"I think the EU will not be able to achieve anything with our Central Asian partners if we do not engage long-term and with the necessary patience,” said Patricia Flor, European Union Special Representative (EUSR) for Central Asia. 

Ambassador Flor said the Central Asian governments have a long-term view of transformation. “They take their time, they have a slow pace of reform, and sometimes we would encourage them to actually move faster on some of these issues.”

She said the EUSR’s main task is to establish trust between EU and Central Asia. “The EU and its member states are coming from a different sphere in terms of how we organize governments and governance, our understanding of our basic principles and standards and values,” she said. “Therefore, one of the main tasks is to bridge the different mentalities and cultures in a partnership that looks at common interests and how we can establish trust between each other so that we can then engage in such difficult issues like rule of law or civil society.”

Ambassador Flor said the EU has established itself as a trusted interlocutor for mediation between the five Central Asian countries on issues such as water management, but that political will and the ownership of the Central Asian governments are key to solving these issues. Most of the regional issues are trans-boundary, she said, and require the involvement and coordination of neighboring states and regional and international organizations.

She said there is now EU representation in all Central Asian countries, and an EU-Central Asia high-level security dialogue is to take place for the first time this summer. The EU has committed itself to support three of the six confidence building measures of the Istanbul Process on Afghanistan.

The interview was conducted by David Muckenhuber, a consultant based at the International Peace Institute's Vienna office.

David Muckenhuber (DM): Our guest today in the Global Observatory is Patricia Flor, the European Union’s Special Representative (EUSR) for Central Asia. She coordinates EU action in Central Asia and oversees the implementation of the EU strategy for Central Asia. Her mandate, which runs from July 1, 2012 until June 30, 2013, is to promote good relations between the EU and Central Asian countries and to strengthen stability, cooperation, democracy, and respect for human rights in the region. She previously served in Kazakhstan, at the Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, and as German ambassador to Georgia. Ambassador Flor, thank you for joining us over the phone today in the Global Observatory.

One of the main tasks within your mandate is to oversee the implementation of the EU strategy for Central Asia, which was adopted for the period of 2007 to 2013. How would you evaluate the implementation and success of this strategy so far?

Patricia Flor (PF): First of all, let me clarify that the strategy will not expire. The strategy actually has been reviewed in 2012 and the Council of the EU Foreign Ministers then reaffirmed the validity of the strategy and its main objectives so that it will continue to be in force. The EU foreign ministers added an additional dimension by suggesting the start of a high-level security dialogue between the EU and Central Asia, which is scheduled to take place for the first time this summer. Therefore, no need to worry; the EU has a strategy, it will continue to function, and it does function well.

From May 19-27, 2013, the African Union (AU) will hold its 21st summit in Addis Ababa. It will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) under the theme of “Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance.” It will also be almost ten years since the creation of the AU.

When the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses the assembled heads of states and governments and representatives of the AU Commission, he will likely praise the remarkable strides made by the African continent and the dynamic partnership between the UN and the AU to address peace and security challenges in Africa.

Yet, just as UN-AU collaboration seemed to have reached an all-time high, a recent AU Peace and Security Council communiqué revealed new tensions in the relationship. The communiqué expressed concerns about UN Security Council resolution 2100 which authorized the creation of the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA), stressing that it “…is not in consonance with the spirit of partnership that the AU and the United Nations have been striving to promote for many years.” This came just one month after another AU statement expressed support for the transformation of the African-led support mission in Mali, AFISMA, into a UN operation. What happened to change the AU’s position?

Key Conclusions

• The crisis in Mali has exposed important differences between the AU and the UN, stemming from divergent philosophies of peace operations and the Security Council’s decision not to follow the AU’s request for a UN-funded support package for AFISMA.
• Further sources of tension emerged as the UN operation was authorized by the Security Council. This meant that the AU’s requests concerning key personnel and a central political role may have been ignored, and the deployment of MINUSMA was made contingent on certain criteria.
• This situation once again revealed considerable mistrust between the two organizations, which must recognize that no amount of coordination mechanisms will completely prevent the political frictions that are bound to occur. 
• Nevertheless, as our recent report makes clear, the two organizations should continue to improve their bureaucratic interactions, and the AU should strengthen its capacity to articulate a timely, coherent, and effective voice in New York. 

Analysis

The crisis in Mali has exposed important differences between the African Union  and United Nations. In December 2012, UN Security Council resolution 2085 authorized an African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA). However, in light of the slow African response, and at the request of the Malian authorities, on January 11, 2013, France launched Opération Serval, a military intervention to stop the rebel advance and recapture major urban settlements in the north of Mali. Opération Serval created new facts on the ground, and AFISMA’s deployment timetable was accelerated from the originally planned date of September 2013. The subsequent deployment of African troops was supported by voluntary contributions made at an emergency donor conference on January 29, 2013, in Addis Ababa.

Shortly afterwards, in February, a joint UN-AU-ECOWAS planning conference in Bamako finalized the revised and harmonized AFISMA Concept of Operations (CONOPS), which was adopted in March 2013 with the mission strength set at nearly 9,450 uniformed personnel. The door was also opened for the creation of a UN peacekeeping operation in Mali, which would take over from AFISMA.

The international donor community is gathering in Brussels on May 15 to consider a request to pledge about 340 million euros ($439 million) in support of “a new Mali.” With significant progress made in constraining the presence and influence of armed groups in the north, it is crucial to focus on the provision of human security for all communities in Mali. It is essential for the political process to be sufficiently inclusive to address the multiple crises facing the country.

The donor conference should focus on six issues:

First, the “plan for the sustainable recovery of Mali,” as submitted by the Malian government to the donors, introduces many important programs to take care of the humanitarian crisis, rebuild the governance of Mali, and ensure the provision of social services. But why is the concept of human security absent in the presentation of these development efforts? The reduction of poverty and improvement of the well being of the Malian people in relation to greater freedom and participation are all elements in a comprehensive approach to strengthen human security, which is the key to undoing the conditions that helped violent extremism gain influence.

Second, the recovery plan of the government does not address how a process of dialogue and mediation can be organized in the coming months to reconcile different aspirations and build consensus between the south and the north, including in particular those communities whose sense of being neglected greatly contributed to the crisis. There can be no development or institution-building in Mali without conscious and designated relationship-building in society.

Third, elections in Mali should be rescheduled if no sufficient human security can be ensured across the country in the coming months. The aggressive occupation of northern Mali has disrupted the social infrastructure, made thousands flee their homes, and caused a significant humanitarian crisis. In the plans submitted to the donors, it is expected that elections will be held before July 31st. In reality, it is hard to imagine that it will be possible to have a voting system in place on the basis of biometric voter registration within the next 10 weeks. Elections are important, but bad elections in which a significant number of the Malian people cannot effectively participate—notably the communities most affected by the crisis—will be a disaster. It will move the country backward rather than forward on the road to recovery.

A list of books on peace and security, recommended by staff at the International Peace Institute:

Global Security Upheaval: Armed Nonstate Groups Usurping State Stability Functions, by Robert Mandel (Stanford University Press)
This book challenges the assumption that central governments are always a source of stability, while nonstate armed groups are inherently forces of instability. Mandel argues that at times it can actually be counterproductive to rely on state governments for stability, depending upon the character of the government and the security situation. Following his past work on transnational organized crime, Mandel shows how armed nonstate groups can provide local stability better than weak state power, and he shows how cooperation between states and armed nonstate groups may at times be fruitful. The book provides a novel analysis of the nature of stability and the transformation of global security. It concludes with a series of policy guidelines on how to approach nonstate armed groups in the future. Suggested by Adam Lupel, IPI Editor and Senior Fellow.

Changing Norms Through Actions: The Evolution of Sovereignty, Jennifer Ramos (Oxford University Press)
The principle of the responsibility to protect has rekindled long-held debates about the status of sovereignty. One side holds state sovereignty to be inviolable, and one side holds it to be conditional, including both rights and obligations. In this book, Jennifer Ramos takes a more nuanced look at the sovereignty debate. She examines how the sovereignty norm has evolved over time, and she argues that you can trace its development in relation to the result of actions taken on its behalf. For example, whether an intervention is seen as a violation of sovereignty or not, depends greatly on the military outcome, and she argues this can have a profound effect on international normative commitments in subsequent crises. Through the analysis of conceptions of sovereignty before and after crises related to counterterrorism, human rights, and weapons of mass destruction, Ramos provides insight into how political action shapes international norms change over time. Suggested by Adam Lupel, IPI Editor and Senior Fellow.

Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East by Rashid Khalidi (Beacon Press, 2013)
Mr. Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, examines historical moments during the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to reveal why he believes the American-brokered negotiations have not only failed but have undermined progress towards lasting peace. Suggested by Warren Hoge, Senior Adviser for External Relations.

Conflict Analysis: Understanding Causes, Unlocking Solutions by Matthew Levinger (US Institute of Peace Press, 2013)
Finally, in one volume, the theoretical underpinning and the tools to understand today’s conflict dynamics and develop policy responses. This handbook aims to help practitioners of conflict management in analyzing both the causes of conflict and peace, and to include their analysis in decisionmaking and program implementation. A very timely toolbox in an age of shifting global conflict trends that can enable policy makers to design more nuanced and agile responses to the early 21st-century complex conflict crises. Suggested by Francesco Mancini, Senior Director of Research.

The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat by Vali Nasr (Doubleday, 2013)
Questioning what he calls America’s dangerous choice to engage less in the world, Mr. Nasr, dean of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins and a former member of the Obama State Department, delivers a sharp indictment of the president’s foreign policy and charts a path forward for how the US can regain lost influence and compete with its chief rival, China. Suggested by Warren Hoge, Senior Adviser for External Relations.

Essays in Humanitarian Action by Hugo Slim (Oxford Institute of Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict and Kindle Books, 2012)
This collection of essays, written between 1996 and 2005 by a leading humanitarian scholar, provides food for thought on some fundamental tensions underlying humanitarian ethics and practice. As humanitarian action needs to adapt to a fast-changing world and faces recurrent challenges from Syria to Mali and Somalia, the book offers timely and badly needed reflection on humanitarian values and dilemmas. Suggested by Jeremie Labbé, IPI Senior Policy Analyst, Humanitarian Affairs.

Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case of Putting America’s House in Order by Richard N. Haas (Basic Books, 2013)
Arguing that America is underperforming at home and overreaching abroad, Mr. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, explains that America’s continued influence and leadership in the world is contingent upon its ability to confront pressing challenges at home and progress in a 21st-century “nonpolar” world of American primacy but not domination. Suggested by Warren Hoge, Senior Adviser for External Relations.

Along with the authorization of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) on April 25, the UN Security Council authorized French troops to continue their military campaign in northern Mali, Opération Serval, in order to counter the threat of international terrorism emanating from the region. This is the latest indication that governments and multinational organizations such as NATO and the UN continue to believe a military presence can counter international terrorist threats. The so-called “war model” response to terrorism is familiar to global audiences, most starkly used by US President George W. Bush in his war against al-Qaeda, and is reinforced by terrorists who frequently characterize themselves as warriors and soldiers for their cause, engaged in a war against their targets.

Large-scale military responses to terrorism include campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, but is a military deployment the best response to a terrorist threat? Or can engaging in a war with terrorist actors be counterproductive?

Key Conclusions

• Protracted military campaigns do not reduce the threat of terrorism and can often exacerbate the threat by providing terrorist groups with media images of oppression, overwhelming lethal force, and cultural insensitivity. Civilian casualties inflicted by military campaigns can contribute to radicalization of the indigenous population, sympathy for terrorist causes, and grist for terrorist propaganda mills.
• Short-term and standalone military missions can, however, be effective in countering terrorism. A response of targeted, forceful operations can inflict lasting damage on terrorist networks, capabilities, and morale.
• Military intervention is a small part of counterterrorism strategy and should be used as a narrow and defined tool. Diplomatic, economic, social, and criminal justice models are essential for comprehensive counter terrorism policies and military units can be no substitute for these.
• The first phase of Opération Serval in Mali is assessed as having achieved its aims in the first ten days of deployment, but the mission must avoid the danger of being caught in what one expert calls “the quagmire,” where the aims become vague and there is no exit strategy.

Analysis

There has been a recent trend among Western governments and multinational organizations away from full-scale ground deployments as a means of countering international terrorism, and governments have sometimes chosen more limited, short-term action, such as the airstrikes in Libya. But capitals are also still entrenched in extended counterterrorism campaigns that have proved costly in lives, money, and reputations.

By deploying troops in the face of a terrorist threat, governments are responding to a public desire for action against terrorist actors. Political leaders appear decisive and able to regain the upper hand, often in the aftermath of, or threat of, an attack. However, the disadvantages of responding with force are many and well documented, and the action can often hinder broader counterterrorism initiatives. Indigenous populations can feel alienated, invaded, and colonized, and civilian casualties which accompany military engagements can have a radicalizing effect on populations, causing them to sympathize and collude with terrorist groups.

On April 18, the UN Security Council “underlined the need to facilitate the provision of humanitarian assistance through the most effective ways, including, where appropriate, across borders,” in a nonbinding oral statement. The statement followed a passionate plea to the Council by Valerie Amos, the Head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to “consider alternative forms of aid delivery, including cross-border operations,” to access the most needy population in rebel-controlled areas of Syria.

These developments gave new impetus to an ongoing debate on whether aid can be channelled across borders directly in opposition-controlled areas despite Damascus’ lack of consent, or whether it should be channelled across frontlines with consent of the Assad regime. In practice, humanitarian organizations normally request state permission for access to territory. As previously explained in the Global Observatory, the centrality of state sovereignty and state consent in this debate is due to “the deeply state-centric nature of the legal and institutional framework regulating humanitarian assistance.”

From a purely legal perspective, however, arguments can be raised against an absolute condition of state consent for the delivery of humanitarian relief to areas not effectively controlled by state forces. International humanitarian law is not clear cut around this issue, but does provide legal arguments against a strict state consent requirement for humanitarian relief in internal armed conflict that can assist policy makers to heed the recent call of the Security Council.

Key Conclusions

• International humanitarian law stresses the obligation of parties to a conflict—state or nonstate actors—to allow and facilitate humanitarian assistance. As such, it does not require a strict consent by the state to the delivery of aid—with the exception of Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions to which Syria is not a party—but focuses on the need of the civilian population.
• Parties to a conflict retain a right to control humanitarian assistance that allows them to prohibit access if it is used for other purposes than strictly humanitarian ones—such as to deliver military equipment. But it also implies that, in order to exercise this right, the concerned party has an effective control over the territory where the aid is transiting.
• In the case of Syria, a progressive interpretation of international law shows that Damascus’ consent is not a strict requirement to cross-border humanitarian assistance where the Assad regime has no control over the relevant border areas, on the condition that the aid is strictly humanitarian and impartial in nature.

Across the Middle East and North Africa, particularly in countries emerging from the Arab Spring, women and gender-rights advocates face accusations of Western secular imperialism and cultural relativism. Advocates maintain that their position is neither imported nor new, and argue instead that indigenous feminism and historically progressive roles for women in society are being erased. Parallel and equally pressing questions and tensions are playing out in Southeast Asia.

In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, religious extremism is on the rise and threatens to reverse gains made by the women’s movement since the 1980s. Extremism, already fueling frequent violent incidents, also threatens to overturn Indonesia’s tradition of religious tolerance and pluralism. Islam is the leading religion in Southeast Asia, where many distinct cultures have practiced the faith with remarkable diversity. A recent resurgence of Islam—and identity politics driven by dynamics in the Middle East—has brought an increasingly shared identity and approach to Muslims in Southeast Asia, possibly giving rise to greater intolerance for minority views and groups in countries like Indonesia.

A recent report released by Cordaid captures one wave of homegrown feminism in Indonesia that challenges gender inequality and religious extremism while situating itself in a traditional Islamic space. Looking for that Other Face, by Frank van Lierde, tells the stories of six Indonesian Muslim women inspired by their faith to develop women’s leadership and work against sexual and domestic violence while countering the rise of extremist beliefs in their communities.

The report makes a significant contribution in documenting and vividly portraying indigenous feminism in a Muslim country. As one woman asserts in the report, “I am not a westerner. I am an Indonesian Muslim woman standing up for social justice.” For local actors opposed to expanding rights for women, these narratives help counter notions of women’s rights as imported Western values forced upon regions like Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. For international actors, learning about indigenous and religious feminism can inform approaches to advocacy; supporters of women’s rights can learn to prioritize local voices and respect the translation of international human rights principles into cultural and religious terms that are more likely to persuade local populations and make a lasting positive impact.

All six women featured in the report come from and continue to work in the traditionally patriarchal world of the pesantren, or Islamic boarding school. In Indonesia, the pesantren is a powerful force of religion and values in society, with 27,000 religious schools currently housing and teaching millions of students. Teaching in the pesantren tends to follow kitab kuning, classical Islamic text books, but women leaders inside the schools say that reinterpretation can fight repression and extremism: “Rights, freedoms, obligations and traditions are always a question of interpretation and negotiation. And education gives the power to negotiate, to men as well as women.”

More than a million customers around the world buy something at Walmart every hour. As they do, the retail giant collects data on their buying habits and adds it to a database containing the equivalent of 50 million four-door filing cabinets of text. Analyzing this torrent of data to understand and predict consumer behavior can be a profitable endeavor. Indeed, “big data” already helped Walmart’s US competitor Target to detect pregnancies by identifying changes in buying habits, so that it could adjust its marketing accordingly and increase sales dramatically.

For the private sector, big data is the next frontier in terms of creating value. But being able to understand when and why human behavior changes also offers huge potential for the public good, not least in the area of conflict prevention.

Right now, though, big data presents us with a new kind of digital divide—one that hinges on access to analytics rather than consumption of content. As large corporations leverage their own datasets and a number of governments release treasure troves of “public” data, poorer governments, civil society organizations, and multilateral bodies struggle to analyze big data for peacebuilding, development, and humanitarian ends. And conflict-prevention actors in particular may be getting left behind.

Key Conclusions

• The private sector has embraced big data analytics to drive innovation. Building on initiatives in the development and humanitarian fields, conflict-prevention actors should foster partnerships with corporations willing to share anonymized data and analytical expertise that could contribute to preventing violence and conflict.
• As governments increasingly embrace open-data policies, those seeking to better understand the structural causes of conflict should capitalize on already-public datasets.
• Public and private sector actors need to develop a framework for identifying the levels of trust, transparency, and control that citizens, corporations, and governments are willing to accept when it comes to sharing data in contexts of violence and conflict.

Analysis

Big data can offer insights into deep social, political, and economic trends as well as individual and group behavior. As previously outlined in this publication, it could therefore play a valuable role in both long-term efforts to address the root causes of conflict and short-term efforts to prevent outbreaks of violence. If plummeting wheat imports in Arab countries helped spark the Arab Spring, for example, or if phone call volumes increase before violence breaks out, then those seeking to prevent conflict need to draw on a much wider variety of data than before to make more informed decisions.

Two reports published last month make it clear that international actors, governments, and civil society organizations recognize big data’s potential in both conflict prevention and crisis response. But who has the data, and how can it be tapped?