Where are the Women?

This week’s events involving the UN and a recent discussion I attended led by the Executive Director of Women In International Security (WIIS), Jolynn Shoemaker discussing the role of women in the UN, really got me thinking.

Where are the women?

There is a serious lack of women in high profile UN positions, especially non-western women, who are an untapped and potentially powerful resource to staff and lead peacekeeping missions. From the discussion I learned that women in general are underrepresented in management positions and rarely appointed at the highest levels of leadership. In Jolynn Shoemaker's report she highlights the fact that in 60 years of UN peacekeeping—1948 to 2008—only seven women have ever held the highest position, Special Representative of the Secretary general (SRSG) and of the current 17 missions, there is only one female SRSG. These astonishing facts makes you wonder is the UN really making a concerted effort to hire and retain women in jobs at the UN.

I think the lack of women in senior positions in UN reflects the fact that there are significant cultural and institutional impediments that exist to woman’s entry and advancement within the UN. You can find Shoemaker’s report on the WIIS website. One striking feature of her findings was when women were dismissed from the recruiting process for s senior level position were frequently told that they were not qualified for the position because they did not have military experience, yet of the 16 missions headed by men only three have military experience. Sounds like the recruitment process needs to be a lot more transparent.

Another interesting component of the report is that women tend to self-eliminate based upon their self-perceived inexperience. Yet of the men interviewed for the report none claimed to self-eliminate for their lack of experience. Maybe the UN needs to clarify what the actual qualifications for UN peacekeeping are and not stress military experience, when in reality its not that crucial to have a successful SRSG.

Another popular reason women sited for self-elimination was the UN’s failure to accommodate families because SRSG positions are designed as non-family duty posts, despite the fact that staff from other UN agencies are permitted to bring spouses and children to the very same locations. UNICEF is an example of a UN organization that accommodates families. One interviewee in the report summarized the situation as, “To be successful in the UN, one must be single, widowed, or divorced.” That’s pretty damn discouraging for a large proportion of potential SRSG’s.

With so few women in visible UN positions, there is an incredible amount of pressure on a woman heading missions to succeed. This is extremely troublesome because many missions are doomed to failure from the beginning. Many reasons can be sited for failed missions like poor on-ground planning, failed military operations, uncoordinated agencies, bad communication between local government and UN peacekeepers to name a few reasons why a mission might not work, but I fear that regardless of the actual reason to why a mission failed, it will be attributed to the woman running the show. I think this has a lot to do with a woman’s perceived inability to be forceful, take a hard line, or gain the respect of her male counterparts even if that is not the case.

The issue of not enough women peacekeepers raises another concern that is very specific to the current peacekeeping mission in Liberia led by the SRSG Ellen Magrethe Loj. Loj is currently the only female SRSG. Women have dominated the current Liberian peacekeeping process, but why are the women being concentrated in only one specific mission. Oddly enough the UN experimental police force comprised of only Indian women was implemented in Liberia first. Maybe it has something to do with Liberia having a female president.

The UN whether intentional or not is saying women can only work well with other women. I have to wonder why one specific peacekeeping location is completely female dominated but other missions have very few women. What is the purpose to concentrate all eligible women in one place? What if God forbid something goes wrong with the Liberian mission, Liberia will then forever used as an example of why women should not work in high profile peacekeeping missions. Of course I hope this does not happen and this mission sets a precedent for the UN as to how powerful and committed female UN workers are, whether part of the policing brigade or the SRSG of the mission. It does make me nervous to know all attention is being focused on these remarkable women, but then again maybe I am setting them up for failure and what I should be really doing is applauding all of their brilliant efforts.

Jolynn Shoemaker’s report brings light on many issues that have been over looked for far too long. The UN has recently made a concerted effort to draw from a broader more in-depth pool of applicants and to create committees to increase female participation. Transparency within the recruitment process is growing, but we have yet to see if these processes will become institutionalized. I can only hope fairer employment practices become the norm for the UN for those of us going into the field in the future. The success of future peacekeeping missions is be established now.

Russia Fumbles

President Bush chided Russia for their continued military activity in Georgia, while Russia blames the Georgian media. Here is part of a BBC report on President Bush's UN address:

"The United Nations charter sets forth the equal rights of nations large and small. Russia's invasion of Georgia was a violation of those words."

Mr Bush's comments came hours after Georgia said it had shot down a Russian reconnaissance drone flying over its territory.

It said the unmanned plane was downed south of its de facto border with the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Russia dismissed the claim as a "media provocation by Georgia".

We would all like the claim about the unmanned plane to be a media ploy by Georgia, but something tells me it's not. When will Russia understand the term sovereignty?

Rice's Criticism of Russian Isolation

BBC video of Condoleezza Rice's Speech about Russia and US relations from September 18.

What's Going on with Russia?

In a article in The Wall Street Journal about recent US and Russia cooperation.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Thursday an increasingly authoritarian Kremlin was taking "a dark turn" toward international isolation. She described Moscow's military occupation of Georgia and its subsequent recognition of the breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as illegal acts that threatened Europe's stability.

"Our strategic goal now is to make clear to Russia's leaders that their choices could put Russia on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance," Ms. Rice said in a speech.

Is Russia choosing international isolation intentionally or has Russia been bullied over the past decade as Samantha Powers suggests in an August 2008 article in Time Magazine? Russia's "brewing rage" should not come as a surprise to anyone. The re-opening of communication between the International community and Russia is crucial for every state’s security, especially Russia’s neighbors. The recent cooperation is a step in the right direction, but Russia has a long ways to go.

Pakistan and Zardari Can't Get a Break

The terrorist attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday caused 65 deaths and 270 injuries, not to mention the devastating effect the attack will have on an already fragile Pakistani economy. The attack will accelerate capital flight in Pakistan and demonstrate Pakistan’s instability, discouraging future investment in the country.
Hopefully the bombing in Islamabad will wake everyone up and focus the U.N. and President Bush on all of Pakistan not just the lawless tribal regions.

Check out the article from today about Pakistan in The Wall Street Journal.

A Nuclear Armed State on the Brink of a Meltdown

There is no doubt that Pakistan is in trouble. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination last December has left the country in a downward spiral. Pakistan is on the brink of a balance-of-payment crisis with inflation as high as 24% and foreign reserves quickly depleting, the American financial crisis is just a blip on the radar in comparison to the Pakistani economy. The current Taliban insurgency in the Northern region of the country, combined with US military raids, and the bombing that occurred on September 6th that killed over 30 people, one of 400 Pakistani suicide bombings this year only add to the chaotic environment and unstable government in Pakistan. The country is on the brink of a revolution, which the US should be very wary of.

Asif Zardari, Benazir Bhutto’s husband was recently elected as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. He comes to office with a slew of criminal charges and a corrupt political background. Zardari not only has to overcome his suspicious past but he also needs reunite fractured Pakistan. Pakistan needs Zardari to be a reformer; the Biden-Lugar non-military aid will only work to develop the northern tribal regions in Pakistan if extensive civil-service reform occurs. How willing will police officers be to stop accepting bribes if Zardari continues to do so himself? In a Time article by Aryn Baker the important distinction is made that the US cannot only focus on Pakistan’s security needs, but the US must also pay equal attention to Pakistan’s economic development, education, and health care. If the US and Pakistan fail to put the needs of the country’s citizens first, the Pakistani people will turn to the Taliban.

How successful Zardari will be in realigning with the US government, and implementing the necessary changes in Pakistan remains to be seen. These changes need to be implemented soon or there will be far greater problems with the nuclear armed state on the brink of a revolution.

On another interesting note, articles in The New York Times and The Economist had diverging views on how successful Zardari will be.

The Public Square

The public intellectual has the rewarding, or daunting (if you're the glass half empty type), task of analyzing, redacting, criticizing, and offering remedies to society. While an academic career helps to bolster the credibility of a public intellectual, more work is needed to secure their ability to influence. Influence being what a public intellectual aims to exert. Experience and the ability to communicate to the public at large is what elevates one to the coveted goal of being a recognized public intellectual. The public intellectual must cultivate an aura of being a realist while appearing to be in touch with public sentiments in order to be deemed authentic and wise.

William Easterly has emerged as a premiere example of a public intellectual, easily meeting all of the qualifications necessary to be considered a public intellectual. William Easterly was trained as an academic in economics, emerging from pure academia as one of the foremost experts on developing countries and their market economies, as well as the use and appropriation of foreign aid. William Easterly received his Ph.D. in Economics at MIT and is currently a Professor of Economics at New York University and Co-Director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. He is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a non-resident Fellow of the Center for Global Development in Washington DC.

Easterly has expanded his intellectual role far beyond that of an academic or research institution. He spent sixteen years as a Research Economist at the World Bank implementing theoretical concepts in a real world. Easterly misses few opportunities to give to society by his involvement in many good causes, such as the board of the anti-malaria philanthropy, Nets for Life. He is prolific, the author of Reinventing Foreign Aid, The White Man’s Burden: How the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics, three other co-edited books, and 59 articles in refereed economics journals. Easterly's writings have been discussed in media outlets like the Lehrer Newshour, National Public Radio, the BBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the Economist, the New Yorker, Forbes, Business Week, the Financial Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, and the Christian Science Monitor.

Easterly's reputation in world development stems from his promoting new modes of assistance to developing countries that the numerous Aid Agencies are too bureaucratic to implement. In the ways in which Easterly has expanded thinking about aid, its effectiveness and its best means of implementation, he is showing the world how academics can bring knowledge into the realm of utility, basically "know how". Easterly represents the key combination of academics and experience that is able to inform the world population. It is crucial to put an emphasis on the experience component when claiming the title of public intellectual. Stephen Mack in hi blog The New Democratic Review states in an August 2007 post “The ‘Decline’ of Public Intellectuals?” in regards to the public official’s role,

That is, our notions of the public intellectual need to focus less on who or what a public intellectual is—and by extension, the qualifications for getting and keeping the title. Instead, we need to be more concerned with the work public intellectuals must do, irrespective of who happens to be doing it.

Easterly is the doer Stephen Mack refers to. Easterly has even furthered defined the role of the public intellectual to be a searcher. More precisely in his book Reinventing Foreign Aid he proposes what the searcher must do to further the progress being made in the developing world:

It (poverty) is ended by ‘‘searchers,’’ both economic and political, who explore solutions by trial and error, have a way to get feedback on the ones that work, and then expand the ones that work.

Easterly makes it clear that a searcher holds himself or herself accountable; he further defines the searcher's position:

A searcher admits she does not know the answers in advance; she believes that poverty is a complicated tangle of political, social, historical, institutional, and technological factors. A searcher only hopes to find answers to individual problems of the world’s poor by trial-and-error experimentation.

Besides writing books, opinion editorials, and academic articles, Easterly has testified in US Senate hearings regarding the use of US aid assistance and World Aid Agencies. He sometimes comes off as their biggest critic. While many of Easterly’s development procedures and uses for Aid have yet to be fully enacted, the discourse he has created on the topic has brought much needed attention to the failure of foreign aid and Aid Agencies and the search for better ways to bring aid to communities who need it.

Easterly recently served on the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland. Easterly openly opposed Bill Gates’ “Kinder Capitalism” incentives. Easterly aimed not to multiply aid support, or centrally plan further economic aid programs, but to hold the governments and agencies dealing with aid accountable for their actions, and where and what the aid was being used for. Easterly is critical of an environment that is “top-down” oriented, where agencies are unable to coordinate because they are so bureaucratic, and the agencies fail to examine the situation on the ground. Planning just doesn’t work. Easterly as a public intellectual uses his real world experience of working with the World Bank (one of the bureaucratic agencies he refers to), researching on the ground in Africa, and focusing his academic studies on the statistics coming out of the developing world from the past 50 years to develop a productive conversation with the developed world and their efforts to help the developing world. In an important side note it is crucial to make clear that Easterly finds the use of “we” referring to the westernized world, extremely problematic within the field.

Easterly’s approach of accountability, “bottom-up” feedback, and real world needs is about modernizing the developing world but by no means westernizing the developing world which he thinks is key part of the problem with the Western World’s aid programs. Easterly in his most recent book quotes F. A. Hayek, a well-known economist in the 1940’s, in describing individuals and progress:

The interaction of individuals, possessing different knowledge and different views, is what constitutes the life of thought. The growth of reason is a social process based on the existence of such differences. It is of essence that its results cannot be predicted, that we cannot know which views will assist this growth and which will not —in short, that this growth cannot be governed by any views which we now possess without at the same time limiting it. To ‘‘plan’’ or ‘‘organize’’ the growth of mind, or for that matter, progress in general, is a contradiction in terms.

Easterly is a strong promoter in his work of analyzing a situation, and trying multiple problem solving tactics to discover which solution is the most effective. He makes it clear, as Hayek says, that you cannot know prior to trying something out what will be most effective. His opinions as to the accountability of the use of aid has indeed had some impact on the US government, although Easterly would like it to be more profound. In 2004, the US Congress passed a law for the Us Agency for International Development to collect data to test socioeconomic benefits of microlending in regards to the World Bank’s microcredit programs. The World Bank can no longer put microcredit forward as the “best practice.” The problem is that microlenders tend to help richer clients, and it’s not always clear if the real world fits the ideal of commercially viable microlending. Easterly fit the key role of a public intellectual to criticize and affect policymaking.

Easterly as a public intellectual plays the role of a “myth buster”. Easterly brings reason to the “run amok enthusiasm” surrounding foreign aid. In a July 2007 article in the Los Angeles Times, Easterly sheds light on the misrepresentations of the African continent. In Easterly’s article “What Bono Doesn’t Say”, he busts the myth that Africa isn’t quite the desolate place we Americans have been led to believe due to the negative images put forth by the media. Easterly is concerned that aid efforts like the Gap Red Campaign, and the Vanity Fair Africa issue, promote only a specific type of Africa,

The problem with all this Western stereotyping is that it manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of some current victories, fueling support for patronizing Western policies designed to rescue the allegedly helpless African people while often discouraging those policies that might actually help. The reality is that many more Africans need latrines than need Western peacekeepers — but that doesn't play so well on TV.

Easterly is putting forth detailed examinations and ideas that are “worth talking about ”. The idea that a class of experts is the best mode to operate has been detrimental to foreign aid. People must remain responsive but that is only possible when the public intellectual reaches out and engages the citizens with issues that are in need of repair with realistic approaches to do so. The ivory tower does not create an environment to engage non ivory tower residents. Easterly criticizes Paul Wolfowitz because of his inability to escape that vary tower in his political role as the president of the World Bank. In an April 2007 Easterly article for The Washington Post “Does He Hear the World's Poor? Don't Bank on It”, Easterly sites academic hubris as the source of Wolfowitz’s inability to perform as the Bank’s president. Easterly said,

The root cause of his debacle at the bank was pretty much the same as the reason for the fiasco in Iraq: intellectual hubris at the top that disdained the messy realities at the bottom.

The public intellectual must work hard to overcome any academic superiority complex to be able to find faults in not just their peer’s studies, but also their own such studies. Easterly’s emphasis on avoiding hubris and stressing independent evaluation is not just applicable to his work in economics and foreign aid, but to society on a whole. In Reinventing Foreign Aid, he puts forth a simple code:

Focusing on specific feasible tasks and holding the aid actors responsible for whether they achieve them is a no-brainer, except for the absence of these simple principles in today’s foreign aid system.

Easterly has been and continues to be an important voice in the forum of economic development. Easterly’s eagerness to create a more successful process in which foreign aid is administered is reason enough to argue the authenticity of his genuine concern to make a difference. Easterly also makes the important distinction in his work to help to modernize but not to westernize the developing world. He remains the realist that keeps the public intellectual a viable resource and key component to change and progress in the developing world.