Interventions (26 page)

On August 4, 2010, a national referendum was held, and the new constitution, which would change the face of Kenyan politics countrywide, was approved. Working to curb his own authority, Mwai Kibaki also campaigned for the yes vote.

One of the salient features of the mediation in Kenya, and implementation of the agreement thereafter, has been the active and continued engagement of all stakeholders—not only Kenyan politicians and the international community but civil society, religious groups, and the business community. Kenyan society as a whole provided a source of constant pressure on the political leadership. For instance, a commendable role played by the business community was its message regarding the negative consequences of the political crisis on the country's economy—particularly the threat to Kenya if it lost its image as the business center and economic powerhouse of the region. The many facets of Kenyan civil society continue to play an active role in the peace process, helping in diverse ways to ensure the successful implementation of the agreement.

Alongside the reformation of the Kenyan political system, other innovations came out of our mediation. In line with plans set down in the February 14 agreement, on March 4, 2008, the creation of two bodies was formally agreed to: the Commission of Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence (CIPEV); and the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC). The TJRC, which began its work in 2009, is mandated to investigate not only the recent violence but the patterns of human rights violations and abuses since December 12, 1963, the date of Kenya's transition to independence. In the TJRC, therefore, is bestowed the understanding that the resolution of the 2008 crisis means confronting the entirety of Kenya's troubled past, not just the recent turmoil. Together with the TJRC, a National Cohesion and Integration Commission was created in 2008 to investigate, outlaw, and eliminate all forms of discrimination in Kenyan society, which have served to create so dysfunctional a system of ethnic inequality. These bodies are manifestations of our attempt to foment root-and-branch social and political change—nothing less than the leadership required to bring about enduring and prosperous peace and stability across the troubled heartlands of Africa.

Another important feature of the reform process, particularly given our emphasis on the importance of affirming and strengthening the rule of law, has been the involvement of the International Criminal Court. The CIPEV included among its recommendations that the prosecutor of the ICC be forwarded the names and information of those suspected to bear the greatest responsibility for the violence. Justice Philip Waki, who led the commission, presented me with the final report of the CIPEV, along with a sealed envelope containing a list of suspects at the highest level, which I would hold and pass on to a prosecutor in a special national court that had been proposed. The recommendation of the Commission was that if the Kenyan government failed to take due steps to hold suspected orchestrators of the violence to account then the envelope should be passed to the prosecutor of the ICC.

By July 2009, it became clear that the Kenyan government was not going to take these steps. As I said then, “Justice delayed is justice denied. The people of Kenya want to see concrete progress on impunity.” As demanded by the CIPEV report—which had also been certified and approved by the Kenyan parliament—I then passed the sealed envelope on to Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the ICC.

After a period of investigation, in December 2010, Ocampo released the names of six prominent Kenyans, including three government ministers, suspected of bearing the greatest responsibility for the violence. In January 2012, the ICC then confirmed that there was sufficient evidence against four of those suspects for them to stand trial. These included prominent figures in Kenyan politics, and the willingness to prosecute suspects of this level, regardless of the outcome, stands as an important marker in Africa's battle with impunity for human rights violations.

In the wake of the Kenyan dispute over the election result and the ensuing violence, the inadequacy of a growing economy and an electoral system alone as a shortcut to prosperity, peace, and stability were once more revealed. If we had brokered only a deal between leaders, our intervention would have been a plaster on a wound that would weep again tomorrow. We had to look, in the truest sense of the word, for a resolution. A peaceful, stable, and prosperous Kenya was one that could be delivered only through responsible, accountable leadership, a culture of respect for human rights, institutions for good governance, the fairer distribution of wealth and power, and, most important, the sanctity of the rule of law. Kenya's future relies on this. Whether it will achieve these things remains to be seen, but it has pointed itself in a direction that all of Africa must take.

A
FRICA
E
MPOWERED

My role in mediating the violent 2008 Kenyan political crisis, backed by a remarkable international and African support network, was one for which, in some ways, I had spent my entire decade-long tenure as secretary-general preparing. It was perhaps the hardest, most intensive, and enduring of all my interventions in the affairs of another country, and a deal that required me to draw on every aspect of my experience of diplomacy and energy for peacemaking—this time at the heart of my own continent.

As flawed as the commitment of the parties might have been to the Kenyan power-sharing deal, the events following the intervention in Kenya represented a broader turning point, a continentwide change that came from within, conjured from a vision for all Africa. This was a vision that resurrected old dreams for the continent that had been dashed in the aftermath of independence—a vision dedicated to transforming Africa into a place where all people can achieve their aspirations. A future of peace and stability through institutions for good governance; respect for human rights; responsible, accountable leadership; and, above all, the rule of law.

This all came together in Kenya, in an intervention that relied on a deeply changed continent to the one I knew before I took office as secretary-general. The foundations for these changes were laid in the years before 2007, through hard and innovative efforts in African diplomacy by Africans to change the political fabric of the continent. It was a long way from where I had stood and observed the continent in January 1997.

Africa is now on the move. Much has changed on the continent. It is now rightly seen as a place of opportunity, with economic growth strong in recent years. Countries and companies are even queuing up to invest, and, increasingly, the fruits of economic progress are being used to create jobs, raise incomes, and to invest in the future—in education, in health, and vital infrastructure. Good governance is growing, enabling investor confidence and increasingly freeing the ambitions of Africa's people. The eleven years since the Millennium Declaration and the subsequent establishment of the MDGs has been one of the most promising periods in Africa's postcolonial history. Now approximately half the continent is enjoying strong economic growth, as well as rapid improvements in human development. But if African countries are to achieve the new future within their grasp, there needs to be a new focus on the daunting obstacles still to be overcome.

High on this list is agriculture. There are 240 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who do not eat well enough for their health and well-being. Africa is the only continent that fails to grow enough food to feed its own citizens. On average, cereal yields in Africa are a quarter of those of other developing regions—and have barely increased in thirty years. Meanwhile, per capita food production and agricultural labor productivity also remain remarkably low. This is not because of a lack of effort by Africa's farmers but a lack of knowledge, resources, and infrastructure to support their hard work. A uniquely African “green revolution” would have a positive impact not only on food security but also on many of the other challenges facing the continent. It will, for example, reduce poverty, accelerate wider economic and social development, improve health and education, slow migration into Africa's already overcrowded urban areas, boost women's influence within their societies, and provide new opportunities for business.

But there also needs to be a focus on infrastructure and the distribution of energy resources, which have always been two of the main obstacles holding back Africa's economies. Furthermore, considerations of growth need to be held in tandem with concerns for employment, particularly youth employment. If growth does not benefit youth employment, it benefits little about the future. Finally, a bright African future is also one that requires gender balance in all areas of life. An empowered and successful Africa requires all the talents and the fair mobilization of all its resources—it can exist only with equally empowered and successful women.

Africa's people are the central agents, but outside actors have essential supporting roles. At certain times they need to respond with peacekeeping; other times, with intervention or preventive measures and mediation, or through attempts to shape the rules of regional organizations. But in all of this we are seeking a peaceful and prosperous Africa, and one that favors the aspirations of all African men and women.

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A
t the promulgation of the new Kenyan constitution on August 27, 2010, we joined in a crowd of countless thousands in the grounds of Uhuru Park to applaud the referendum result. It was as if we were going back in time with wisdom to our youth. We were finally stepping onto a path we should have taken long ago at independence. Kenya's people had peacefully come together to affirm a new road forward: and they were leading the way for the continent.

While in the crowd cheering the new Kenyan constitution, I caught a glimpse of a face I did not expect to see: Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan—a leader recently indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity. He had been invited to the event by the Kenyan government? I could not quite believe it, but there he was: an honored guest. His lurking figure at the progressive event was a symbol of the danger Africa lives with today. Huge advances have been made for Africa by Africans. But there can be no complacency. Equally huge challenges remain, and the potential to revert is always there in the background, as Bashir's presence reminded me.

We Africans still have much to do.

VI

REDEFINING HUMAN SECURITY:

The Global Fight Against Poverty and the Millennium Development Goals

M
r. Secretary-General, when it comes to condoms, the Pope and I are
one
!” Robert Mugabe fired back this response as he lurched back in his chair and hooked both his first fingers together in a sign of stubborn solidarity. I had just put it to him that much more needed to be done, and urgently, in face of the appalling scourge of HIV/AIDS; and that all African leaders, particularly those with a strong voice on the continent, should encourage the use of condoms. Mugabe at first only shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Mr. Secretary-General, you shouldn't be talking about condoms.”

“Why not?” I asked. “I have even raised it with the Pope.” This was true. I had raised the issue with the Pope, and I thought that might open this staunch Catholic's mind. But it was obviously too much for him. He wanted to end a conversation with which he was deeply uncomfortable. His eyebrows furrowed as he raised his voice, issuing his statement of solidarity with the Pope. There was clearly no more he would say on the matter. I was working the diplomatic floor at a meeting of African heads of state, and could not easily show my anger at this response, but I felt a familiar outrage that gripped me every time I encountered this willful obstruction of the campaign against HIV/AIDS.

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B
y the time of that conversation with Mugabe, HIV/AIDS had ceased to be an inevitable death sentence thanks to advances in medicine and antiretroviral drugs. That is, unless you were poor. For those living in countries that could not afford the exorbitant prices set by the pharmaceutical companies, HIV/AIDS did, indeed, mean a certain and slow death.

The scale of the suffering inflicted by this disease is beyond full human comprehension, not least because the impact does not stop at the personal level. During my first term as secretary-general, from 1997 to 2002, HIV/AIDS was creating a cocktail of disasters in the developing world. By some measures, the impact of AIDS was worse than war. In Africa, in 1999 it was estimated that AIDS had killed ten times more people than armed conflict in the same year. By 2000, the disease had created a staggering 13 million orphans worldwide, with 34.3 million people living with the disease on top of the 18.8 million lives it had already claimed.

Worse still, the disease was not just taking away the lives of the people infected; it threatened the future by eating away at the social and institutional fabric of societies. This is because HIV/AIDS' greatest toll was among young adults—and women in particular—the most productive members of society, who also had responsibility for rearing the next generation. It was killing off large numbers of young doctors, nurses, teachers, and other professionals who were essential for economic and social development. It was eliminating the breadwinners of households, leaving what was left of their families and communities increasingly desperate and without even the most basic means for self-subsistence.

The situation was by far the worst in Africa. In 2000, 70 percent of adults and 80 percent of children living with the disease were on the continent, and by then nearly three-quarters of AIDS deaths had occurred there. The economic circumstances were already dire in many parts of the continent, but HIV/AIDS was now threatening to grind any social and economic successes that were emerging back into its soil. But it was far from just an African problem. In Eastern Europe and South and East Asia, rapid rises in HIV infections were occurring at that time. In India, HIV was already firmly embedded in the population, and in the state of Tamil Nadu alone, it was estimated that almost a half million were infected.

The figures were terrifying. I spent most of my tenure as secretary-general in an international environment obsessed with the potential peril of weapons of mass destruction. But in HIV/AIDS, which never received anything like the same level of attention, we had a true WMD—and one that was actively unleashing itself in the world. This demonstrated, far more severely than any other pandemic, the security threat posed by diseases internationally, and the further importance of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as an instrument of self-interest for the rich countries of the world.

More than the statistics, it was the memory of the child victims that stayed in my mind. I had visited HIV/AIDS clinics with Nane, and we had spoken with sex workers and victims of the disease from all segments of society when traveling to countries worst affected by the pandemic. Doing so was not always deemed appropriate for a secretary-general—and not just by the likes of Mugabe. But we could not pretend that these people did not exist or attempt to hide them away.

But before 2000, the world was doing next to nothing about the pandemic. As the economist Jeff Sachs established in an article published at that time, when you broke down the donor figures, it turned out the entire world, in a disgraceful imbalance, was donating a total of just $70 million to fight AIDS across the entire continent of Africa. But like any problem, no matter how severe, there was an opportunity to shift the balance of interest, and intervention, in favor of action—action that would have to focus on changing far more than just the manifestations of one disease.

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B
y 1997, the year I started my first term as secretary-general, I had spent much of my life observing the global development agenda wind its way through a long and grinding journey. It had not come far. Plans for poverty eradication and international development cooperation had spent most of the twentieth century in a stillbirth cycle: laudable imaginings repeatedly crushed by the thrust of power in the international system. For me, it started as a teenage African stepping into adulthood at the advent of decolonization, when all the debates were ensconced in the fervent anticipation that Africans would be finally free to develop themselves. I watched this false dawn, believing, like many of my contemporaries, that we could all play dynamic roles in this exciting future—even as the first coups rolled in and pitiful leadership and institutional decay began to grip the continent.

Later, as a young UN official at the Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa in the late 1960s, my colleagues and I optimistically discussed the continent's economic prospects. We projected heady visions for Africa's regional integration through infrastructure development: continent-spanning communication systems, roads, and rail networks—the necessary fabric for Africa's economies to prosper. Little of this happened. Infrastructure development continued to stall. Travel remained incredibly difficult, so much so that to get from one African country to another, one still often had to go via Europe. While Africa failed to move forward, all the while it was accompanied by a sustained, angry shout from African leaders: the colonial powers were at fault. They had failed to develop Africa, leaving it in this awful mess. But to some of us younger Africans, it was clear that we could not keep blaming colonialism. It was over ten years since decolonization, but while Africa's economies sank deeper, the colonial blame game ran on.

In the 1960s and 1970s, we also watched the UN launch its first “development decades.” However, in the rich world it was not with poverty but violence that international attention and political efforts became transfixed. East and West were embroiling themselves in the explosion of civil wars of that time, resulting from the struggles for national power following the retreat of Europe's empires. Among the great powers, which were fueling these civil wars in the hope of securing victory for their favored faction, there was little care for development.

This is not to say that there were not any serious efforts at development for its own sake during the Cold War. The Dutch, Canadian, and Scandinavian governments, for example, devoted serious resources to development in poor countries throughout this period. But in the case of the richest of nations as a whole, particularly among the superpowers and their closest allies, the vast majority of the financial firepower available for spending abroad was not allocated for this. With the likes of Russian-backed Cuban troops openly landing on the coast of Angola, while U.S.-backed South Africans invaded from Namibia—all in the context of the threat of a global nuclear holocaust—few resources were available to improve the lives of the populations of the developing world who were subjected to these wars. The focus was on the politics and the fighting, as if development were a separate and peripheral issue that could be held at arm's length.

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T
he absurdity of this notion was most sharply exposed to me when I came to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in the early 1990s. The Cold War was over, but development continued to slumber in a separate world to political work. It was clear from the experience of our operations in civil war–torn countries that development was an integral, central part of any successful strategy for addressing conflict. But a real commitment to development at the heart of peacekeeping remained elusive. Military, political, and development matters continued to be treated as distinct areas.

In the Somalia peacekeeping mission, to take one example, the budget available for the military was $1.5 billion. For the humanitarian side of the operation, we set a target of just $150 million, and even this fraction we failed to raise—for a mission with a
humanitarian
goal. In other interventions, member states would lament the lack of local institutional capacity in places like Bosnia, Haiti, and elsewhere, because it sorely hindered their ability to withdraw and leave the place in any semblance of good order. I increasingly responded to these complaints that this was actually our failure: a failure to commit the resources for encouraging locally owned development—an obstinate reluctance to put development at the heart of our strategies for peace. Member states willed the ends but very rarely the means. The world, as ever, was happy to invest in the instruments of violence, but not the resources for peace.

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T
he Cold War didn't just tear the political and social fabric of countries through the proxy wars. It also represented an ideological rift at the heart of the UN. Throughout my UN career before 1989, we would constantly hear the debate between the capitalist, Western view, and the socialist and communist view of economic and social development. As an intergovernmental organization, this made it even more difficult for the UN to enact any kind of single development agenda.

I have to admit that it was very easy to get caught up in those competing paradigms in those days—and we all did at some stage. But I later came to realize that the debate was driven at its heart by an ideological vanity, not a concern for the individuals who suffered the grief and humiliations of extreme poverty. The debate between these visions, between private enterprise–driven capitalism and state socialism, wore on all those years as if in ignorance of the urgency for those who had the most to lose. And what really mattered—the dying, the sick, and the humiliated poor—became lost in the argument.

But even after the end of the Cold War, the UN's development agenda remained in the powerful shade of this debate. In the new world of economic globalization, capitalism was proving the unquestionable locomotive of enormous worldwide change, yet the development agenda was still hindered by this ideological divide. A lingering and deep distrust of business and private capital endured at the UN, even as they became the prevailing reality behind major, tangible advances in development in much of the world.

But an equally limited view formed on the other side: that globalization was a rising tide that would “lift all boats.” This led to the deeply mistaken belief among the governments of donor countries that there was no need to provide significant sums of aid, as private investment would fulfill this function. Particularly troubling was the trajectory of change in many places: one hundred countries were worse off in 1997 than they were fifteen years earlier. Globalization was not “lifting all boats”—not by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, the opposite was happening for many. Even worse was the lack of outside help for tackling these colossal problems. In 1996, the proportion of development assistance against gross domestic product provided by donor countries had dropped to an all-time low, and was still shrinking.

By the end of the 1990s, you could only be struck by the legacy of all those years. Over 60 percent of the world's population subsisted on $2 or less per day; over 1 billion people were living on less than $1 per day; illiteracy was at nearly 1 billion; 800 million were chronically hungry—one in seven people on earth—including 200 million children; and 1.3 billion lacked even the most basic health, sanitation, and education services.

Despite these terrible figures on global poverty, there was no sign of urgency among member states to commit even a slight fraction of the resources and effort necessary to face this global tragedy. A profound change was needed. But the fundamental question that had stalked international development for decades remained: how?

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O
n taking office, I realized that we had to be more creative. It was clear that, as things stood, we could not expect to get the resources necessary from the member states. As had been the case for decades, just attempting to persuade heads of government and senior ministers directly of the importance of development, and the terrible state of poverty, had long proved inadequate for stirring their collective concern. It was obvious we needed a new armory of instruments to take this forward. But before acquiring them, I knew we needed leadership of a different kind to renew the UN's mission for development—and to do it in an innovative, energetic way, engaging with all the forces in the private and public sectors able to join the struggle.

From my very first month in the job, I began reaching out to other players on the international scene. The first of these lay in international civil society: charities and other nongovernmental organizations. In developing countries, the UN was finding much of its work to be intimately connected with the varied contributions of NGOs. Many of them had been around for years, of course, but in the 1990s, they began to connect up with one another to an unprecedented degree. Cooperation was often catalyzed by major UN conferences, such as the 1992 Rio Conference on Environment and Development and the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women. These brought together thousands of NGOs, giving them a new level of energy and organization.