Diplomacy & Defense Think Tank News

Gepriesen von den Regierungsfraktionen als ambitioniert, kritisiert von der Opposition als Tropfen auf dem heißen Stein: Am 7. Oktober hat das Bundeskabinett unter Federführung des Bundesgesundheitsministeriums seine neue globale Gesundheitsstrategie verabschiedet. Diese hat sich im Vergleich zu ihrer Vorgängerin aus dem Jahr 2013 mit dem Titel »Verantwortung – Innovation – Partnerschaft: Globale Gesundheit gemeinsam gestalten« in entscheidenden Punkten weiterentwickelt. Neue Themenbereiche wie der Zusammenhang zwischen Klima und Gesundheit wurden aufgenommen; die Gesundheit von Mensch, Tier und Umwelt wird durch den One-Health-Ansatz verknüpft; Arbeitsschutz wird zum ersten Mal als Thema für den Gesundheitsschutz betrachtet – und Koordinierungsmechanismen zwischen den für globale Gesundheit zuständigen Ressorts wurden erweitert. Doch fehlt es in dem Regierungsdokument an politischer Vorausschau.

In Deutschland haben Wissenschaft und Zivilgesellschaft lange auf die Aktualisierung der Strategie gewartet. Und auch international steigen die Erwartungen an Deutschland. Denn zentrale Akteure haben sich weitgehend aus der internationalen Gesundheitspolitik verabschiedet. Die USA treten aus der WHO aus und das Engagement Großbritanniens für globale Gesundheitsthemen lässt im Zuge der Brexit-Debatte und des Covid-19-Ausbruchs im eigenen Land immer mehr nach.

Warum Deutschland eine visionäre Strategie braucht

Die vorgelegte globale Gesundheitsstrategie fußt auf der werteorientierten und multilateralen Außenpolitik Deutschlands, wodurch sie ein solides Fundament hat. Die Agenda 2030 für nachhaltige Entwicklung der Vereinten Nationen, Partnerschaften insbesondere mit der WHO und afrikanischen Ländern sowie eine menschrechtsbezogene globale Gesundheitspolitik werden als Rahmen für gesundheitspolitisches Handeln bestimmt. Der neuen Strategie zufolge sollen Gesundheitssysteme global gestärkt, die Forschung für globale Gesundheit ausgebaut und Herausforderungen wie Covid-19 begegnet werden. Allerdings wirkt sie dabei wie eine Bestandsaufnahme. Die Aussagen bleiben an vielen Stellen unkonkret und wenig zukunftsorientiert.

Doch um die globale Gesundheitslandschaft weiterzuentwickeln, ist eine zukunftsgerichtete Umsetzung der Strategie erforderlich. Eine solche gesundheitspolitische Zielsetzung würde Deutschland ein klares internationales Profil verleihen und die vielfältigen Gesundheitsthemen leichter bündeln und ausrichten lassen. Aus einer klaren Zielrichtung lassen sich letztlich besser konkrete Handlungsanweisungen ableiten, was wiederum zur Verbindlichkeit und Überprüfbarkeit der Strategie beiträgt. Der Bundestag kann bei einem Mechanismus zur Überprüfung der Strategie federführend sein. Der Unterausschuss für globale Gesundheit im Bundestag könnte die Durchführung der Strategie begleiten und den Fortschritt jährlich prüfen.

Für eine Umsetzung der globalen Gesundheitsstrategie mit Vorausschau

Der Gesundheitsstrategie der Bundesregierung ließe sich durch die folgenden drei Elemente eine Zukunftsorientierung geben: Durch eine übergreifende Zielsetzung, durch Perspektiven für die künftigen Rollenbilder und durch die Weiterführung aktueller Impulse. Deutschland zeichnet im internationalen Vergleich aus, dass es sich global für die Stärkung von Gesundheitssystemen einsetzt und nicht – wie die USA – einen Fokus nur auf die Eindämmung von Infektionskrankheiten wie Covid-19 legt. Daher sollte das übergeordnete Ziel in der Umsetzung der Strategie sein, künftigen Krisen durch resiliente Gesundheitssysteme zuvorzukommen. Damit würde Deutschland zukünftige Ereignisse bereits heute berücksichtigen und hätte so die Möglichkeit, über herkömmliche Gesundheitskrisen wie Pandemien hinauszudenken. Kommende Herausforderungen wie globale Krisen der mentalen Gesundheit mit einer steigenden Bedeutung von Depression oder Traumata, ein weltweiter Mangel an Gesundheitsfachkräften mit schwerwiegenden Folgen für die Regelversorgung oder Konflikte in der globalen Gesundheitswirtschaft, bei denen Patentschutz für Heilmittel und die Diversifizierung von Lieferketten zur Diskussion stehen, können so bereits jetzt in der Umsetzung der Strategie mitberücksichtigt werden.

Wo will und sollte Deutschland, die EU oder die WHO in zehn Jahren sein? Auf solche Fragen kann Deutschland in der Umsetzung seiner Strategie Antworten finden, damit Anregungen geben und international Akzente setzen. Denn hieraus ergeben sich konkrete Vorschläge, um die internationale Gesundheitsordnung zu gestalten. Deutschland könnte sich in der globalen Gesundheitslandschaft noch mehr als Baustein der europäischen Ordnung verstehen und die EU langfristig in ihrer globalen Gesundheitspolitik unterstützen. Ein zukünftiges Rollenbild der EU könnte vorsehen, dass die Union eine klare Haltung in globaler Gesundheit hat – durch eine neu aufgelegte Strategie und ein strategisches Referat für globale Gesundheit im Europäischen Auswärtigen Dienst. Sie verbessert ihre Position international durch die Partnerschaft mit der Afrikanischen Union und einen einflussreicheren Status in der WHO, der über die reine Beobachtung hinausgeht. So könnte ein WHO-Büro in Deutschland nicht nur die nationale Gesundheitspolitik unterstützen, sondern auch international zeigen, dass Deutschland sich für den Ausbau der WHO-Strukturen einsetzt. Für all das kann die Weiterführung der deutschen Strategie mit konkreten Maßnahmen Anstöße geben.

Schließlich offenbarte die Pandemie durch nationale Exportstopps oder Grenzschließungen, dass deutsche Gesundheitspolitik mit der internationalen Ebene verwoben ist. Diese Erkenntnis sollte die Bundesregierung in der Umsetzung berücksichtigen und innerhalb eines Aktionsplanes weiterdenken, in dem die Innen- und Außenpolitik auf gesundheitspolitischem Gebiet stärker miteinander verbunden werden.

Es ist noch nicht zu spät, die Umsetzung der vorgelegten Strategie durch Aspekte politischer Vorausschau mit Hilfe eines Aktionsplans zu stärken. Die Bundesregierung und das Parlament sollten das aktuelle Handlungsfenster für eine erfolgreiche Umsetzung der Strategie nutzen, um globale Gesundheit mit Blick in die Zukunft strategisch zu gestalten.

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In Israel wogt ein Kulturkampf: um die Identität des Staates, seine Leit­normen, das Verhältnis von Religion und Staat und generell um die Frage, was Jüdischsein im »Staat der Juden« bedeuten soll.

Gestritten wird zwischen Ultraorthodoxen bzw. Charedim und der übri­gen israelischen Bevölkerung, wobei sich der Anteil der Ersteren daran seit 1980 von vier auf zwölf Prozent verdreifacht hat und bis 2040 auf über 20 Prozent ansteigen dürfte. Das hat Folgen für die Debatte.

Die Weltanschauung der Charedim steht jener der Mehrheitsbevölkerung häufig diametral entgegen. Sie akzeptiert als Grundlagen jüdischen Lebens und jüdischer Identität nur die Thora und die religiösen Gesetze (Halacha), ist ihrem Wesen nach antidemokratisch, setzt auf hierarchische Gesellschaftsstrukturen mit Rabbinern an der Spitze und ist weit­gehend azionistisch.

Dennoch sind die Charedim auf den Staat und seine Institutionen an­gewiesen, wollen sie ihre Lebenswelt bewahren. Ihre (wachsende) »Gesellschaft der Lernenden« mit vom Wehrdienst befreiten und auf Erwerbs­arbeit verzichtenden Thoraschülern muss finanziert, das Bildungssystem als zentrale Säule der Ultraorthodoxie vor Eingriffen von außen geschützt werden. Das lässt sich nur über Beteiligung am demokratischen Prozess erreichen.

Die charedischen Parteien bewegen sich daher in einem Spannungsfeld aus Rückzug und Einflussnahme: Sie versuchen – neben dem Milieuschutz – einerseits, als »Verteidiger des jüdischen Charakters des Staates« Tendenzen entgegenzuwirken, die ihrer Vorstellung des Judentums ent­gegenlaufen, und andererseits, religionsrechtlichen Prinzipien mehr Gel­tung in Staat und Gesellschaft zu verschaffen. Dieser Gestaltungswille ist neu.

Die Charedim verändern Staat und Gesellschaft und werden dadurch selbst verändert. Die innergemeinschaftlichen Antworten darauf reichen von Plädoyers für Isolation über den Wunsch nach Integration in den Staat bis hin zu Forderungen nach dessen Übernahme.

Für die internationalen Partner Israels wird der zunehmende Einfluss der Charedim für größeren Verhandlungsbedarf sorgen, insbesondere wenn ein Anliegen liberale und emanzipatorische Werte betrifft.

Spätestens seit der Präsidentschaft Micheil Saakaschwilis hat die politische Führung in Georgien eine möglichst enge Anbindung des Landes an die USA und damit dessen geopolitische Verortung im »Westen« verfolgt. Seit 2009 strukturiert eine Strategische Partnerschaft die Kooperation.

Donald Trumps Politik des »America First« sowie eine angeblich weniger amerikafreundliche politische Führung in Georgien ließen Fragen über den Zustand des bilateralen Verhältnisses laut werden.

Einerseits sind die Beziehungen weiterhin eng, wurden in den letzten Jahren noch intensiviert und spielen für Tbilisi eine wesentliche Rolle. Andererseits verbinden die beiden Partner nicht überall dieselben Erwartungen, Funktionen und Prioritäten mit der Strategischen Partnerschaft.

Die USA legen einen Schwerpunkt auf Demokratie und Rechtsstaatlichkeit sowie entsprechende Reformen in Georgien. Die georgische Seite kon­zentriert sich auf den Bereich Sicherheit und Verteidigung sowie zunehmend auch Wirtschaft und Handel.

Das größte Hindernis für eine weitere Vertiefung der georgisch-amerika­nischen Beziehungen liegt jedoch darin, dass die USA keine strategische Vision für Georgien und die Region besitzen.

Diese strategische Leerstelle setzt Tbilisis Bestrebungen Grenzen, seine eigene imaginierte Geographie in Washington zu verankern. Ohne klare Strategie der USA schreibt die Strategische Partnerschaft Georgiens Liminalität, den Schwebestatus zwischen »Ost« und »West«, fort. Darin ähnelt sie dem Assoziierungsabkommen Georgiens mit der EU.

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Only 6 percent of all uniformed military, police, justice, and correctional personnel in United Nations field missions are women, and IPI Vice President Adam Lupel asked, “After 20 years and ten Security Council resolutions, why is it still so hard to increase the participation of uniformed women?”

Dr. Lupel was speaking to an October 20th IPI event co-sponsored with the Elsie Initiative for Women in Peace Operations and featuring a virtual discussion exploring answers to that question and launching the IPI policy paper “Woman First, Soldier Second: Taboos and Stigmas Facing Military Women in UN Peace Operations.” The paper is a product of IPI’s Women in Peace Operations Project, which is supported by the Government of Canada.

Jody Thomas, Deputy Minister of the Department of National Defence, Canada, introduced the discussion with an account of her own personal experience as a beginning officer. “I went aboard my first ship completely confident in my ability to be an excellent and equal shipmate. Not everyone agreed. There were some who were adamant that my gender was a weakness that they were being forced to accommodate, and they were angry about it. Their words and actions reinforced that I was not welcome, that there was something wrong with me actually wanting to be on a ship.

“That behavior was and is a reflection of a deeply rooted stigma that it is somehow wrong and inappropriate for women to serve in uniform. This kind of resistance to women in service—words, actions, attitudes—persists, and all that is rooted in the same stigma and taboos: women should not serve in combat roles; they should be out of the way; serving in ways that are not dangerous. Our country and our armed forces have made a lot of progress since those days, and it was a long time ago, in terms of our policy and our approach, but we have more to do to fight stigmas here in Canada and in countries around the world.”

Deputy Minister Thomas reported that Canada and Norway had pioneered a new barrier assessment methodology for police and military organizations and that the Canadian Armed Forces would be undergoing this assessment in the coming months.

Lotte Vermeij, Senior Adviser to the Norwegian Armed Forces and author of the report, said she had interviewed 142 women from 53 countries across 11 UN missions ranging in rank from private to major general. She said she addressed three levels: (1) the individual and community levels (2) within national defense structures and (3) during deployments to UN Peace Operations.

As an example of the mindset they face, Dr. Vermeij said, “Women are often seen as less feminine and less marriageable by their communities.” She quoted a military woman deployed to the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who had told her, “The community sees us as masculine, angry, and more aggressive than normal civilian women as we are trying to fit in with a male-dominated culture. At the same time, single women may be seen as promiscuous, while mothers are often perceived as neglecting their families.”

Another military woman told her, “I witnessed multiple cases of inappropriate behavior that made me feel more unsafe within the walls of the mission than outside.”

Dr. Vermeij said that women’s lack of authority and their minority status within the force made it very difficult for them to report and address these issues. “Women who did speak up were often discouraged from making official complaints and were sometimes even bullied and isolated.”

In pushing back, Dr. Vermeij said, “Women use a range of strategies, including sharing information with their families and friends, working harder to prove themselves and sometimes isolating themselves during deployments to avoid certain situations. They also turn to formal and informal support structures.”

“Unfortunately,” she added, “the burden of change often falls on individual women themselves rather than on institutions. Not surprisingly, these dynamics perpetuate the underrepresentation of women, military peacekeepers in UN missions.”

Among the recommendations she said the interviewed military women made were “the UN Department of Peace Operations should strengthen narratives on the importance of female peacekeepers in mission, ensure that all peacekeepers respect UN values, develop mission-specific general strategies and plans, engage more firmly with troop-contributing countries, make recruitment and selection processes more gender-sensitive, hold personnel accountable for discriminatory and sexualized behavior, and establish in-mission support systems.”

Major Kristy Hudson, Military Training Officer, UN Department of Peace Operations, said that women had to be alert to signs of discrimination, even seemingly small ones, and to signal their robust refusal to tolerate it. “This isn’t just about overt harassment, this is about the tiny moments that leaders let go past every day, and there’s a great saying that I love, ‘The standard that you walk by is the standard that you accept.’ If you are silent when a woman is dismissed as a leader, you are telling the team a woman can be ignored. So let this ‘bystander effect’ drive leadership in missions from the junior leader to the most senior leaders, and we will tackle a lot of these stigmas.”

Major Hudson said that women were wrongfully suspected of resisting deployment. “If someone says they don’t want to deploy, it won’t be because they don’t want to deploy, it would be because there is a barrier. Find out what that barrier is and what your organization is doing about it. In most cases, it’s actually about parenting issues that men and women both need support with. So address that. Consider unconscious bias because a lot of the decisions we make are not intentional, we just haven’t thought about it from the other side whether it’s an intersectional issue or a gender issue.”

Dr. Vermeij said her research bore out the view that women wanted to deploy, and not just in reduced roles. “We sometimes hear this argument that women don’t want to deploy. From the interviews, I can tell you that they do want to be deployed in those roles and they certainly want to be deployed, for example, at military observer sites.”

Major General Kristin Lund, formerly Head of Mission, UN Truce Supervision Organization, and Force Commander, UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, also dismissed the notion that women were not willing to deploy. “When it comes to ‘females don’t want to be deployed,’ I think that’s a myth. When Norwegians deployed to Afghanistan, they came back and said, ‘We need them, we cannot solve the problems out there without the women.’ It has to be shown that these women are able and capable of doing what men are doing.” She pointed out that career advancement often depended on it. “In your career, you need to be deployed if you went to have a future.”

Major Hudson brought up an area where women’s needs were exasperatingly not taken into account. “Only yesterday, I had a so-called military expert argue with me that it was a waste of time to make sure that military equipment was adapted to meet the requirements of women. His view, and I’ve heard it many times before, was that it was unreasonable that a female soldier should expect to have vital protective equipment, in this case, a helmet that actually fit her sufficiently to protect her skull while not slipping down and obscuring her vision and preventing her from performing her duties as a soldier. And that blows my mind.”

Wing Commander Llani Kennealy, Military Liaison Officer – Peacekeeping, UN Women, had a terse rejoinder to this kind of thinking. “Male clothing and equipment are not well suited to women’s bodies, and calling equipment unisex doesn’t cut it.”

Major General Lund outlined the challenges that military women faced in becoming leaders. “For me, now a retired major general in the Norwegian Army, it took me 15 years to find my leader philosophy. Why? Well, your only role models were men, and you saw what kind of values they appreciated to get you promoted. But by hard work, I got stronger and wiser and managed to lead the way I wanted to be led.”

She illustrated how the particular challenges for a woman leader remain even once you’ve assumed responsibility. ‘When I was Force Commander in Cyprus, I had to check, for example, which were the troop- contributing countries where prostitution was illegal. For me, that was an indicator of men’s attitudes towards women. And I had to pay more attention to give guidelines to those contingents and their commanders. I changed that, providing doors to lavatories, curtains in front of the urinals, and separation walls in containers, small simple changes that you can make. The sub-commanders understood my intention and removed inappropriate posters in the gyms.”

Major Hudson called for more attention from the UN and troop-contributing countries to the recruitment and training of military women. ”If a country is to be serious about deploying women and treating them with respect, they must deliberately seek to grow this cadre using the same care and attention they use to grow the male workforce. That is in training, career development, in coaching and mentoring, and that means building from the ground. And if we want female sector commanders and force commanders, we need to start recruitment. Countries must show that women are taken seriously as military personnel, and that they’re not being deployed merely as quotas to be met.”

Wing Commander Kennealy said that military women had developed among themselves successful informal means of being effective and independent in a male-dominated world. “Women, experiencing the stigmas and taboos highlighted in this research identified that in the first instance, rather than raise issues with their chain of command, they often seek assistance from talking to other women through informal networks. This highlights that leadership and networks in no way operate independently of each other. These networks will often develop out of necessity driven by women as a result of a lack of leadership or the inadequacy of systems and policies that support a diverse work force.”

Ms. Kennealy theorized a general reason why there was a need for these networks. “Military organizations are by their very nature striving for uniformity, and they have generally been designed on a male career model that doesn’t allow for the flexibility of career breaks or other policy interventions that help to support and maintain women in their careers alongside their male cohorts.” At the same time, she cautioned against overdependence on these informal networks. “It is critical that through these associations, we do not perpetuate the idea that the need for the structural change to improve the conditions and experiences of our women is just women’s business as this simply is not correct. It is the responsibility of commanders and capability managers to seek policy changes to achieve enabling capability and mission success.”

Lieutenant Colonel Nomthandazo Ditire is a former military intelligence officer for the South African National Defense Force who now serves as a military planning officer at the Military Planning Service of the Office of Military Affairs (OMA) at the UN Department of Peace Operations. She is concerned at the relatively few numbers of women in the higher ranks.

“We still see more women as non-ranking cadre members, we see them as platoon commanders, however, we haven’t seen much more in the sense of company commanders, battalion commanders, sector commanders and also making sure that the force commanders, sector commanders are also recruited. OMA also needs to integrate women so that we know that this will cascade down to the field.

“And mission-specific gender strategies should be more than simply having a woman on a planning team or in a decision-making role, but should look to the benefits of women at all levels in the mission across the different functions and within the military contingents themselves. Women should not just be doing medical or logical or logistical or administrative work, but also can be effectively training combat readiness and also in engagements. Women should be playing a vital role in intelligence gathering and also patrols and physical operations.”

Wing Commander Llani Kennealy underlined the importance of continuing to push for change. “Change will require strong, committed leadership at all levels of decision-making, but just as critical, change will require ongoing advocacy, activism and encouragement by military women and for military women.”

After hearing from the other military women on the panel, she remarked that it could have been depressing listening to the personal accounts of the damaging effect that taboos and stigmas had on women, but that instead she had come away inspired by what she had heard.

“Potentially this commonality of experience could be perceived as deflating – that the issues of stigmas and taboos are too widespread and too ingrained in military culture to change. However, I look at this unity of experience and understanding reported by these women as something very different, and in fact, I see this commonality of awareness as a real opportunity.

“Through this unity of experience comes a unity of purpose. Our commonality of experiences will lead directly to a unity for change.”

Gretchen Baldwin, IPI Senior Policy Analyst for Women, Peace, and Security, moderated the discussion.

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Carlota García Encina. ARI 118/2020 - 20/10/2020

La relación de EEUU con el mundo no es una de las protagonistas de las elecciones presidenciales que se celebrarán el próximo noviembre, pero  todo apunta a un cambio de rumbo, gane quien gane.

Demographics, taboos and stigmas facing military women at the individual and community levels. Click for full graphic.

Deployment, taboos and stigmas facing military women within national defense structures. Click for full graphic.

Despite efforts to increase the participation of women uniformed peacekeepers, military women continue to face taboos and stigmas that are barriers to their inclusion and successful deployment. These range from gender stereotypes that cause military women to face more scrutiny than their male counterparts to difficulties speaking up about discriminatory and sexualized behavior, including racism, sexual harassment, and assault. Being confronted with persistent taboos and stigmas can have far-reaching consequences for military women before, during, and after deployment.

This paper, which is based on interviews with 142 military women from fifty-three countries, assesses the taboos and stigmas facing military women at three levels: (1) at the individual and community levels; (2) within their national defense structures; and (3) during deployment to UN peace operations. It also looks at the strategies women use to mitigate these taboos and stigmas and the formal and informal support structures they turn to.

The paper concludes with recommendations for national defense structures and the UN:

• For national defense structures, it recommends improving standards of behavior and accountability, educating men and women on taboos and stigmas, recruiting and retaining more women, proactively reaching out to and selecting women for deployment to peace operations, providing women the support they need, and designing equipment that better suits women’s needs.
• For the UN Department of Peace Operations, it recommends strengthening narratives on the importance of female peacekeepers, ensuring that all peacekeepers respect UN values, developing mission-specific gender strategies and plans, engaging more firmly with troop-contributing countries, making recruitment and selection processes more gender-sensitive, holding personnel accountable for discriminatory and sexualized behavior, and establishing in-mission support systems.

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With the establishment of the Air and Space Operations Centre (ASOC), the Bundes­wehr is bringing together several capacities in one central facility. What sounds like science fiction at first glance is a necessary response to the growing military impor­tance of space as an operational dimension. Space operations will not become part of everyday life overnight. In the medium to long term, however, the new centre offers opportunities for multidimensional integration that could prove to be a driver of innovation for the armed forces as a whole. In order to exploit this potential, addi­tional personnel and structural adjustments are necessary.

Manuel Montobbio. DT 19/2020 - 16/10/2020

Frente a la concepción de la relación entre poder y libertad como la prolongación en el tiempo de la foto fija del contrato social fundacional del Estado, Daron Acemoğlu y James A. Robinson defienden que está siempre en construcción.

Es war eine Vereinbarung, die der damalige EU-Kommissionspräsident Jean-Claude Juncker beim G20-Gipfel 2019 als historisch bezeichnete. Die EU und die Mercosur-Staaten Argentinien, Brasilien, Paraguay und Uruguay wollten die weltweit größte Freihandelszone mit rund 800 Millionen Einwohnern schaffen. Das bislang umfangreichste von der EU vereinbarte Abkommen sollte jährlich Zollabgaben in Höhe von vier Milliarden Euro einsparen. Nun wurde der Handelsvertrag nach 20 Jahren Verhandlungen zwischen der EU und dem südamerikanischen Staatenbund auf Eis gelegt. Das Europäische Parlament hat am 7. Oktober mit 345 zu 295 Stimmen deutlich gemacht, dass es das EU-Mercosur-Freihandelsabkommen in seiner jetzigen Fassung nicht für annahmefähig hält.

Ohnehin hat sich gegen den Vertrag mittlerweile eine breite Front gebildet: Neben die europäischen Agrarlobbyisten, die billige Konkurrenz aus Brasilien und Argentinien fürchten, sind die Verteidiger des Amazonas-Regenwalds getreten. Sie bemängeln die im Handelsvertrag fehlenden Sanktionen bei Verstößen gegen das Pariser Klimaabkommen und wollen eine Vertragsformulierung, die eine Aussetzung des Abkommens ermöglicht, wenn Umwelt- und Klimaregeln missachtet werden. Im Vertrag soll diese Schutzbestimmung der Achtung der Menschenrechte und der Wahrung der Demokratie rechtlich gleichgestellt werden.

Widerstand auf nationaler und europäischer Ebene

Daneben haben die Parlamente in Österreich, den Niederlanden und der belgischen Region Wallonie mit ihrer Ablehnung bereits Pflöcke eingerammt, die eine Ratifizierung durch die Parlamente der EU-Mitgliedstaaten wenig aussichtsreich erscheinen lassen. Auch die deutsche Bundeskanzlerin hat »ernste Zweifel« angemeldet, so dass davon auszugehen ist, dass der Vertrag in seiner jetzigen Fassung nicht nur im Europäischen Parlament, sondern auch bei den Mitgliedstaaten und im Europäischen Rat nicht mehrheitsfähig ist.

Im Zentrum der Kritik steht dabei insbesondere die Umweltpolitik des brasilianischen Präsidenten Jair Bolsonaro, die zu massiven Bränden im Amazonas geführt hat. Die französische Regierung sprach sogar davon, dass es um die »Disziplinierung der Praktiken der Mercosur-Länder« gehe, um fortschreitende Entwaldung, die weitere Ausdehnung der Flächen für Rinderzucht sowie Verlust an Biodiversität und negative Klimafolgen zu verhindern. Brasilien beharrt derweil auf seine nationale Souveränität über den Amazonas. Hinter den Protesten gegen seine Politik vermutet Bolsonaro eine Verschwörung europäischer und brasilianischer NGOs. Nicht zuletzt würden sich dahinter protektionistische Interessen Europas, insbesondere der französischen Agrarlobby, verbergen.

Demgegenüber sind die Stimmen von Unterstützern des Handelsvertrages auf beiden Seiten des Atlantiks gegenwärtig kaum zu vernehmen. Vor allem Unternehmerverbände sowie die Regierungen Paraguays und Uruguays sprechen sich nach wie vor für die Vereinbarung aus, während Argentiniens Regierung angesichts der Verwerfungen der Corona-Krise und der leeren Staatskassen eine distanzierte Loyalität zum Vertragsentwurf zeigt, da sie eine Marktöffnung eher kritisch einschätzt. Doch reichen Verlautbarungen mit Unterstützungserklärungen nicht aus, wenn die weltweit größte Freihandelszone geschaffen werden soll.

Ein ernsthafter Dialog erfordert vertrauensbildende Maßnahmen

Heute stehen die Vertragsparteien vor der Alternative, entweder das Abkommen nachzuverhandeln oder ganz aufzugeben. Letzteres wäre sicherlich die schlechteste Option, da Europa ohne Abkommen noch weniger Einfluss auf die Umweltpolitik in den Mercosur-Staaten nehmen könnte. Zudem würde die Region vollkommen China als wichtigstem Handelspartner überlassen. Die EU würde sich damit in Lateinamerika insgesamt aus dem Spiel nehmen, nicht zuletzt auch mit Hinblick auf die gleichzeitig zur Ratifizierung vorliegende Modernisierung des Handelsabkommens mit Mexiko, bei der vergleichbare Vorbehalte hinsichtlich ungenügender Umsetzung von Rechtsstaats- und Umweltstandards zu erwarten sind.

Allerdings könnten als Rückfallposition bilaterale Einzelvereinbarungen mit den Partnerländern des Mercosur angestrebt werden. Der jetzt vorliegende Text des Vertrages könnte als Vorlage dienen, um schnell zu Vereinbarungen zu gelangen, die eine Inhaftnahme der Nachbarländer Brasiliens für Bolsonaros verfehlte Umweltpolitik vermeiden würden. Indes stehen dieser Option die bisherige Präferenz der EU-Kommission für einen regionalen Zuschnitt bei Freihandelsabkommen entgegen, wie auch Mercosur-interne Regelungen, die keine individuellen Freihandelsabkommen gestatten. Gegenwärtig scheint es keine Bereitschaft zu geben, diese Positionen aufzugeben und die bestehenden Hindernisse zu beseitigen.

So bleibt letztlich nur die Option, die Partner in Lateinamerika zu Zugeständnissen in den Umweltfragen zu bewegen – etwa in Anlehnung an die gemeinsame Erklärung, die die EU und Südkorea zur Ergänzung ihres Freihandelsabkommens mit Bezug auf arbeitsrechtliche Regelungen abgegeben haben. Indes scheint auch dieser Weg verstellt: Die Verlässlichkeit der Partner, dass vertragliche Regelungen eingehalten werden, steht in Frage, wenn diese nicht mit Sanktionen versehen sind. Den Regierungen in Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Paris und Berlin fehlt es an gegenseitigem Vertrauen. Daher sind sie gegenwärtig nicht bereit, politische Kosten für eine Verabschiedung des Abkommens zu übernehmen – oder befürchten einen Gesichtsverlust bei möglichen Nachverhandlungen einer verpflichtenden Umweltklausel. Notwendig sind daher von beiden Seiten vertrauensbildende Maßnahmen, die bestehende Animositäten ausräumen und Grundlagen für einen ernsthaften Dialog schaffen, bevor sich das politische Panorama mit den Wahlen in Deutschland (2021) und Frankreich (2022) wieder neu konstituiert. Es gibt nur ein kurzes Zeitfenster, das für politische Initiativen genutzt werden sollte.

Während der syrische Bürgerkrieg zugunsten des Regimes von Präsident Bashar al‑Assad entschieden scheint, haben der Prozess und die Debatte über die Normalisierung der Beziehungen arabischer Länder mit Syrien und dessen mögliche Wieder­eingliederung in die Arabische Liga (AL) bereits begonnen. Eine Rück­kehr zur diplo­ma­tischen Nor­ma­lität würde die Legitimität des syrischen Regimes stärken. Dies würde dem Bestreben Deutschlands und der Europäischen Union (EU) entgegen­wirken, die gemeinsam mit den USA das syrische Regime mittels Sanktionen und Isolation zur Verhandlung einer politischen Lösung des Konfliktes bewegen wollen. Neben der Diskussion über die frag­liche Rückkehr Syriens in die AL besprechen die hier vorgestellten Beiträge die Beweggründe arabischer Länder, ihre Beziehungen mit Damaskus zu normalisieren, sowie den Einfluss externer Akteure und der Corona-Pandemie auf diesen Prozess.

The European Council’s conclusions on external relations published on 1 October 2020 hint at the readiness of the European Union (EU) to enter into a new stage in its relations with Turkey. On the one hand, the EU “strongly condemns violation of the sovereign rights of the Republic of Cyprus” and “calls on Turkey to abstain from similar actions in the future, in breach of international law”. It also insists on resolv­ing differences “through peaceful dialogue” – a clear hint at Turkey’s extensive show of military might in the Mediterranean – and underlines its determination to apply sanctions to Turkey. On the other hand, the EU has agreed “to launch a positive politi­cal EU-Turkey agenda with a specific emphasis on the modernisation of the Customs Union and trade facilitation, people-to-people contacts, High level dialogues”, and “con­tinued cooperation on migration issues”. The essential condition to kick off this new agenda is to sustain the “constructive efforts to stop illegal activities vis-à-vis Greece and Cyprus”. Based on joint research conducted by six European think tanks, we suggest that the EU should explicitly separates the accession framework from the modernisation of the Customs Union. Additionally, we lay out a framework for the negotiations on a modernised Customs Union.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Union (EU) was neither a strong pro­moter of global health nor a strong supporter of the World Health Organization (WHO). The Global Health Council Conclusions from 2010 were never comprehensively implemented and quickly forgotten. With the pandemic greatly affecting EU member states, the EU is increasingly interested in upholding multilateral cooperation in the global health field. Therefore, the EU should aim for an upgrading of the EU’s status in WHO, the establishment of a global health unit in the European External Action Service (EEAS), and an overhaul of the formal relationship between the European Com­mission and WHO.

Viele politische Entscheidungsträger in Deutschland und anderen EU-Staaten dürften darauf hoffen, dass die transatlantischen Beziehungen nach den bevorstehenden US‑Präsidentschaftswahlen am 3. November wieder in ruhigere Fahrwasser gelangen, falls der Demokrat Joe Biden gewinnt. Allerdings wird der innen- und außenpolitische Handlungsspielraum des amerikanischen Präsidenten auch von langfristigen und strukturellen Entwicklungen bestimmt, die über die nächsten (und übernächsten) US-Wahlen hinauswirken. Sieben Trends sind in dieser Hinsicht besonders rele­vant. Zusammen betrachtet verdeutlichen sie, dass außenpolitische Anforderungen und innenpolitische Ressourcen in den USA zunehmend auseinanderklaffen.

 

The 2020 report of the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (C-34) marked the culmination of nearly a decade of efforts to improve the committee’s working methods and deliver a more relevant report. Because the report was restructured around the eight thematic priorities of the Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative, it also helped translate the initiative’s Declaration of Shared Commitments into practice. This was an especially noteworthy achievement considering that the committee had failed to reach consensus on a report just one year prior.

This paper explores previous efforts to reform the C-34 and the process of agreeing to reform the working methods and report structure in 2019. It also assesses the contribution of the report’s revised structure and substance to ongoing efforts to support and advance peacekeeping reform. It concludes with lessons that could guide other UN reform initiatives: timing and circumstances matter, there must be an appetite for reform, those leading the reform process must listen and be impartial arbiters, and delegations must be patient and have realistic expectations.

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With the world struggling with a global pandemic, increasing attention is being paid to the potential of community-owned and -led initiatives to address poverty, mobilize crisis response, and increase human security and well-being in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

On October 14th, IPI, with co-sponsors Catalyst for Peace, the Institute for State Effectiveness, the Government of Sierra Leone, and the Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the UN, held a virtual policy forum to discuss the on-the-ground experiences of two countries that are integrating community-centered initiatives into national government policy, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.

Introducing the subject, Jimena Leiva Roesch, IPI Senior Fellow and Head of the Peace and Sustainable Development Program, explained, “We ask for these inclusive and leave-no-one behind frameworks that center on community, both as the heart of the 2030 Agenda and in the Sustaining Peace resolutions. So at the global policy level, we know that this is our aspiration, but we rarely find examples in the field of how you transform these aspirations into reality. And of course, the local level is a lot more complicated than these aspirations. When you get to work and roll up your sleeves, it’s not as lofty.”

Francess Piagie Alghali, Minister of State for the Office of the Vice President, Government of Sierra Leone, said that one of the main drivers of conflict in her country had been “the lack of inclusive dialogue platforms at the community level, and the lack of participation. People feel that they don’t belong to these communities when they lose their livelihoods, and there is nowhere where they can address some of these issues, and then the next thing that they do is turn to violence.”

She said that her government reasoned that the best way to avert some of these violent incidents was to strengthen local governments and the decentralization process. “We believe that local councils, local governments know and understand their communities better and are well placed to implement initiatives to build social cohesion and to reap the resulting benefits of stronger, more resilient and productive communities.”

The government has now incorporated a people’s planning model called the Wan Fambul Framework for Inclusive Governance and Local Development, an instrument not only for economic development but also to build peace, social cohesion, and inclusion. “It’s a unique model,” Minister Alghali said. “It sparks the imagination of communities. It makes the communities feel that they are part of the development. It engenders leadership and inclusivity. And one unique component of this framework is that it gives prominence to women and former groups that have not been included in the conversation in the communities, like disabled people, like youths. Those people feel that they have a say in the way their communities are being run.”

She said that the community structures that had been developed using the Wan Fambul framework had helped the country cope with current crises. “For example, we used these frameworks to address the Ebola pandemic that we recently went through. We use these frameworks to address natural disasters. We are using this framework to address the COVID pandemic now, in unique and innovative ways, like sending the message of hand washing and spreading the message of socially distanced gatherings. These are the governance structures that we use, and they have worked quite well.”

The Wan Fambul framework is now being legislated into law, giving it permanence in the structure and governance of Sierra Leone. “Once it is legislated, it makes any government that comes to power obliged to follow this framework, and it also means it must be part of the budget allocation for the government.”

Sierra Leone is applying the lesson of Wan Fambul to its fulfillment of the SDGs, Ms. Alghali said. “As a country, we believe that the first step in achieving the SDGs by 2030 is for us to be able to sustain peace and national cohesion, which is the bedrock of any form of development. Without peace, without cohesion, there is not going to be development, and in order to do that, we have to strengthen governance at the community level by putting communities at the center of the planning process. This is what we have done in Sierra Leone as a model by incorporating the Wan Fambul Framework in our governance and structure. And we hope that other countries will emulate this good example.”

Adela Raz, Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to the UN, recounted how the country had pursued its community-driven development using its people- centric Citizens’ Charter National Priority Program. “Through our Citizens’ Charter, we have empowered Afghan communities to identify, plan, manage, and monitor development projects.” She said that projects have been “democratized” through a process in which locally elected Community Development Councils prioritized projects and applied to receive funding for their implementation. “The program success was evident in its very positive impact in over 35, 000 communities which included greater access to public services and then overall acceptance of the democratic process and the people-centered approaches.”

Ambassador Raz said that the Citizens’ Charter program deepened the relationship between the government and its citizens and expanded the responsibility of the Community Development Councils through an inter-ministerial collaboration for better citizen-centric delivery of services, including universal access to clean drinking water, quality education, health services and infrastructure. “This has translated into 12,800 completed projects and more than 13 million people benefited. This model, of course, originated from collaboration between the international and the national. And as a government, we found ourselves in the middle of this partnership, and we adopted it and held it with two hands.”

She pointed out that the government had also taken a community-led approach to the SDGs. “The government has worked to nationalize the SDGs by identifying the most relevant targets and indicators to develop the Afghanistan Sustainable Development Goals. Of course in Afghanistan, when we are talking about community-led efforts, we cannot discuss this without the element of peace. The government has also emphasized that Afghans from all segments of society should have a say in the peace process. It called a Loya Jirga, our format for our grand assembly, with 3,200 delegates from all 34 provinces that prioritized our objective for peace and the formation of an inclusive negotiating team. Following the lead of the Jirga, the government in August took the very difficult decision to release 400 remaining Taliban prisoners as part of the commitment from the government’s side to start the peace talks.

“The government is also empowering women to engage in track two and track three peace processes through community-led initiatives. The second phase of our Women, Peace, and Security National Action Plan emphasizes the localization of the plan and close consultation with stakeholders around the country. This has led to the development of local action plans which has strengthened community leadership and further amplified local ownership of the National Action Plan I think this is the environment we should strive for with these important initiatives and building more people-centric governments and processes and initiatives that leads to greater ownership of the local communities.”

Her fellow Afghan, Rasoul Rasouli, CDD Operations and Development Expert and former Director General, Citizens’ Charter, Afghanistan, said the overall national project aimed at putting in place sustainable systems to reduce poverty and bind people to the government. It was now in its first phase, he said, and on a path to reach 40,000 villages in the country. “Community-driven development programs encourage the notion of participation and voluntary reason. It is quite feasible to expand the program fast and give more coverage. The bottom-up development gives a way for citizens through the different platforms of community participation, to participate in monitoring, social audit, score cards, and a comprehensive grievance redress mechanism linking the beneficiaries at the primary level to the government officials from the local all the way up to the national level to register their complaints.”

The Fambul Tok project in Sierra Leone shared a similar goal of community involvement with the Afghan Citizens’ Charter movement but proceeded on a different mindset, said John Caulker, Executive Director of Fambul Tok International, ”We don’t’ say ‘bottom up,’ we say ‘inside out’ because with all due respect, we believe that people should not be seen as the bottom. People have their answers to the problems, solutions to look out for, and that is the key. We don’t go to communities to solve their problems, we go to communities to facilitate a conversation.”

He explained that the Creole language phrase Fambul Tok means “family talks” and evolved in Sierra Leone in the aftermath of the country’s devastating and divisive civil war. “So the initial concept was to address gaps to work on reconciliation, get the people who suffered during the conflict to sit around to talk about what went wrong. ‘We used to be one big family. Your mother is my mother, and your father is my father, your child is my child. It takes a village to raise a child. What went wrong?’ So that was the initial idea, why we had Fambul Tok, and as the name implies, it’s a national conversation.”

When the Ebola crisis hit five years ago, Sierra Leone profited from this earlier experience with community-centered development. “We realized that it’s important to have a trusted relationship, which we had already forged, and because of that trusted relationship, we were able to lead a conversation at the community level. We were able to get stakeholders to listen to communities.”

Libby Hoffman, President of Catalyst for Peace, spoke of working with Mr. Caulker in Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak and a lesson she gleaned from that experience. She recalled that Mr. Caulker was frustrated by the response of the international community which he found replicative of the errors in the outside world’s response to the country’s post-civil war needs years earlier. “He said something that I found so inspiring that I wrote it down, and it’s become a keystone for me. Referring to international donors, he said, ‘They think they can just come in and pour resources at the problem to fix it. They don’t even see the community where the problem is happening.’ And that community is like a bowl, and it’s cracked. And if you pour water into a cracked bowl, it just goes right through, and if you keep pouring, it only makes the cracks bigger.”

Continuing her bowl metaphor, she said the way that Fambul Tok worked was “not about pouring water into the cup of the community, it was about repairing the cup through a community mobilization and engagement process so that it could hold the water itself and then it could generate its own activity and lead in its own reconciliation and development.” Holding up a model of concentric bowls to illustrate her point, she said, “You’ll see that there is no up or down. Depending on where you’re located, it’s a whole system, and the role of each level outside is to create the space that allows the resources in the level inside to be seen, motivated, and magnified. So this is what we mean when we say communities in the center, not separated and hierarchal but all together with distinct roles and responsibilities as part of a larger whole.”

Clare Lockhart, Director, Institute for State Effectiveness, said that the kinds of layered platform designs being discussed varied from place to place and had to be context-specific. “But one of the most important principles that we’ve heard today is that among the decisions, rights or responsibilities, the leadership for planning is vested in the community. And this can sometimes be quite hard for governments or NGOs to let go of when they got used to making the decisions. But it’s really important that shift about understanding that the community will be making the decision and plans for what happens in their community.”

On the crucial issue of financial support, she said that a “single window framework” was key to engaging donors. “From the perspective of donors with these often fragmented programs, having a single set of rules for operation and community development can be so crucial.”

Jimena Leiva-Roesch moderated the discussion.

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Marie-Cécile Naves, directrice de recherche à l’IRIS et spécialiste des États-Unis, vous donne régulièrement rendez-vous pour suivre ses analyses de la campagne présidentielle américaine. Elle répond aujourd’hui aux questions suivantes :

– Toujours à la traîne derrière Biden dans les sondages, Trump sillonne à nouveau les États-Unis après avoir été malade du Covid-19. Quel impact sa gestion de la maladie a-t-elle eue sur la campagne ?

– Le vote par anticipation bat des records, à plus de trois semaines des élections. En quoi celui-ci est un des gros enjeux de cette campagne électorale, surtout pour les démocrates ?

– C’est ce lundi dans un contexte tendu que commencent les auditions au Sénat pour la nomination de la juge Amy Coney Barrett à la Cour suprême. Faut-il craindre sa nomination pour l’équilibre des pouvoirs aux États-Unis ?