interviews
Working at the Supranational Level
by Daniel Naujoks
July 31, 2019
This interview with Daniel Naujoks was conducted and condensed by frank news. It is part two of our conversation on The Mobility Mandala.
frank: Today, we often hear about a crisis of cooperation at the international level. It seems that many countries are reluctant to work together and many wonder about the place of the United Nations in today’s world. This is broad – but what influence does the UN have on nations today?
Daniel Naujoks: When we think about the influence of the UN it’s important to recognize that the UN isn't one entity. What we call “the UN” includes many different ways in which states interact with each other, often mitigated or moderated by certain entities of the UN. You have the General Assembly, which, for many people is the quintessential UN. And the Security Council – a highly political body and the only UN organ that has the power to take decisions infringing on states’ sovereignty. On the other hand, there is the UN of the many programs and agencies that have specific mandates and that work with governments and non-state actors to achieve something, like the UN Development Programme, the International Labour Organization, or the UN Environment Programme, to name a few.
When it comes to migration and displacement, we actually had several discussions on these topics at the General Assembly. In 2006, the UN organized the first high level dialogue on international migration and development, for which I was part of the organization team at the UN Population Division. In 2013, we had another high-level dialogue at the UN General Assembly. And after preparing and negotiating for two years, in December 2018, the global community adopted two new compacts. The UN adopted the UN Global Compact for Migration, for safe, orderly and regular migration, and the UN Global Compact on Refugees. These are non-binding agreements but the entire process of drafting these compacts was influential for spurring discussions among countries, between countries and civil society at the international level, and, even more importantly, at the national level.
Often we think of UN issues as matters at the supranational level, happening at the UN General Assembly hall here in New York or in Geneva. And that's true, that is an important venue. But, when we have a UN event or UN treaty, or in this case, a compact, there are also national stakeholders, human rights commissions, NGO networks, ministries at the national level, who have an interest in promoting certain issues. And they have consultations, the press picks up issues. Each country is a little different and it depends on the strength of certain stakeholders and their interests. For example, the U.S. government was largely absent from the process of the UN Global Compact for Migration.
Already in the beginning of the negotiations, the US declared, "We're out." Which, in my opinion, was not a very smart move, because even at that point, it was clear that it would be non-binding.
The risk of somewhat being held accountable would actually be low. And remaining in the discussions would have given the US a way to influence the content. But I think it was more about sending a political message to certain local constituents than an actual policy move in the international sphere.
What is remarkable is that even though the national government withdrew from the process, many U.S. cities said, "Can we be part of that?" New York, Chicago,and other cities really stepped in. Thus, in the end, there was a lot of participation in the U.S., even though the national government declared they don't want to have anything to do with it. So, sometimes, how the UN works is a little more complex than just what the official state department position is on an issue. And there are many venues. There are bilateral consultations, there are regional consultations on human trafficking, on labor migration and so on. There is a Global Forum on Migration and Development, the GFMD, which, since 2007, takes place every year. Governments come, they exchange notes on good policies, and on what can be done, mostly at the working level. At the working level, government officials cooperate and learn from each other. Again, it's non-binding. And the UN provides inputs, they chair sessions, they write background papers, they present case studies.
This is to exemplify that there are systems where policy learning happens in a much more informal setting, than through rigid rules-setting and treaty-making. This is something students in the UN Studies specialization here at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, that I direct, focus on when studying global governance. There are many different ways in which local and national governments, countries’ specific ministries, institutions, and agencies, international organizations, NGOs, and other groups negotiate and collaborate.
And then in the developing world, of course, the UN has a different role, because they are not just advising, they're working with local partners and in actual programs, like funding. And they're advising governments directly on how to do things.
But even there, what people from the outside often don't understand, the UN cannot work without the explicit consent of the host government.
So, when Kenya says that they want to close the refugee camps for Somalia refugees, UNHCR can plead, "Oh, please, refugees have rights and camps are bad." But, unless the Kenyan government gives UNHCR authority to work on certain programs, and provides UNDP consent to implement initiatives on livelihood strategies targeting refugees, these agencies can't do much. This being said, because of certain power asymmetries and donor interests, the so-called technical assistance from UN agencies in the Global South has the potential to influence policy decisions and exemplifies how the work of the UN can have an impact. But the political leverage of many agencies is not as large as is often seen. Which is why there's a lot of bargaining in the background. The things that you don't see that are not official.
Can you give an example?
DN: An example for the fact that the UN has to always ask for permission to work on certain issues is the persistence of the use of refugee camps. For the last 15 to 20 years, we know that refugee camps are not good for refugees. In the very short term, in the immediate aftermath of an atrocity, of a civil war, of a calamity, in the case of a sudden influx, camps may make sense to provide shelter and food and medical services to a large number of people. But, even in the medium term, they're very bad for the human development outcomes of people.
They lend themselves to a range of human rights violations, because people live in close vicinity to each other, people who are very heterogeneous among themselves. Just because they're all refugees, just because they're all from one country, doesn't mean they all get along well.
Camps generally don't provide sufficient economic opportunities for people, et cetera. That's why for some time now, we know that limited humanitarian responses to large refugee and IDP movements are not good for development. Definitely not for those people who are displaced, but mostly equally for surrounding communities. I actually developed a role-play simulation on the reasons for and against refugee camps and participants understand quite clearly the mix of international development and human rights logic with local politics and interests.
Addressing the shortcomings of classic humanitarian approaches, different UN agencies have been very strong in advocating for a more development-based strategy. For example, in the Syrian context, there has been the 3RP, the regional refugee and resilience plan, which is headed by UNDP and UNHCR, with I think, about 270 partners. It’s implemented in Syria’s neighboring countries, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt. In addition to each country’s national plan there's a regional plan, which focuses not only on the humanitarian side but also development side. UNDP has been leading these efforts to provide livelihood support, skills, training, et cetera. But even there, we see that the implementation is hampered by a lot of challenges. Take Jordan. In the 2013 donor conference in London, Jordan pledged to give work permits to 200,000 Syrian refugees. They were very committed at the highest level of government.
But, a year later, there were almost no permits for refugees, and everyone asked why. We did a project with Better Work Jordan, which is a collaboration between the International Labour Organization and the World Bank. BetterWork Jordan published a report that my students drafted on why Syrian refugees did not get more official work permits. There are many reasons why employers couldn't employ refugees or couldn't expand their production. The refugees could only work in the export-oriented zones, mostly in the garment sector. They couldn't work in other areas. There was a distance they had to travel. Refugees often didn't want these jobs for a variety of reasons. There were many bottlenecks in the bureaucratic procedure to get work permits. In brief, there were many challenges at the supply side, the demand side, as well as on the bureaucratic transaction side.
These issues combined led to a situation in which this great policy that was mediated by the UN and other donors to actually empower refugees to be economic actors, didn't have the impact people had hoped for. While much of what the UN does can have important impacts, this shows that what can be done at the national level depends a lot on national priorities and politics. How politicians are afraid of negative impacts for the local voting populations. And then, of course, it has also to do with the commitment of the international donors to actually put in money to say, "Yes, we will not only give you minor funds to warehouse refugees but we will partner with you to empower them and your populations." Part of the agreement with Jordan that I mentioned was a pact with the EU. The EU said, "If refugees are employed you can export garments and other goods from export-oriented zones to us duty free." The idea was to use trade and the increase in production in the Jordanian garment sector as a way to increase employment opportunities for refugees. A great idea.
But, you probably need to do more to help Jordanian products to be competitive on the EU market. There's also a time lag. Even if you open up the market right away, these products may not satisfy the EU standards for garments. So, there are many things that the partners need to do to support these endeavors and to really make sure that local leaders are not afraid that if they open the labor market, if they open chances for local integration, that in two years, donors will pull out. And then, they will get stuck with the additional population without the support financial community. So, that's where the UN can help a lot. But, without real commitments from large donor countries or any countries to resettle and share the responsibility for refugees, there's only that much the UN can do.
Thank you so much for your time.
Image via Hannah Wallace Bowman (above).
interviews
Daan Roosegaarde on his practice and Earth's future.
by Daan Roosegaarde
May 15, 2018
This interview with Daan Roosegaarde, the founder of Studio Roosegaarde, was conducted and condensed by frank news.
Studio Roosegaarde is the social design lab of Dutch artist and innovator Daan Roosegaarde. Together with his team of designers and engineers Roosegaarde creates landscapes of the future for a better world. The studio connects people, technology and space to improve daily life in urban environments and spark imagination.
Image via Studio Roosegaarde. Poland.
Thank you for taking the time, I appreciate it.
My pleasure.
I’m curious how you move between planning, performance art, public art, and design.
I'm a hybrid. I remember when I was 16 my parents asked me what I wanted to do. I said, I want to do art, I want to do science, I want to travel, I want to be entrepreneur, I want to make things. Everybody got really confused and a bit worried. For two weeks they had me do interviews and tests with teachers, a psychological person, and other students. The conclusion after two weeks was what I wanted did not exist. I was sad for one day, and the second day was like, I'll just do it myself. That mentality, that kind of curiosity, always remained.
I look outside my window and see traffic jams, air pollution, CO2 levels rising, and don’t understand the world.
It’s definitely about connecting all the different sectors you mentioned.
How do you conceptualize such large scale projects?
It starts with the statement. The global challenges, the rising sea level, the air pollution, the CO2 emissions. They're bad design, that we created as human beings. We can do two things: cry and be sad in a corner, and blame other people. Or, we can say, we created it, let’s engineer, and design our way out of it. A lot of the projects have a practical attitude, as well as a poetic approach. The Earth is our playground. It’s our canvas.
Does permanence mean something to you?
It’s about impact. We’ve done Waterlicht, the blue light show about the rising sea level, in different locations. At the United Nations in New York, or Museumplein Square in Amsterdam. I think people are still talking about it, even though it was only three nights. I don’t see a different value in permanent or temporary. But we definitely do both.
Image via Studio Roosegaarde. United Nations Headquarters, New York City.
Can you tell me about the Smog Free project? Are you looking to expand them?
Image via Studio Roosegaarde. Beijing.
Yeah that’s a project that we initiated in the studio — self commissioned. Fighting for this dream of clean air. And again, correcting reality.
It created a trigger where new smog free solutions are designed. Like the smog free bicycle, or smog free ring. We're also working on designs, not just correcting reality, but doing it right the first time. Like the energy harvesting kites [WINDVOGEL] which generate power through the push and pull of cables via the wind. At 100 kilowatts per hour, that’s enough to supply 200 households green energy. We can generate energy without polluting.
We’re infiltrating and correcting reality, and making proposals of how to do it right in a whole new way. The projects are definitely growing in terms of scale and cities.
How far does the Smog Free Tower reach?
You can clean 30,000 cubic meters per hour. A soccer stadium in a day and a half. The range depends on the type of pollution, wind, humidity, things like that. We know how much cubic air we clean, that’s a solid number. It’s really varied per city.
For example in Krakow, we really made an impact on the park scale. Making parks 27% cleaner than the rest of the city. These kinds of fine particles are 40 times smaller than your hair, they’re nano-particles. They’re really hard to measure. You don’t smell, feel, or taste them, but they’re there, and that’s why they get so deep into your body. We really have to do extensive scientific research to have the validation. We try to in every city.
How long did it take to develop?
Two years to build the first one. And then it really kicked off. The Chinese government got on board. Poland, the Netherlands, and we are developing in Mexico, Columbia, and India. For me, it’s a movement. It’s making clean air parks with the towers, clean air bicycles so you can bike without being polluted. You’ll see a whole new series of smog free solutions in the coming years. Of course, we workshop with universities who are experts in the field to say, hey, what do we need to do to make a whole city smog free? It’s a long term campaign. It’s not just the tower. One tower is never going to fix the problem.
Image via Studio Roosegaarde. Poland.
Are you optimistic about the future of our environment?
[Laughing] No! No, no, no. It’s a bleak world. Somehow we're very creative in finding ways to not adapt and not change. We’re spending 1.9 billion euro every day on war on planet earth. But somehow, we find excuses not to invest in new ideas. Out of mismanagement, or hesitation —
It feels like we’ve run out of time. I don’t think there’s a lack of money or technology in the world. There’s a lack of imagination and curiosity in how we can live a better life. And that’s a bit sad. Because we’ve created the problem, so we should also fix it.
And even worse, it’s not just Earth.
Our latest project, launching in October, is focused on space waste. 29 thousand particals, caused by us. Broken satellites, missiles, etc. If a particle hits an existing sattelite, because of the speed, 17,000 kilometers per second, the sattelite goes down. No more Facebook, no more website, no more banking.
And nobody knows how to fix it, ESA, NASA, Space X — nobody knows.
Then again, I think we have an obligation to persist and to be curious. And to be honest, I don’t know what else I should be doing with this life. I’m a voluntary prisoner of my own ideas in that way. A happy voluntary prisoner.
But the answer is no, to your question. I’m sure you expected a yes, but no. It’s problematic.
Do you find your work engages and incites a curiosity where we’re otherwise neglegent? Because it looks and feels like art.
Absolutley. It’s great to inspire people, but it’s also factual. The Energy Harvesting Kites can produce electricy. The Smog Free Tower creates clean air parks. So it’s inspiring, but it’s also making sure it works. The facts matter. The science matters. The poetic and inspiring part is as important as the pragmatic, make it happen attitude.
That might also be a Dutch thing. We live below sea level here. Without technology and without creative thinking we’d all drown. We’d all die. But somehow we stayed here and created a system of windmills, pumps, canals, and rivers. We could've easily moved to Germany to keep it safe. But we didn’t. We live with nature, we fight with nature.
Do you have scientists on staff?
Yeah. I’m the son of a math teacher. I was raised by scientists. I’m definitley more of the creative. I have a team of designers and engineers and they work on the idea that I have. To go from idea, to prototype, to pilot, to final product or project. On some projects we work with external experts.
With The Smog Free, we work with experts in smog. We have our own core team, Studio Roosegaarde, and then per project you want to work with the best.
Every week I learn a new word. It’s a good life. You’re always an amateur when you start something new. I'm learning every week, and that’s really fun. I’ve done all this stuff, but I’m still learning. It makes it fun for me. These are group processes, but I’m at the beginning and at the end.
Are your parents okay with how this all worked out?
Ha! I’ll tell you a personal story, it’s funny. They’re both teachers. And of course my work is always about art and architecture and design, but it was always a bit abstract for them. They see it’s going well. But a year ago I became a visiting professor at Tongji, in Shanghai. They called me to say, we’re so proud! That’s the world they understand. They come from education. A visiting professor, it’s like the highest goal. It’s just a title, I think I’ve done other things to make them proud. But everyone has their own world and way of appreciating.
They’re not worried anymore.
Congratulations!
Take a closer look at Daan & Studio Roosegaarde's work below.