often lump together IDPs and refugees, of which there are over 40 million and 25 million, respectively. This conversation focuses on that former figure–over 40 million IDPs to explain the unique challenges facing people who are internally displaced.

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What’s up first? 

This year’s report reveals shocking findings. It shows the highest number of internally displaced people (IDPs) by conflict and violence across the world. Further, this number is growing in scale and is a complex phenomenon. It is not receiving the attention it deserves.

What is driving the rise of conflict related IDPs?

The highest levels of internal displacement are found in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Ethiopia erupted into communal and ethnic violence two years ago has continued to generate high levels of internal displacement in certain pockets of the country, with 2.9 million new movements recorded throughout 2018. Other countries including Nigeria, DRC, South Sudan, CAR, and Somalia remain high on the list of concern. The DRC has continued with cyclical waves of armed violence with has made it one of the country’s worst affected in 2018. Further, the Middle East continues to be one of the regions most affected. The highest levels of internal displacement were amongst cities across Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Iraq. Displacement in urban areas is a high focus in this year’s report.  

What do you mean by displacement in cities?

The reality of urban warfare is prevalent here. Cities are targeted and bombed so the levels of destruction are particularly high. The triggers of displacement and the kinds of violent events that cause people to leave their homes is a serious reality. Moreover, there are repeated patterns of displacement. People may flee to the city from a rural area and then have to flee again. Cities are places where people flee to, because they see it as somewhere they will find opportunities for better livelihoods. In the case of the Middle East, you are looking at physical threats to safety and security. In other places like Asia, urban population density and other forms of natural hazards accumulate in cities, so then cities can generate displacement.

Can you discuss trends this report showed around natural disaster related displacement?

The majority of the disaster related displacements were weather related. This displacement can be linked to floods, typhoons, storms, cyclones, hurricanes, and to a lesser extent, drought, extreme temperatures, and landslides. The countries most exposed to these hazards are predominantly in Asia, South East Asia and South Asia. The countries worst affected in 2018 were the Philippines, China, and India. The effects of climate change impact high income and low income governments. An interesting finding is that the U.S. was responsible for 1.2 million IDPs, particularly due to wildfires in California.  As a result, governments often have to evacuate their populations which is a form of displacement.

The data you are collecting serves as an interesting index and tool to measure the impact of climate disaster.

The data is not yet historically sufficient to be able to draw definitive trends, but it does show the risk of someone becoming displaced by a disaster has increased over the last forty years and will continue to do so as climate becomes more extreme and the impacts more severe. This is a call for much more investment on the preparedness side, on the disaster risk reduction side, and on the climate change adaptation side.

How did you collect the data for this report?

The IDMC’s role is to examine already existing data. The type of data can vary hugely from humanitarian data to government data. Further, this could include a civil society report or media report. In other contexts, satellite images or mobile phone data may be used. All the data available is analyzed and the best estimate is derived.

What is the purpose of creating a dataset like this?

Internal displacement is an issue that cuts across so many other global challenges from climate change to state building to sustainable development to urban planning. Given how important the issue is globally, it is important for governments to track their progress. Additionally, they can then evaluate the extent to which internal displacement may be hampering their commitments and objectives under other frameworks.

The international community does not have the same obligations to IDPs as it does to international refugees.

First of all, in terms of the scale, publishing this data on a regular basis is a strong reminder that there is a huge part of the migration picture that is consistently missing from the debate. There are more IDPs than refugees in the world right now, so it is important to reiterate this issue to the international community. However, this is not to say that when a refugee crosses a border they will be automatically be picked up by UNHCR or another agency. There are huge vulnerabilities when it comes to refugees and migrants, but certainly the levels of severity are also extremely high in an IDP context.

The report this year focuses on cities and municipalities. Can you discuss an example of authorities approaching this problem in a useful way?

Rebuilding a city to allow citizens to return in a short period of time, reintegrate, and rebuild a community is a massive investment. This process of rebuilding and reintegrating is far more challenging in more fragile countries with less resources. The example of Mozambique and Cyclone Idaisprings to mind. 

Solutions are linked to the issue of housing and employment. IDPs need access to quality and affordable housing. Further, they need employment opportunities so they have the income to rent said housing. There are examples, such as the Ukraine, where they have allowed IDPs to move from an informal situation to a formal process of land or apartment ownership. This encourages municipalities and countries to consider local integration as a solution to displacement as much as return, because in some cases return is not an option.

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Shownotes by Lydia DeFelice

How a Census Can Drive Sustainable Development in Africa

An enumerator works with staff at a psychiatric hospital in Accra to accurately count their patient population. Jordi Perdigó/Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data

In 2020 the West African Country of Ghana will conduct a census. This is a massive undertaking. Some 60,000 people will be deployed across the country in an effort to count every single person in Ghana on what is known as “census night.” This is expected next March.

In a recent reporting trip to Ghana, I got a sense of what this process entails. Along with a few other journalists, I shadowed census takers, known as enumerators, as they tested their systems in a few places around Accra. This included a mental health hospital and an urban slum. The idea is to ensure that even marginalized groups are counted in this census, so enumerators are designing strategies to count people who have no fixed address or might be in institutions, like hospitals.

The enumerators were also field-testing their tablets. Unlike in previous census rounds in 2010 and 2000, in 2020 census data will be collected using tablets, which provides for a far quicker turnaround time than conventional paper processing.

On the line with me to discuss how the census will be conducted, the kinds of questions that will be asked, and how census data can be harnessed to advance national goals around sustainable development is Omar Seidu. He is the Head of Demographic Statistics and Coordinator for the Sustainable Development Goals at the Ghana Statistical Service, a government agency.

This conversation offers a unique perspective on the kind of herculean effort that is required to conduct a census in a developing country like Ghana. We also offers a really good grounding in why a census is such a valuable undertaking to advance development goals. As Omar Seidu explains, better data adds increased efficiency and informs government interventions intended to advance the sustainable development goals.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn how census data is both collected and put to use in the service of sustainable development, have a listen.

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About the 2020 Census in Ghana

This will be the third time Ghana attempts to do a combined housing and population census. A census is a huge undertaking in terms of cost, the number of people engaged, and the resources required. As a result of the logistical demand, conducting a census is a particular challenge in developing countries. The government and people of Ghana have committed to conducting a census every decade since the year 2000. The work begins years before the publication date. Currently, there are several teams on the ground demarcating the country into smaller areas.

How will tablets be used to collect the data?

Seidu states that Ghana has been using tablets since 2014, but this is the first time they are being used for the housing and population census. They have about 60,000 people staffed, which means they would need more than 60,000 tablets. Tablets are beneficial because they reduce the time between the end of data collection and the data publication, and further, they reduce human error associated with data collection. Therefore, the data produced would be of higher quality. There are serious challenges, though. Firstly, people would need to be trained to use the tablets properly. Secondly, staff would need electricity to charge these tablets. Furthermore, the census will be conducted during the dry season, and people will need to go far away from most structures to count people and this presents a range of security issues.

What efforts are underway to hone your office’s strategy to target and fine population’s that may otherwise be missed?

Seidu states that this is a de facto census, so every individual within Ghana’s borders must be counted, irrespective of their social status. The census is the single most important statistical investigation, providing information on all individuals. Every effort must be made to capture everyone. Most people live in households, but others live in institutions. For example, Goldberg accompanied an enumerator to a mental hospital who was trying out a survey of patients.These people must be accounted for as well. Another difficulty is that some people are constantly in transit.

What questions will be included in the census survey?

The census survey will take the social demographic details of the individual and information on the households. This includes name, age, sex, educational background, literacy, nationality, religion, economic activity, migration, fertility of females, and mortality within households. It will also take note of any individual who has a disability.

Goldberg notes that the Ghanaian census goes far more in depth than that of a US census. Seidu responds noting that in many developing countries, the administrative system is not robust enough to provide information on individuals, so the census provides a great opportunity. A country like the US has other sources of data, like the DMV.

How can this data help inform policy?

The census is used to demarcate the districts, which helps break up local governments and administration accordingly. Further, the census tells us who needs better access to educational services, potable water, who has a disability, and who is living below the poverty line. This helps locate people who need social protection. The census is able to disaggregate data by location, gender, age, income, and more, which helps target interventions.  

The census night will probably be March 19th, 2020.

This night serves as a reference point and helps ensure people are not double counted or missed. Whoever is within the territory of Ghana is expected to have been counted. This night is treated like a holiday, and celebrations take place including carnivals, bonfires, church bells, police sirens, to help people remember this night.  

Obtaining the tablets is a huge challenge, and this could affect the census being carried out in time.

The cost associated with procuring these tablets is huge. Not many countries in Africa have done this, so Ghana cannot borrow enough tablets either. Malawi completed a census, but they are a smaller country so they used fewer tablets. Further, Ghana would need tablets that are in adequate shape for data collection. The equipment cannot be defective, so they really need more than 60,000 to account for any technical difficulties.

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Shownotes by Lydia DeFelice