Day: February 12, 2014
Conflict matters
I did something yesterday morning I don’t usually do: I went to a discussion of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs to the initiated). The goals fixed in 2000 were supposed to be achieved by 2015. So that UN is working on a new set for then.
The existing goals focus on canonical development issues: eradicating poverty, universal primary education, improving maternal health, reducing child mortality, and combating disease, with a dollop of gender equality and women’s empowerment as well as environmental sustainability. Then a cherry of global partnership to top it off. The exercise has been a useful one, with some real progress made.
But the conflict, peacebuilding and statebuilding communities were left out last time around. So the Alliance for Peacebuilding, John Filson moderating, convened the meeting yesterday to discuss the obstacles to including conflict issues and how they might be overcome. Speakers included Molly Elgin-Cossart of the Center for American Progress, UN Millennium Campaign adviser Ravi Karkara, women’s empowerment advocate Karen Mulhauser, and the State Department’s Charles Call. Read more
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Barack Obama needs to recalibrate
The Syrian opposition delegation at the UN-hosted Geneva 2 talks today tabled its Statement of Principles (for those who read Arabic, and now also in English).
The Coalition (Etilaf) office in Washington writes that this lays out
…its vision for the political solution in Syria. It emphasizes the priorities of peace, democratization, reconciliation, inclusivity, and reconstruction, among other important guiding principles of the transition and post-transition period. The government delegation did not demonstrate either the will or the mandate to discuss these principles.
Our delegation’s position is to pursue the negotiating process to implement in full the Geneva Communique, including the important principles of ending violence and combating terror, but in order to do so both legally and practically, the establishment of the transitional governing body, by mutual consent of both sides, is necessary and required. We believe the attached document serves not only the parties to these negotiations, but also the full interests and aspirations of all Syrians. The government must be prepared to implement in full the Geneva Communique, UN Security Council Resolution 2118, and this statement of principles, beginning with the establishment of the transitional governing body, in order to participate meaningfully in this process to begin to set the stage for a political solution in Syria. Read more
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