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Humanitarian
coordination: alliances, partnerships and the Global Agenda
Statement
by Mr Markku Niskala, Secretary General, at the Webster Humanitarian
Conference, in Geneva
2
March 2006 |
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Thank you for the honour you have paid to the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies by inviting
me and several of my colleagues to speak at this important Conference.
The Webster Humanitarian Conference is a key event in the Geneva
humanitarian calendar, for it brings together a large number
of talented and experience people, and gives them an opportunity
to share their views not just with each other but with students
and young people with a fresh vision of how the world community
should address the challenges it faces today.
The Evolution of the Humanitarian Challenge
The world is a very different place from that which first began
to accept the humanitarian challenge in a united way about 80
years ago.
At that time, after the First World War, the international community
was inspired by the devastation of that war to form the League
of Nations, and the League of Red Cross Societies came into
existence at the same time, and with the same inspiration.
The League of Red Cross Societies is of course the forerunner
of today's International Federation. It was formed by the Red
Cross Societies of the United States, Great Britain, France,
Italy and Japan on 5 May 1919 after a suggestion by President
Woodrow Wilson of the United States that a League of Societies
should be created alongside the planned League of Nations, the
latter to address the political issues of the post-war world,
and the former to promote health, prevent disease and mitigate
suffering throughout the world, irrespective of class, colour
or creed.
President Wilson's dream was that the two Leagues would have
membership from the same countries and that together they would
form a dynamic force assuring the post-war world of peace and
prosperity, without discrimination. The two bodies would provide
a framework for cooperation and for coordinated action in an
atmosphere of trust and goodwill. The dream also included fostering
the development of National Red Cross Societies with a clear
purpose related to the way the League would work.
Article 25 of the Covenant of the League of Nations made this
clear. It stated "The Members of the League agree to encourage
and promote the establishment and co-operation of duly authorised
voluntary national Red Cross organisations having as purposes
the improvement of health, the prevention of disease and the
mitigation of suffering throughout the world".
At the time, there were clear expectations. The Bulletin of
the League of Red Cross Societies, in its edition of 18 May
1919, foresaw that the League would establish "intimate
relations with the League of Nations and the various governments
of the world". In addition, because of the nature of the
Red Cross as "non-political, non-governmental and non-sectarian"
there would be "no statutory connections with the League
of Nations or with any government".
That humanitarian dream is still some way from realisation.
It is, however, a mark of its continued relevance almost 90
years later that this Webster University conference has brought
distinguished speakers from all works of governmental, non-governmental
and academic life together to explore what we can do in 2006
to help achieve its objective.
I am not going to spend time today on the history of the International
Federation, but do need to mention an important event in 1994,
for it has had a decisive impact on the character of the relationship
which has been built between governments and the humanitarian
world beyond governments [The history of the Federation, 1919-94,
is available in the book ‘Beyond Conflict’, published
after the 75th anniversary pf the Federation. IFRC 1997].
The Federation's Place in the International Community
It is the decision by the UN General Assembly, in its resolution
49/2 adopted on 19 October that year, to invite the International
Federation to participate in its sessions as an Observer. The
preamble to the resolution states that one of the main purposes
of the decision was to promote cooperation between the United
Nations and the International Federation.
This would, of course, build on important work which had run
for many years in different contexts like the cooperation between
the League of Red Cross Societies and the UN Disaster Relief
Office (UNDRO, a forerunner to the present-day OCHA).
But the resolution also notes that National Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies have special functions, and that they are
recognised by their respective governments as auxiliaries to
the public authorities in the humanitarian field.
By then, the world was considering what had been achieved after
8 decades of cooperation through the United Nations and its
predecessor the League. Practically every organisation in the
world saw the coming millennium occasion as a timetable for
reflection and renewal.
The International Federation was excited by the same opportunity,
and in 1999 we produced our blueprint for the next ten years,
our Strategy 2010. It identifies four core priority areas for
our Federation and our worldwide network of National Societies.
They are disaster preparedness, disaster response, health and
community care, and the promotion of humanitarian principles
and values.
These core areas are just as valid today as when Strategy 2010
was adopted. They are also the natural successors to the original
aspiration behind the League of Red Cross Societies in 1919.
They are also at the heart of many of the ideals which have
contributed to the growth of the non-governmental movement.
What is different, and what we and many other organisations
beyond government are now working energetically to support,
is a real willingness on the part of governments and intergovernmental
institutions to embrace the knowledge and community-based power
of the non-governmental world.
This is essential if there is to be a real effort on behalf
of the most vulnerable and the impoverished of the world.
The effort to promote the welfare of the most vulnerable and
the impoverished can, on this basis, be seen as one of the most
important early stages in the development of democratic governance
for the world [See, for example, “The Emergence of Democratic
Participation in Global Governance (Paris, 1919)” by Steve
Charnovitz, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 2003].
The Covenant of the League of Nations and the constitution of
the League of Red Cross Societies are some of the most important
first documents heralding the era of cooperation we are considering
today.
The relationship between aid to the needy and the suffering
and the pursuit of peace was a major point in the status given
to Red Cross Societies in the Covenant of the League of Nations.
But Societies worked largely in their own countries, utilising
the League more for exchanges of experience than as a vehicle
for the coordination of humanitarian assistance to each other.
As decolonisation changed the world in the 1950s and 60s this
began to change. The award of the Nobel Prize in 1963 came soon
after a terrible earthquake had struck Morocco, known as the
Agadir Earthquake. It took the lives of 17,000 people, and stands
as one of the great early examples of international cooperation.
61 Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies took part in relief
work in one way or another.
The then Chairman of the Board of Governors of the League, Mr
John Alexander MacAulay of Canada, spoke of this in his Nobel
Lecture, and also delivered words which are no less relevant
today.
His words, delivered over 40 years ago, were filled with hope
and optimism. He saw cooperation as the key to the understanding
the world would need if it were successfully to respond to disaster
and disease, and the recipe he offered was based on work with
the United Nations system and the world beyond it [The text
of Mr MacAulay’s address is at http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1963/red-cross-league-lecture.html].
We are, it could be argued, still trying to put meat on the
bones of his optimism.
The Turn of the Millennium
The International Federation, as I have noted, took a major
step towards providing the institutional link required by the
modern world when the UN adopted its resolution to give the
Federation observer status with the General Assembly and through
it the rest of the UN system in 1994.
The world itself was, however, not ready for the opportunity
this presented. Nor was the Federation, I have to say.
But by 1999, when Strategy 2010 was adopted, the Federation
had undergone a searching analysis of its strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats. This analysis, "Learning from the
Nineties", showed that the changes in the world would require
a new way of working, and a much more focused and carefully
planned work program.
The work program needed to respond more closely to the objectives
of National Societies, and set the International work of the
Federation into a context drawn from the domestic priorities
of the National Societies.
It also needed to concentrate more effort on building the capacity
of all National Societies so that the working result would be
an international entity with specific tasks acting in support
of the national entities fulfilling their functions in a direct
relationship with their own vulnerable people and stakeholders.
World leaders addressed the same issues of cooperation when
they met in New York a year after the adoption of Strategy 2010
and adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration.
One of the most striking of the points in the Millennium Declaration
is the determination by Heads of Government to strengthen cooperation
as part of the agenda for the protection of the vulnerable.
Equally importantly, the Declaration affirms the wish of Heads
of Government to give greater opportunities to the private sector,
non-governmental organisations and civil society to contribute
to the realisation of UN goals and programs.
This meant that the Federation's Observer status at the UN General
Assembly was able to gain a new vitality. It was a vitality
matched by evolution in the management of humanitarian coordination
within the UN family through the Inter-Agency Standing Committee,
the body composed of specialised agencies, NGOs and standing
invitees like the Federation and the ICRC with a mandate to
support coordinated response to emergencies [The main UN resolution
is Resolution 46/182 of 19 December 1991].
The stage we have now reached is that the United Nations family
expects, as a matter of course, that the Federation will provide
input to agency deliberations on several different levels:
- As a standing invitee to the Inter-Agency Standing Committee
we are deeply involved in the consideration of how practical
and operational matters should be addressed by the international
community, and how advice should be provided to Member States
on the action taken or proposed.
- As an international organisation with a strong community base,
we are interlinked with many non-governmental organisations
in pursuit of action by governments or intergovernmental organisations
on matters of community concern.
- As an Observer to the United Nations General Assembly with
the right to speak in practically any UN system debate, we have
the opportunity to advocate directly for what we want at those
levels.
- As a component of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent
Movement we have an obligation to work strictly within the Fundamental
Principles of the Movement. This means, of course, that neutrality
and impartiality provide an overlay for all our other actions
and ensure that the advice we offer is narrow to the needs of
the most vulnerable.
- As a federal organisation, the Federation is able to benefit
from the direct access its member National Societies have to
their governments, and from the influence National Societies
are able to bring to bear on national policies and decisions.
This is the framework within which we work internationally.
It is not the same as the operating framework for other organisations,
for it contains some very specific characteristics, but it is
nevertheless a framework which provides an interesting backdrop
to our own desire to build a new way of working with the world
inside and outside our Red Cross Red Crescent family.
The Federation's Operating Model
The model I am now going to describe was adopted at the Federation's
15th General Assembly, in Seoul, in November 2005. It is important
to bear it in mind that one of its primary objectives is to
scale up the delivery of services to the vulnerable, making
a direct contribution to the ambition of international and national
communities to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
- It creates conditions through which the improved impact and
effectiveness of the Federation will implement a Global Agenda
focused on global leadership and impact.
- It defines and implements a Federation-wide strategy for program
excellence in Health and Care, Disaster Management and Humanitarian
Principles and Values.
- It clarifies the way the work of the Federation and National
Societies contributes to such international agendas as the Millennium
Development Goals and the Hyogo Framework of Action for disaster
risk reduction.
- It delivers a powerful operating model to improve core membership
services and operational alliances, especially by empowering
entrepreneurial management approaches to ensure effective scaled-up
results for beneficiaries .
I will concentrate now on operational alliances, for they are
the key element relevant to program delivery. They are the relationships
through which action takes place on the ground, but they should
not be confused with issues like partnerships or resource mobilisation
activities.
Operational alliances are the form of cooperation which deliver
the Global Agenda to the needy, to the beneficiaries. They are
concrete and practical in their construction and performance,
not at all abstract or theoretical. And, although we are using
the term in a fresh and lively conceptual sense, there is nothing
new in the idea that operational alliances are needed for very
many tasks, sometimes for a variety of reasons.
The Global Agenda itself is a set of goals and priorities for
the alignment of planning, the prioritisation of programs and
the mobilisation of resources to deliver our Strategy 2010.
Its main visible result will be the scaling up of the reach,
quality and impact of our programming at domestic and international
levels. We anticipate that it will produce a significant increase
in activities over the next five years, and a significantly
enhanced commitment and accountability for the collective
mission of the Federation and its worldwide network of National
Societies.
To achieve this, we are developing more systematically for our
purposes the concept of an operational alliance as it is now
well understood in the private sector. An alliance is not a
merger, but it is much more than a partnership.
For us it involves a decision, usually supported by an agreement,
to consolidate resources to achieve a practical result. It is
much more than a partnership, which is often an agreement about
working together towards common objectives, but without indicators
demonstrating the impact of the relationship for the vulnerable
people. Operational alliances have clear targets and expectations,
and clear roles for those taking part.
Another key element in our Operational Alliances is the part
that different components of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement
are able to play. A shining example of what we now describe
as an Operational Alliance is the Measles Partnership involving
the International Federation, the American Red Cross, a number
of African Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Centers
for Disease Control Prevention in Atlanta, the UN Foundation,
WHO and UNICEF [http://www.ifrc.org/what/health/diseases/measles/partnership.asp].
It is a demonstration of how trust can be built at many different
levels which results in an active and sustained effort at the
field level. The facts are that since 1999 the number of measles
cases and deaths in Africa have fallen by 60%. The Measles Initiative
has now raised more than $144 million and helped people in 33
countries in Africa. It is now being expanded into Asia, especially
India and Pakistan, and the 2010 goal is to reduce measles deaths
worldwide by 90% from the 2000 figure [A good example of the
way Red Cross volunteers make the program effective is at http://www.ifrc.org/Docs/News/06/06021601/index.asp].
Our work against measles in Africa has been closely linked to
our support for national campaigns against malaria. A good example
is the Togo Malaria Bednet Initiative, which aims at helping
meet one of the Abuja Goals for 2006, within the Millennium
Development Goals agenda for Africa, of ensuring that at least
60% of pregnant women and children under the age of 5 sleep
under a bednet.
This alliance is coordinated and implemented by the Togo Red
Cross, with support from the Federation (as global coordinator),
the Norwegian, Canadian and American Red Cross Societies, Canadian
International Development Agency and Norway's NORAD as bilateral
funders, private sector funding support from Bayer Chemicals,
Exxon Mobil and the Gates Foundation, and with multilateral
funding from the Global Fund against AIDS, TB and Malaria.
At another level, and with a clear reach into both disaster
management and public health, is the Global Water and Sanitation
Initiative. This is a ten year program, launched in 2005, which
enjoys operational support from a mixture of National Societies,
international organisations, governments and the private sector.
Its actions scale up WatSan programming in a way which will
contribute to the achievement of four of the eight Millennium
Development Goals, and I am pleased to say that it has received
an excellent reception from a variety of partners, including
the European Commission which has recently made available significant
funding support.
This is the kind of synergy we want worldwide to support our
operations for the vulnerable. An Operational Alliance should
be built up from the vulnerability identified by National Societies,
working with their governments and their national NGO partners.
It should then attract the support of National Societies and
external supporters, and then by employing the international
personality of the Federation create a strong and self-sustaining
framework with its own accountability and performance management
systems.
National Society inputs are built from their grassroots membership
and their volunteers. We count almost 100 million people involved
in our network around the world, and they provide an energy
which gives us both ideas and practical solutions. They include
people of all ages, and all backgrounds, and their combined
force drives a strong and purposeful agenda.
We recognise that this agenda is ambitious, but it is by no
means beyond our capacity. We do, however, need new ways of
working to maximise the strength available from this vast National
Society and volunteer network.
There will be much more emphasis in the future on membership
services, aimed at ensuring consistent high-quality support
in such key areas as strategic planning, governance, capacity-building
and international representation.
We will also build our network relationships with other organisations
so that through cooperation based on ability to contribute to
common goals we are able to deliver more effectively. This means
that we will make more proactive use of the talents available
from National Societies with experience in key areas, such as
disaster management or public health emergencies.
A good example of the way partnerships and relationships can
strengthen operational alliance opportunities is available from
the agreement signed in May 2005 between the Federation and
the World Health Organisation. The important element in this,
for the purposes of this conference, is the way it supports
operational and policy relationships between National Red Cross
and Red Crescent Societies and Ministries of Health in their
respective countries.
Under this aspect of the agreement, the Federation works to
build the capacity of National Societies so they can be strong
and productive contributors to the national health programs
of their countries. WHO, for its part, works to sensitise Ministries
of Health to the advantages their health programs can obtain
from strong relationships with National Societies as respected
partners.
The Federation, at its last General Assembly in November 2005
in Seoul, adopted an important decision to prioritise these
relationships to in the face of the threat of the influenza
pandemic now facing us all.
So our approach also means that alliance members from outside
our movement will be able to see the alliances as designed for
scaled-up and high-impact delivery participation which was not
normally available before and is unfortunately not characteristic
of most humanitarian operations.
In this context I should mention the very good work coordinated
from the Netherlands for the Red Cross Red Crescent Centre on
Climate Change and Disaster Preparedness . These activities
work in close collaboration with the Federation Secretariat,
sometimes at the global level and sometimes regionally - for
example, the Danish Red Cross network on Trafficking in Human
Beings, which links a large number of National Societies in
Europe to the OSCE, the European Commission, the United Nations
and several agencies, and to the government and non-government
worlds.
There are many examples of our alliance work in the fields of
disaster preparedness and response, but time does not permit.
I do want to note, however, that in 1999 at the International
Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent governments agreed
that they should invite their National Red Cross or Red Crescent
Society to join their national disaster management commission.
Many have done so, and the results are always strong in terms
of better protection for the vulnerable and their livelihoods.
In Bangladesh, for example, cyclone preparedness programs have
proven their value in terms of lives saved. Our hope, which
remains as an important goal for the whole Federation, is that
governments will be persuaded to set concrete and realistic
targets for the achievement of the Hyogo Framework of Action
for disaster risk reduction.
The events following the Tsunamis and the South Asian earthquake,
to name just two of the many natural disasters which have assaulted
our planet recently, show clearly that there is much more to
be done before people can feel truly prepared for similar disasters
in the future. We use our global, national and local advocacy
towards this objective, in cooperation with our partners at
all those levels.
These arrangements will only work well in a transparent atmosphere,
with accountability built in. This is why we say transparency
is key to a successful Operational Alliance, and indeed to all
our forms of cooperation. Our operating model places emphasis
on strong performance management to ensure that assistance meets
its targets, that streamlined but effective reporting and monitoring
sustains the Global Agenda and that accountability to all stakeholders
- including but not only - beneficiaries is part of the system.
Finally, we see efficient and effective performance management
as feeding learning back to the Global Agenda itself so that
planning and the coordination of international programming can
be enhanced. Critically, however, this learning will inform
the way Operational Alliances are built and managed in other
areas, and help produce concise but consistent policies, guidelines,
procedures, human resources strategies as well as strategies
for resource mobilisation.
This applies equally to all Alliances, and to all the members
of those Alliances. There will be any necessary tailoring to
meet the specific needs of Alliance members as necessary, and
we recognise that Alliances which include members from the private
sector will have different needs from, for example, governments.
We want this system of coordination and cooperation to embrace
all potential supporters of strategies aimed at alleviating
the misery and the poverty of the most vulnerable.
We want governments to see what we are doing, and the international
community's various systems as well. We want a robust sharing
and learning experience, going both ways, on the issues and
so we report regularly to partners on the work done by National
Societies together with other partners as well as donors. An
example, not in the web, is "Partnering for Impact", a Federation
report on work done between 2000-2005 to reduce measles mortality
and overcome the last barriers to polio eradication.
Our hope is that cooperation will become so deeply rooted in
the way we work that it will not be necessary to have UN resolutions
calling for more cooperation.
Cooperation should be self-sustaining.
This, in some respects, was the motivation for the inclusion
of the references to the Red Cross Societies in the Covenant
of the League of Nations.
At that time the world was in the grip of what was known as
the Spanish Flu, which affected lives, economies and social
structures all around the world. Now, paradoxically, we are
embarking on another great stage in cooperative relationships
just as we are surrounded by massive tragedy in the form of
the Tsunamis, the South Asia Earthquake, terrible hurricanes
and now the threat of the Avian and Human Influenza pandemic.
The world needs effective cooperation more now than ever before.
I look forward to learning from this Conference whether there
are fresh minds and ideas that we can all employ.
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