Going Beyond The Rhetoric: Unpacking The Role Of Faith Leaders And Institutions In Humanitarian Action

10 years ago the president of the Methodist Church challenged me in the east of Sri Lanka following a humanitarian crisis caused by the upsurge in the conflict. "Amjad! Whenever there is a crisis, people flee to the religious institutions and religious leaders. They are there for the affected community and remain with them even as security gets worse, whilst you as NGOs withdraw when your security is threatened. Why do you never respect that?".

This question has plagued me since then and I have sought to understand why we as the international humanitarian community have failed to give the faith community the respect that it deserves and a seat at the table of policy makers and donors in terms of global programming, advocacy and decision making.

As the discussion around localisation of aid becomes more heated and pertinent, we have to realise that we can not have a full discussion if we do not also consider the role of faith.

Religious teachings, although diverse, teach the importance of compassion and of one common shared humanity, where each human being is important in him/herself. Human dignity and the welfare of all people are part of the main objectives of faith and religion, with the principal teaching of serving other people especially the downtrodden, irrespective of their faith, ethnicity, gender, and geography. Faith-based actors enjoy close proximity to, or are part of the populations affected by wider crises, and have therefore developed special relationships of trust, as well as insights and access to community members compared to many other actors. They are often present before crises, and are first responders when disasters hit. They are key providers of assistance and protection during crises and their aftermath.

In a world where conflicts, violence, and natural disaster affect millions of people, faith-based entities share a critical responsibility and role in working for peace, both at local and national or international levels. Faith-based organizations can thus facilitate sustainable behavior and relationship changes based on faith and worldview, offering mediation and sacred space for dialogue between parties.

Yet they are not a panacea. Engaging with faith and faith organisations also has its problems. There is a character to the religious playing field, that complicates matters. Our faith communities, whether they are numerous and powerful, a minority struggling for a voice, or even an influential tiny cadre, have undeniably, as strong a history of internecine strife and struggle as they do of cooperation and collaboration. There is a problem with the perception of what engagement with faith really means? In addition many faith communities are tied together across national boundaries, which have appeared or crystallised long after the faith community emerged. Globalisation has problematised, at one level, the very idea of the sacrosanctity of nation state borders. The flow of information and humans, respects no borders. This means that the faith communities themselves often feel united by mutual concerns and values, which are sometimes at odds with other policies.

This all speaks to a trust deficit that exists with engaging with faith organisations and leaders. So much more needs to be done to bridge that gap. We need more evidence and case studies about the role and impact of faith organisations on individual and community resilience.

We also need to work through an understanding of the tensions between programmes of certain faith organisationss (vis-à-vis conversion and proselytization) and the humanitarian principles of 'neutrality' and 'impartiality'.  Thus more is needed to explore and discuss especially in 'understanding the spiritual wisdom of humanity' i.e. in using spirituality as a mechanism higher than just simply faith for developing a consensus towards understanding human value and responding to the need.   Put simply if organisations and faith leaders can converge on shared religious values towards the spiritual values of humanity regarding the protection of human life and dignity and the relationship of these values to humanitarian principles, then they would be able to possible address these tensions. 

There needs to be greater dialogue within and between faiths (and organisations) to not only understand humanitarian principles and instruments of International Humanitarian Law, but also look at relations with (and between) faiths, traditions and cultures which could then lead to new approaches for cooperation. We have to challenge ourselves to a new ethics of common concern that provides the moral commitments that relate to a sense of spiritual unity. On the flip side non faith organisations need greater faith literacy around humanitarian, development and peace building to have that understanding.

Engaging with faith based organisations and faith leaders will also mean building the capacity of local faith communities to mitigate against and respond to disasters whilst also equipping religious premises and assets such as mosques, churches and other sacred places as possible emergency facilities and for community education on disaster risk reduction and preparedness. 

So there is a lot to be done in this space. Last year at the World Humanitarian Summit, a special session to rethink and re-define the engagement with FBOs, communities, leaders and institutions. The conversation was started but has to be continued. This week in Sri Lanka, an international forum will discuss scaling up engagement of local faith actors in humanitarian response. Exploring a wide array of topics including migration, gender based violence, peace and conflict, the forum will present evidence on the responses of successful partnerships and call for greater sector-wide literacy and capacity for local faith communities.

For many of the 'local' communities, we are talking about, faith (teachings, rituals, practice) are part of their DNA. We need to understand, respect and accept the role of faith-based actors in reducing humanitarian need and suffering. But we also need realise that this is still a process that will need to continue as we call for constructive dialogue between faith and non-faith players in the larger interest of communities in need.  

Originally published in Huffington Post

Reflecting on Peace Day 2017: Resetting the Button

The World Peace Day has come and gone. For many it is a time of celebration and for others it is the annual time to do some reflections and soul searching with regards the state of world peace. This time round, it seems that the state is slightly in a poorer state than the year before. The global incidents make it clear that there is a need for a pause and reset button in terms of just the basics of relationships. Somehow over the last year, it is clear that what has been lost is the very basic element of relating to someone: of empathy: sympathy and compassion.

So this year whilst we have seen protracted conflict, we have seen unexpected conflict turning violent, with many asking the question, why? We know that there are many drivers of conflict. Often, in many cases where there has been a cessation of violence and hostilities, peace agreements and the accompanying international apparatus to support their implementation have suppressed the violence but not addressed the causes of conflict. Accordingly, the risk of a re-eruption remains. One of the best indicators of where there is risk of future violent conflict is simply identifying where there was violent conflict before.

Yet for example if we examine what happened last month in Charlottesville, USAand the simmering tensions since then, one might be tempted to say that this is not the case. After all the USA has not been in conflict internally since the end of the Civil War in the late 19th century. Yet and this is the point, conflict can remain and tensions manifest themselves into deep socio-political cleavages, if moves are not made to bring about structural peace and reconciliation. A simple end to a violent conflict or war with one side being victorious over the other is not enough to build peace.

So the concept of building peace remains different to how we normally understand it. The common understanding of peace is often misinterpreted as a hippie type of affair with utopian love. The more working definition of peace is more disciplined than that. It is about defining an environment where people can pursue conflicts without violence and harm to themselves or others. In other words, it is not conflict that is the problem, but violence. Indeed, conflict is often a necessary condition for making social progress, and the ability to manage conflicts without violence is an important means by which we do so.

Thus in talking about peace, we talk about maintaining of a balance of certain conditions that encourage people to handle conflicts peacefully and prevent serious problems from emerging, as well as offering many other shared goods. These conditions draw on the idea of human security and 'positive peace' (a peace that is more than just the absence of violence). They express both what needs to be aimed for and how one assesses whether a society is indeed moving in a peaceful direction. The concepts of political power: safety and security of people; economic prosperity; rule of law and justice and wellbeing all factor in these conditions. If these are in balance, you have a better chance for peaceful conditions to be met.

Running through these five peace factors are values of equity, fairness, inclusion and respect for human dignity, and with that the importance of human relationships that are fulfilling and functional for peace.

What these conditions also point to is the long term nature of things. While political leaders' decisions are required to make these unfold positively, to sustain or protect them, they do not come about at the flick of a leader's switch. Similarly, while peace is most likely and strongest when many individuals gear their actions toward peacebuilding, the effects of activism are not necessarily either quick or linear. Rather, change is indirect, incremental and cumulatively transformative.

In the face of the current global challenges with the multitude of conflicts we are facing, this year's peace day has to call for new solutions, that challenge exclusion based on difference. Peace Day has to reinforce the commonalities of existence such as values, ethics, social justice and social responsibility. We have to build communities that are resilient to stress and strain; that is knowledgeable, healthy and can meet its basic needs; that is socially cohesive; that has economic opportunities; that has well-maintained and accessible infrastructures and services; that can manage its natural assets; that is connected.

Understanding how the different elements of risk interact with each other, is fundamental to conflict analysis and to understanding what can be done to build peace in any particular context and to build resilient peaceful communities. The capacity to respond to challenges is necessary but not enough and relying on crisis response is truly inadequate. It is essential to meet emerging problems upstream.

In this age of growing long-term risk, the international community as a whole needs to be better at risk management. In order to be able to meet problems upstream, there need to be strong advocates for creative dialogue, and diplomacy that understands the context and addresses civic empowerment.

True inclusivity can only be obtained when we carefully position all elements to create a compelling cosmopolitan mosaic. There is a need to remain committed to engineering the software needed to work effectively in a range of situation. This will never be easy, but remains vitally important for, it involves creating the very 'ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become'.

This originally appeared on Huffington Post

A Holistic Approach For Youth To Build Peace

he youth demographic is on the rise. We cannot ignore the case in many parts of the world that the majority of the society is under 30. The youth are not just the future as the cliché goes, they are the present. This means that they need to be included and embedded in processes taking place now, not as token representations but with agency and influence. And it's not like they do not want that engagement.

The recent Varkey Foundation study is testament to this urgency. It exudes cautious optimism about the attitudes and opinions of the generation that will shape the next few decades. Despite the rise of populist movements which focusses on differences, the survey paints young people as wanting to bridge differences. The survey also points to young people having a greater commitment to doing something to contribute to their societies and their world. There is anger in our youth, impatient with the lack of progress being made on tackling this and also frustrated by being shut out. Surveys like this help to make the case for not only recognising the role of young people but also doing something about being part of the change. This is important as we consider the state of the world.

For all the relative calmness and progress of the second half of the 20th Century and the early years of the 21st, we still see a world that is hurting due to increased fragility - fragility that is globalising at the pace of our fast-evolving world.

Figures show that the world has become less peaceful since 2008, largely attributed to the rise of conflicts within states, the rise of terrorism, and increasing levels of criminality. The battlefields of today are everywhere: they are not defined by geography; they are not places like Verdun and Waterloo and Solferino. The battlefields of today are on our streets, in our hospitals, in our schools, in our places of worship. There may not be a World War, yet we are still a world at war.

So in the lead up to International Youth Day this year on 12th August with its theme 'Youth Building Peace', it is important we re-dedicate efforts once again to seeing how youth are part of and take the lead in building peace. Young people are agents for peace, engaged in transforming the structures and institutions that hinder the socio- economic and political well-being of people living in fragile and conflict affected communities as pointed out by a recent report on the role of young people in peacebuilding. They are often first responders and disproportionately affected by conflict taking a long time to build back better.

So, we need to do more to invest and engage with them but this requires a holistic approach. First though, we need to remove the prejudice that many of us have when it comes to engaging young people. We must stop thinking that they are apolitical - more interested in following the latest instalment of a reality TV programme than in engaging with the serious questions of the world around them. We should channel their enthusiasm to express and get involved. However we must be honest about this approach. We need to give them the space to be innovative and shape or rethink new models for the communities and societies in which they live - maybe outside the globalised economic and "social" system that they will inherit from their elders and previous generations. In doing this, we have to answer some hard questions about whether we are ready for that and what it will take for each one of us to work together towards a fairer world for all of us. In short we have to be prepared for a hard shift in how we work and engage.

In December 2015, the United Nations Security Council recognized the efforts of young people with a unanimous vote on UN Security Council Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security (UNSCR 2250). UNSCR 2250 sets guidelines for its member states, the UN and civil society to ensure young people's active, systematic and meaningful participation in institutions and mechanisms relating to peace and security.

However like many things, the devil is in the detail as well as in the will to get this participation.

A lot has to be done to ensure that we get the full engagement and investment. This is not only the responsibility of the youth to push for this as they inherit the problems that we create but also our collective responsibility to ensure that we do not hand something that we would not want to inherit.

Youth can no longer be 'represented' but have to be mainstreamed, included, nurtured, listened to, consulted and worked with in partnership with. This is the call that is most loud and one we need to support.

So this youth day, its not just about reaffirming the need for youth to build peace but to find avenues and opportunities to make this happen.

This originally appeared on Huffington Post

Sri Lanka Floods 2017: Sharing the Blame

Once again Sri Lanka is in the grip of a natural disaster. Thousands have been displaced and hundreds killed by the floods and landslides. The tragedy is that this time the rains were not necessarily unprecedented and the irony is that the Minister for Disaster Management was in Cancun at that time talking about the capacity of the government to respond. Despite his very impressive speech it was clear that his own disaster management ministry was left wanting of the basic supplies.

For me, this cannot be dismissed as sheer incompetence. This is not only tantamount to a lie but also a crime; a crime of negligence which has had the severest of consequences. As I wrote a year ago, we should have seen this as a pattern that Sri Lanka over the last few years has suffered from rain causing flooding with the situation worsening every year. Last year we should have learned our lesson, yet we are still in a scenario as if we are responding for the first time.

However this is a crime whose responsibility is not just to be borne by the Government. We in academia, civil society and the private sector also need to take a share of the blame. For weeks and months after the floods, we met and talked about what to do differently.   Yet it seems that all of that was for naught. We have always talked about being prepared yet we seem to have largely failed.

The sad reality is that we had a full representation of civil society and the private sector attending the UN’s World Humanitarian Summit, in Istanbul a year ago. Commitments and consensus from the international community for a much more responsive humanitarian structure and system to be developed to address the changing complexity of needs were obtained. Yet like all international processes, Sri Lanka was a mere observer, using the occasion to be seen as opposed to thinking about using it to do something different. The Government had little interest in getting engaged as they dispatched the Minister for Transport and Aviation (hardly an authority on humanitarian responses and disaster management) with a couple of civil servants and a few civil society activists, who had managed to secure financial support from the UN to attend. This in itself is telling that we are still in a system where civil society and NGOs have to gather external funds to support trips being done to discuss issues that are of significant interest in the long run to the country. The mere fact that we are interested to give money when disaster strikes yet unable to provide money for prevention is something we need to seriously discuss.

Having been intimately involved with the preparations for the Summit, I found myself at a loss that there was also little appetite for any comprehensive discussion in country. The sole ‘national’ consultation carried out for Sri Lanka in the run up to the Summit was done by a few national CSO’s and INGOs, and ironically pointed out key issues that needed to be considered some of which have bearings with this crisis:

• The need to improve coordination in humanitarian response involving a central body at the country level coordinating all humanitarian agencies working in the country
• The empowerment of local communities
• The use of GPS and drones for the location of victims
• The use of mobiles for with a recommendation for telecom operators to operate specialized cross network channels to allow for ease of communication
• The stockpiling of food and non essential items.
• The involvement of young people in humanitarian responses

While these consultations got lost within the framework of a UN process, what I have been baffled about is the fact that these national CSOs/NGOs who were part of this discussion and generated these considerations have also failed to implement some of these in their work moving forward.

There should have been better training and preparedness. Yet what I have been struck by is the reticence of Sri Lankan civil society to respond. From a lack of financial and human resources capacity to a more political stance of ‘who was seen to be taking the lead in these conversations’, what has resulted has been a lack of a proactive process of working on contingency planning. But this is not just left to the civil society who have been guilty. Private sector has to ask itself some serious questions. While many private sector organisations have taken it upon themselves to become the custodians of humanitarian response (namely in the absence of a coherent response from the UN/ Civil Society and Government), they have done so largely uncoordinated. They have also been guilty of playing the politics card. For example, the Connecting Business Initiative launched at the World Humanitarian Summit by a Sri Lankan private sector company was designed to transform the way that private sector engages before, during and after crises. Leaving aside the complexities of engaging with 2 UN agencies, this initiative has largely not taken off in Sri Lanka (despite it being one of few focal countries). Private sector has been largely disinterested (choosing to fly their own flags) or when approached have expressed reservations about which particular company and individual was seen to be at the forefront of this initiative. Such petty political stances means that in the absence of a government response, there is no other collective effort to provide a humanitarian response. It is then left to individuals and individual organisations to respond in a haphazard manner without the proper training, advice, expertise and sensitivity which is a bit ironic given the fact that in their day to day business, private sector will not get into something unless they have the necessary expertise and knowledge.

It’s not necessarily rocket science but it is about being aware of what to do and what not to do.It would be wise as well to remember that there is life beyond the initial help following the onset of the disaster. We forget the medium and long term.

People at the center of the crisis will need to be empowered to cope and recover with dignity in the coming days, months and years. The voices and choices of the affected people and the first responders should guide our response even when outside actors are called upon to provide assistance and protection. It is all very well for us who from outside talk about the provision of food or non food items but we have to take into account that surveys consistently show that many affected people do not believe the aid they receive is relevant or meets their priority needs.

Thus it is not just about the provision of goods and services but the rebuilding of services and structures to cope and resume their livelihoods on their own.  We cannot afford to create a culture of dependency. It is now increasingly being recognized that the provision of cash or vouchers in emergencies can support people in ways that maintain human dignity, provide access to food and shelter and help rebuild or protect livelihoods. Of course this is context specific depending on the extent of the disaster, but the aim of such programming allows a flexible response tool that supports the autonomy and choice of these people, while making humanitarian aid more accountable to the affected people. It allows them to recharge their phones for example to communicate with loved ones or even to look after their own specific businesses. It also gives them agency at a time when you have lost everything. It helps them to get engaged. Yet from the appeals that have gone out, we are still making decisions for the affected people asking for things that we think that they need in terms of items, somehow assuming that in the tragedy victims would have lost their rationale to think or worse that they are somehow dishonest and would cheat the system. Such thinking to some extent devalues the worth of our fellow human beings reducing them to being thought of as beggars who should accept what we give because they have lost everything. The issue is not to dismiss the provision of food and other valued items but to also consider how cash and voucher transfers can be used in the best effect. For this to happen we need to have a paradigm shift in terms of our thinking of how we respond to emergencies.

We need to close the gender and diversity gap in our response to those who have been affected. Women, girls the elderly and the disabled often are unable to claim their rights and fulfil their needs in a crisis. This has to start with an effective information management which includes disaggregated data and other key relevant indicators.

Lastly those affected will need support in getting back to their homes so cleaning and return kits are essential. This is where we often fail. They will need help to restart their businesses and rebuild their shattered lives. How can we ensure that we have programmed this in our fundraising as well as our time and resource allocation? What provisions do we have for livelihood support? When the crowds die down and the interest declines, how can we ensure that people are still remembered?

We now also seriously need to think collectively about contingency planning. The government has shown that it is inept at preparing for the crisis. We need to collectively work on better training and being better equipped in areas of preparedness and response to disasters and crisis. We need to strengthen national legislation on emergency preparedness including contingency planning and early warning systems which also identifies the roles and responsibilities of various actors including the private sector. As international aid for humanitarian and development work declines for Sri Lanka due to its middle income status classification, it is left on the shoulders of the national NGOs, Government and Private Sector to respond. We cannot afford to be reacting like this once again in a year’s time because we will have more problems as our thirst for development and urbanisation means we take shortcuts in planning and construction.

If in a year we have not been able to prepare and respond adequately then the blame is not just on the government but on us collectively for the crime of negligence that we failed to learn from our mistakes.

This originally appeared on Groundviews

What Can We Learn From the 'World Interfaith Harmony Week

Last week, the first week of February was traditionally the 'World Interfaith Harmony Week' as designated by the United Nations to occur annually in the first full week of February. This week was seen as a chance for the global community to promote harmony between all people and to establish a dialogue amongst the different faiths and religions in an attempt to enhance mutual understanding, harmony and cooperation.

Given the very bloody start to 2016, now more than ever is there a need for such spaces to pause and reflect on how to create a new environment for the promotion of Inter-Religious and Inter-Cultural Dialogue, Understanding and Cooperation for Peace. The incidents around the world whether it is the violence in the Middle East, the anti immigrant feelings in Europe, the rise of racist nationalism in Asia, or the xenophobic rhetoric stemming out the of the US presidential election campaigns, all emphasize the need to build societies that are shared by everyone. These 'shared' societies are uniquely imagined as places where a durable peace is maintained through values of compassion and solidarity and by encouraging the promotion of dialogue amongst the different forums available in all cultures.

This is of course the idealistic aspiration behind the Harmony week but with a realistic recognition that it requires real work from all stakeholders that constitute society as a whole. In other words, it is not the purview or responsibility of one component. It needs commitment to an understanding of the driving contexts and causes for conflict, and also of the real tangible aspects for peace. This lofty goal can be challenging to understand. After all what do we mean by peace? For me, the closest definition for this term is that 'Peace is possible when people can live in safety, have fair and effective laws, participate in shaping political decisions, make a decent living and secure their wellbeing'. The question then becomes how do we arrive at this possibility? From the perspective of the Interfaith Harmony Week, how can such a culture of peace be developed?

Simply put, there needs to be real and fruitful conversations that involve talking to people and understanding how to address the misperceptions that exist about the 'other' within all of us. We have to have honest and open discussions about faith and its role in society and what exists within the faiths of mutual co-existence. This centers around common values which espouse the notion of a shared humanity; social responsibility; social justice and ethics

In essence, we will have to rediscover a spirituality of commonality which will allow us to recognise the common space and substance amongst all doctrines that will provide the fuel for social change and trigger action for the unity of humanity. This shared language will enable us to develop a set of ideals that continue to stir our collective conscience; a common set of values that bind us together despite our differences; a running thread of hope that makes this improbable experiment of reconciling and rehabilitation of vulnerable communities possible. These values and ideals will have to be living, which cannot find expression on paper or monuments or in the annals of history books, but which remain alive in the hearts and minds of people inspiring us to pride, duty and sacrifice. These living values will have to help us to build on shared understandings and should be the glue that binds every healthy society. However whilst dialogues are a beginning it is important that engagement goes beyond this. Interfaith (and increasingly intra-faith) dialogue has to produce something tangible for communities on the front line

We are now living at a time where increasingly across the world, political violence flavoured by faith, culture and identity is being used to justify positions of identity and power. This often leads to misconceptions and misperceptions about certain faiths and its followers. The tragedy will be if we lose this battle. Faith identities will continue to be part of the picture and faith will continue to be a strong rallying point for global communities. We as people of faith and spirituality have to retake the reins and change the paradigm.

The week offers us an opportunity to do so. Yet outside certain circles it is not known or widely practiced even by the UN itself. There are of course doubts as to the integrity of the week given the Saudi Arabia (not one known for its pluralistic appreciation of inter and intra faith dialogue) was one of the initial sponsors. It also skirts around much needed intra-faith dialogue as well. Nevertheless, the space has been created and it is now up to those to make use of it. We have to address the challenges and the polarization that is tearing apart the fabric of the global society. This will never be easy, but remains vitally important. This week offers some opportunity for this

This was originally published here  on the Huffington Post