Regions Refocus 2015, a new initiative fostering regional and feminist solidarities toward justice

In 2015 the world’s governments will define a global agenda for sustainable development, amidst global trends of rising inequality, declining economic growth rates, and mega public-private partnerships accelerating the scramble for resources, assets, and markets. In this context, a new initiative housed at the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation – Regions Refocus 2015 – fosters regional and feminist solidarities toward justice.

Please join us on 26 January for the launch of Regions Refocus 2015, at the Ford Foundation Headquarters or online via live webcast at www.daghammarskjold.se/regions-refocus. This event and collaborative publication will present experiences of advancing progressive public policies based on nine regional workshops held over the past nine months in partnership with civil society, government, sub-regional alliances, and the UN. Just as negotiations get underway for the Third Conference on Financing for Development and the Post-2015 Summit, this launch will feature regional perspectives on overcoming global obstacles that impede structural change for justice.

We hope you will be able to join us in New York or online for the launch of Regions Refocus 2015. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter @ReFocus2015 and join the conversation using #ReFocus2015. More information is attached and on our newly launched website, here: www.daghammarskjold.se/regions-refocus

Regions Refocus 2015
Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
Website: www.daghammarskjold.se/regions-refocus
Twitter: @ReFocus2015
Email: team@regionsrefocus.org
Register: https://regions-refocus.eventbrite.com
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a little colder

Happy Sunday night, the first beautiful fall Sunday of the year. I spent it huddled in the garage, typing with fingerless gloves and (eventually) drinking one of my brother's Coronas (after I turned the heat on). Still working on my SDGs paper, which is alternately depressing and fascinating and boring and hard. It really needs to be done soon though, both because of the deadline and because, drumroll please,

Full-time work on the DHF project starts tomorrow! We're planing five regional meetings between now and the end of the year, the first in Lima, Peru on financial transparency. (After which I am going to Cuzco and Machu Picchu, yay.) More updates coming soon after we implement our very exciting solid comms plan and website.

I've been thinking a lot about The Future, especially since apparently all long-term planning sends me into spirals of anxiety. (Last night I dreamed I had to move my entire apartment out to the street without assistance, piece by piece, and last week I dreamed my friend C* and I were randomly in charge of two tiny babies at an orphanage. Gasp, adulthood awaits!) Spending a week in Mexico working as rapporteur for the RESURJ retreat was an incredible experience in lots of ways (made friends, drank tequila, spent lunchtimes lying in a beach chair, sent baby turtles on their way into the sea, etc) but mainly admiring this incredible group of women and their shared activist path. I was jealous, I wanted to be one of them, I wanted to have a thing that I care about more than all other work things and to be working towards one singular goal. But I don't see myself as an activist, exactly, just a facilitator with an activist bent. And I'll have to figure out what to do with that in life... I'm sure I'll think of something.

But in the meantime, I am so grateful that this project has become a full-time gig and I can't wait to see what comes of it. And in other exciting news, my sister Becky is getting married! So this large blonde muzungu will have to get myself in a gomesi for her introduction ceremony in Uganda in December. Yay.

Some parting thoughts:

ixtapa sunset (mexico)

and the album/song I can't stop listening to:

An important reminder

Double standards beget cynicism, apathy, corruption and deterioration of democratic life and the very social fabric that holds communities together. Double standards also motivate people to raise their voices, organise, demand transparency and advocate for change. Therein lies our hope.
                            - Roberto Bissio, Prologue, The Social Impact of Globalization in the World (2002)


Reading through old Social Watch reports for the paper I'm writing...



Another observation, this one from 2008:

In October 2008, when the crisis hit the financial institutions and stock markets of the OECD member countries, their governments started a massive and unprecedented programme of government intervention, nationalizing banks, injecting massive subsidies into ailing institutions and re-regulating their financial sectors.
This response sits in direct contrast to the austere neoliberal policies pressed on developing countries by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and developed countries for the past 30 years. Governments in the South, as abundantly documented in this report, have been pushed to liberalize trade barriers, deregulate financial and labour markets, privatize national industries, abolish subsidies, and reduce social and economic spending. The State saw its role severely reduced. 
This double standard is unacceptable. The international financial system, its architecture and its institutions have been completely overwhelmed by the scale of the current financial and economic crisis. The financial system, its architecture and its institutions must be completely rethought. [...]
                                                      - Roberto Bissio, Rights in the Time of Crisis (Introduction) (2008)


And also, we're still waiting for the results of this point, depressingly prescient and as relevant now as in 2008...

The developing countries have been affected by the falling prices of their export commodities, the devaluation of their currencies against the dollar, the rising interest rates on their debts, outflow of foreign investments and lack of credit. If the world is plunging into a global recession the result will be unemployment and with it an erosion of the rights and the standard of living of workers everywhere.  [...]
It is therefore critical that all countries have a say in the process to change the international financial architecture. No equitable and sustainable solutions to transform the current system will come out of gatherings that are rapidly-prepared and exclude many developing countries as well as civil society. Such efforts are in fact more likely to further undermine public trust and confidence, and to further disenfranchise countries that are already opting for regional solutions over a stronger, more coherent and fairer international financial system. [...]
Many difficult issues will have to be addressed and agreed upon in the transition from the current system – which has fostered instability and inequity – towards a just, sustainable and accountable one, which yields benefits for the majority of the world’s people. In such a system human rights must be the starting point and not some distant goal in the future, and a rights-based approach to development (with gender equality, decent work and human rights at its core) must be the main guiding principle. 

www.socialwatch.org 

Living the dream (?)

I'm currently working on my first commissioned article - as in, the first article I will get paid to write, as a product in itself rather than just part of my job or an item on an invoice. It's pretty exciting, in theory... the subject of the article (an overview of the SDGs) less so.
I am so sick of hearing about the SDGs, which is problematic given that the real negotiation process for post-2015 hasn't even started (and won't for months) and I seem to be locked into this scene given that it's where I've spent the most significant part of my career. Not that I'm not grateful - I am, extremely, especially when I think about the people I've met and the things I've learned and the concepts I now understand. I'm grateful for having gotten to go to Rio+20 and then cover the SDGs process, grateful that I'll still be around, probably, to see what happens next and keep doing work with some amazing organizations around this process. This "package" of the UN's work encompasses an incredible amount of interesting issues, and will potentially affect a lot of people's lives.
And hey, I get to write! I've always said all I wanted is to write... so I need to go write the article, dammit, and then draft the interview for the one after that, and pull together some pieces for the paper after that. It's an August full of writing, which is exactly what I want. And of traveling, my other favorite activity. First Uganda, then London (on miles, yay) - to squeeze my godson, see friends, eat Nile perch and posho, buy things I don't need at Banana Boat, spend quality time with my host fam, and sit outside in a plastic chair drinking a Tusker and listening to reggae. Yes please.

squeezing my godson, Aug 2012

squeezing my godson, May 2013

Update

squeezing my godson, August 2014

Mercy Global Action Advocates at the UN for the Right to Water and Sanitation

As part of my ongoing consultancy for the Sisters of Mercy/Mercy International/the Mining Working Group at the UN, I wrote the article below, about the important work on the human right to water and sanitation that my colleagues have led over the past few months. Even though the Open Working Group won't end up including the language we want - including the explicit mention of the right - in its report, we're proud of our efforts and will keep working. 

In accordance with the Sisters’ of Mercy great concern with the future sustainability and availability of water for all, Mercy Global Action has focused much of our recent advocacy work at the UN on the human right to water and sanitation.

Davide Restivo. under CCO

Particularly through convening the Mining Working Group at the UN, we have been advocating for the inclusion of the human right to water and sanitation in the ongoing discussions of the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our message to governments, UN officials, and fellow civil society organizations has consistently focused on the need for the SDGs to prioritize – for present and future generations – the human right to water for health, life, food, and culture over other demands on water resources.

Over the past few months, the Mining Working Group has made a series of oral statements in OWG meetings, submitted detailed recommendations for text amendments to subsequent iterations of the OWG draft, and written a series of advocacy letters – to the UN Secretary-General, to the co-chairs and government representatives of the Open Working Group, and to the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. We have met with almost 30 governments at the UN, tracked their positions, and targeted several groupings of member states based on the progression of their views on water and sanitation.

Significantly, the MWG and the Blue Planet Project spearheaded a joint letter on the urgent need to protect and promote the human right to water and sanitation in the Sustainable Development Goals. This letter was sent to every UN government on June 13, and has so far been signed by more than 300 civil society organizations all over the world. 

Through Mercy Global Action, Sisters of Mercy and our partners in mission have strongly engaged in this advocacy effort, sending letters to their national governments in anticipation of the OWG meetings and signing on to the global letter writing campaign. This letter is available online, along with the list of its signatures, on the World We Want web platform.

In accordance with our universal approach to analyzing systemic, structural and root causes of poverty and injustice, in our advocacy around the OWG we call for the promotion of a hierarchy of use that places potable water and sanitation, small-scale food production, ecosystem needs and cultural use before large-scale commercial use. We insist that the SDGs must take a people-centered approach, categorically rejecting the commodification and privatization of water. In line with our consistent advocacy for a rights-based approach to natural resource management, we advocate for a human rights-based approach that explicitly names the right to water and sanitation, aligns targets to the human rights framework, and guarantees non-discrimination, accountability, and public participation in decision-making. We insist on a meaningful commitment on the human right to water and sanitation must include indicators that accurately measure safety, affordability, accessibility and acceptability of water and sanitation services from the perspectives of rights holders. Our advocacy is grounded in the experience of Sisters of Mercy and our partners in mission in their work all over the world, fighting against the poisoning and destruction of watersheds from Cajamarca to Patagonia to Newfoundland.

As the Open Working Group nears the end of its mandate and its thirteenth and final session nears, it remains to be seen whether its report will in fact include an explicit mention of the human right to water and sanitation, as we have advocated so strongly for over the past months. Either way, Mercy Global Action will continue our work at the UN setting to hold governments accountable for the commitments they have made. Moreover, we will continue to promote a sustainable and forward-looking global agenda that prioritizes people’s human rights and the protection of the environment in all regions of the world.

Read the original article on the Mercy World website here.

Recap of Pacific Partnerships to Strengthen Gender, Climate Change Response and Sustainable Development

In early June, I got to go to Fiji for a meeting on Pacific Partnerships to Strengthen Gender, Climate Change Response, and Sustainable Development (as I mentioned earlier). The meeting brought together a total of 60 participants - most of them women, most of them from the Pacific, and pretty much all of them amazing - for five days of strategizing, capacity-building, and collective planning towards the SIDS, post-2015, UNFCCC, and relevant regional processes.

here we are

The set-up of the meeting - two days CSOs, then two days CSOs with national women's machineries, followed by a high-level dinner and final day - was the best-designed of any I've been to. All of us staying in the same hotel the whole week, sharing meals, drinks, swims (not to mention the unexpected presence of the entirety of the Fijian national rugby team) built an incredible atmosphere of camaraderie and collectivity. 

me with the amazing rapporteur team - representing GIZ/SPC, Pacific Youth Council, DIVA for Equality, & SPC

The participants worked hard on two outcome documents: a civil society/social movements/Major Groups statement, and a joint outcome agreed by both the civil society and the government representatives present - the first of its kind, with strong language on climate finance, structural issues of trade and the international financial system, and gender equality as a cross-cutting regional priority. 

The statements were presented by participants at the high-level dinner and have already served as advocacy tools in the second SIDS prepcom, held the week before last in New York. 

For more on the meeting, see its Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube page (don't miss my fairly awkward recap of my presentation) and stay tuned - this important intersectional analysis, led by the Pacific itself, will continue to be taken forward in key regional and global fora. 

Thoughts on Iraq, from Beirut

Sitting in Doha airport last Saturday, waiting for my third flight of a 30-hour journey, I read this article, and immediately burst into tears. At first I chalked it up to exhaustion, to the peculiar effects of an airplane journey, to the strange coincidence of landing in my first trip to the Middle East just as my country steps back into a never-ending mess of a military situation. All true, but it's more than that.

The war on Iraq made me a political person. I was fifteen when it started, studying abroad in Rome. We went to protest marches in every Italian city, hung PACE flags in our dorm rooms, lied and said we were Canadian to anyone who asked. We cut class and went to a rally at the Coliseum, chanted with Italians holding makeshift torches that blew ashes into our faces as the sun set, aghast with them at Berlusconi's agreement to send troops when 80% of his country was against it. I watched CNN International in the school cafe, shocked at what they showed on television outside the US. I came home and wrote scathing essays in my American History class, mocking the "PROUD TO BE AMERICAN" bumper stickers that popped up on every SUV. Proud to be American - as opposed to what?, I wrote. Iraqi?

My first year in college I worked at an indie coffeeshop, wearing a t-shirt with a red line through the president's face, making friends with the Eritrean ladies who worked 12-hour shifts there, chatting with the customers about "anyone but Bush." I was seventeen and a half during Bush's reelection, livid at being six months away from eligibility to vote, staging heated arguments with my father, accusing him and all other Republican voters of standing against everything I stood for. We sat on couches in the Barnard student lounge in stunned silence, crying at Kerry's concession speech, ashamed and embarrassed of our leadership. Not My President, we said.

And then 2008 came and Obama was elected. I stayed up all night in another student lounge, in London, watching the results come in. I cried myself to sleep at 6am in utter gratitude and disbelief. We'd come so far. We had a black president! A true liberal, a community organizer, who'd been against the war in Iraq from the beginning, who promised to close Guantanamo and ensure real social services and stand up for all those the Republicans kicked to the curb in their preference for corporate profit, oil money, global policing. My friends who were in New York for election night told stories of taking city buses in which all the riders spontaneously burst into our national anthem. I bought every newspaper with Obama's picture on it, put them all up on my wall, told anyone who asked that I'd voted for him in both the primary and the presidential election, that this was the first time I was old enough to vote, that I was proud of him and no longer ashamed to say I was American, abroad.

It was bound to be disappointing. He would never have been able to live up to the hype of how we felt reading his books, watching him speak during his campaign at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Private insurance companies and the American right were never going to let him create a true public option for healthcare; Obamacare has been frustrating at best. He hasn't closed Guantanamo. He's only recently started talking about climate change. And we're no longer eighteen, stunned into believing that anything was possible.

Even so, how can we be right back where we started? How can Obama be sending "advisers," planning airstrikes, eleven years later, in Iraq? Because we dismantled a state and now have to prop it up forever, to justify the sacrifices and the money spent and the efforts and injuries and deaths of all those Iraqi civilians and American soldiers and everybody who loved them and worried about them? Because the War on Terror is real, and we're losing? Because Obama is just another politician, because Bush and Cheney didn't account for the consequences of their choices, because in the end the US cares more about being a military powerhouse than anything else? Because now we have drones, and drones "don't count," new war isn't the same as old war, we can just press a button and destroy whole villages, wedding parties, and maybe some terrorists while we're at it? Because it was all for nothing: all that political awakening and shouting in the streets, the mobilization of young voters, the reuniting of a disgruntled left with the concerns of the people, the forming of new identities of what we thought was good about being American? 

Pacific Partnerships on Gender, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development (why I am in Fiji)

Tomorrow we start getting ready for Pacific Partnerships on Gender, Climate Change and Sustainable Development, a five-day regional meeting bringing together civil society, women's machineries, and heads of state. Dag Hammarskjold Foundation is funding it and A and I are supporting it, but she's had to go home on a family thing so it looks like I'm about to learn a whole lot real fast.

I spent the past couple of weeks putting together background documents for the meeting:

- an overview of government positions based on the OWG and the Asia Pacific HLPF regional meeting http://bit.ly/1q4RIm5
- an in-depth document looking at the OWG Zero Draft and Member State positions, as they pertain to our meeting http://bit.ly/1pltggK 
- an in-depth document that provides an overview of the Asia Pacific HLPF regional meeting as it pertains to our meeting http://bit.ly/RUv3gm 

Sharing here in case they're useful! Follow updates from the meeting via its Facebook page, here: https://www.facebook.com/PPGCCSD 

And now off to put aloe on my sun rash and hop into bed! The 16 hour time difference is no joke. 

Fiji is better than Bali; or, I feel really good about my recent life choices

Ni sa bula from Nadi, Fiji, where I have returned after three days in the Yasawa and Mamanuca islands, having pretty much the best possible solo holiday. Snorkeling, beach-lying, beer-drinking, friend-making, sun-sitting, and no wifi - AT ALL - until yesterday evening. I read (and left behind in the Fiji traveler universe, passed along to whoever may appreciate them) both of Teju Cole's books. In my humble opinion, Open City is more profound but Every Day is for the Thief might be a little better.

My backpack died a slow and painful death in LAX. It accompanied me through hell and high water, Ethiopia to Bali to Vermont, and served me well in the 10+ years since I stole it from Manda. Rest well, old friend.

Last night I stayed on the Mamanucas' "party island," Beachcomber, which my guidebook promised me was the "Club Med for the under 35 set on a budget." Not so! It was nearly empty, but blasting great music (including this Nigerian gem, the world is a funny place), and had a pretty awesome (and pretty airless) phone booth where I took a two hour conference call with New York. I was half asleep and sitting barefoot on the floor, watching a cockroach walk by:

Tracking the Open Working Group (It's Target Time)

A few weeks ago, I attended (almost all of) the 11th session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (OWG on SDGs). It was useful for all three of my consulting jobs - I took 102 pages of notes and highlighted them according to a color scheme: one for the Fiji meeting, one for Beirut, one for the Mining Working Group, and one for the privatization of post-2015 work I'll be doing when I get back. Then I did one tracking who said what on civil society - always good to know your allies.

Now that I'm finally finished, I figured I would share this work so that all of these hours of my life served as many purposes as possible. Also, I'll be in Fiji and Beirut for the informals and 12th meeting of the OWG (respectively) so I won't be able to contribute much around the next one... unless I decide to be really insane and watch all the webcast archives when I get back.

To read some (I hope) useful info, which I have already shared with a few civil society colleagues, please click the links below:


Positions of the Group of 77 and China (G77/China) as of OWG11

Positions of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) as of OWG11 

Positions of the African Group as of OWG11

Mentions of Civil Society during OWG11


and let me know if you want the whole 100 pages of notes. I'll sell them to the highest bidder. :)

Soundtrack to a rainy work day

It's crunch time! This week, next week, and the following are all I have left before my trip to Fiji and Beirut, which is now confirmed. A + I will be supporting two civil society meetings, on gender and climate change (Pacific) and social protection and tax policy (Arab States). I'll also be doing some traveling (pointers welcome!) - my guidebooks came yesterday and I'm already making lists.

My main task this week, which I've been plugging away at at Regus business lounges (shared workspace = genius idea, with added perk of eligible bachelors, apparently), is to compile background documents for the two meetings based on ongoing sustainable development processes at the UN. It's involved a lot of shuffling documents and copy and paste, so I've been listening to music while I work. My iTunes hasn't been updated in a while, so this has involved lots of flashbacks: Elgar Cello Concerto in E Minor (high school), and the Kronos Quartet cover of this one (early college):

Peaceful Societies Reflection and Strategy Meeting - Summary and Thoughts on Next Steps

On April 25, I moderated a Reflection and Strategy Meeting at the conclusion of the Thematic Debate of the President of the General Assembly on "Ensuring Stable and Peaceful Societies." (I already wrote about it a little.)

I've finally finished the summary, which is excerpted below and available in full here.

On Friday, 25 April 2014, at the conclusion of the Thematic Debate of the President of the General Assembly on Ensuring Stable and Peaceful Societies, a Reflection and Strategy Meeting was held at the UN office of the Baha’i International Community. This event was co-convened by Global Action to Prevent War; Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s New York office; the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA); and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Alongside myself as an independent consultant, these groups sought to bring together diverse constituencies, as a starting point for potential collaboration between civil society organizations, diplomats, and UN representatives around a wide range of post-2015 development and security priorities.

The event, drawing a full room of 35-40 participants, began with introductions and reflections from civil society representatives on the Thematic Debate: Rosa Emilia Salamanca González, of Corporación de Investigación y Acción Social y Económica (CIASE) (Colombia), Richard Smith of Action Support Centre/Action for Conflict Transformation (South Africa), and Laura Ribeiro Pereira of Global Partnership to Prevent War and Armed Conflict (GPPAC) (New York). These reflections were followed by a group discussion on priorities and strategies moving forward across the intersections of peace and security and development priorities, through various pieces of the UN apparatus.

From my perspective as moderator, Rosa Emilia touched on two issues that are at the heart of both what was discussed at the Thematic Debate and of the current state of the post-2015 discussions more broadly. The first is the question of the relevance and legitimacy of the UN – how to ensure that lived realities of people on the ground, e.g. civil society, meaningfully influence this global intergovernmental space. The second is how to resolve the tension between the three pillars of the UN (human rights, peace and security, and development) and the three dimensions (economic, social, environmental) of sustainable development. As raised by Ambassador Gert Rosenthal of Guatemala during the Thematic Debate, how can it be that the UN’s other two pillars must somehow be kept separate from its development work – especially at this moment when we are setting a universal and global agenda?

Richard’s remarks pointed to another central tension of the Thematic Debate, in my view: the issue of whether the global sustainable development agenda should address the internal factors related to peaceful societies, more external, international factors, or both. Focus Area 16 of the Working Document of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (OWG on SDGs) is currently framed in terms of national issues of organized crime and violence, in response to Member States’ argument that only the issues of peace and security that directly relate to development should be covered. As Ambassador Antonio Aguiar Patriota of Brazil (also on behalf of Nicaragua) raised so pointedly during the Thematic Debate, this narrow definition of the factors contributing to peaceful societies ignores issues of disarmament, embargoes, sanctions, military spending, and claims of “exceptionalism” by certain countries with regard to international law. While I understand the argument made by Magdy Martinez-Soliman of UNDP during the Thematic Debate that “a line must be drawn” at some point, Ambassador Patriota clearly and effectively reminded us that the broader, international dimensions of peaceful societies can affect development to an even greater extent than the internal ones. It begs the question, at least for civil society organizing around these issues: while Member States or UNDP may indeed have to draw a line, do we? And are we drawing the line where it most needs to be drawn?

Regarding the terminology of “peaceful societies,” I was particularly taken by Ambassador Sofia Mesquita Borges of Timor-Leste, who identified the usefulness of this approach as a non-linear, comprehensive alternative to business-as-usual and a way to capture the connections between development and security through encouraging national institution and capacity building. Timor-Leste has spoken strongly in favor of a “peaceful societies” goal, while Bangladesh and other Member States have pointed out the conundrum of the “chicken and egg” problem: if development and peace are mutually reinforcing, which should be addressed first? In the context of the Open Working Group, these States call for a strict adherence to the mandate of Rio+20 and the three dimensions of sustainable development, while Ambassador Borges used her country as an empirical illustration of the need to simultaneously integrate both concerns, and indicated that post-2015 provides the opportunity to “recalibrate” the global approach to peace and development.

A significant portion of the discussion focused on addressing roadblocks in the SDGs negotiations. The UN representatives who spoke at the Thematic Debate addressed several issues that have come up among Member States, among them potential difficulties in the measurability and universality of a “peaceful societies” goal and how it might negatively affect national sovereignty, including through the imposing of aid conditionalities based on a country’s progress in this area. These are legitimate concerns, the latter in particular, and one thing that the pro-“peaceful societies” countries will have to do is figure out how to assure (the mostly South) countries that this goal would not establish a new “condition” for development assistance. Canada offered that assurance at the Thematic Debate, but so far I haven’t heard the “how” – and if I were a “fragile” or “conflict-affected” Member State, such assurances would not be particularly convincing anyway. That said, it was a bit disheartening to hear the UN reps, particularly Sarah Cliffe, ASG of Civilian Capacities, assuring those present at the Thematic Debate that the inclusion of “peaceful societies” would not be used to signify “external criticism, conditionality, or additional reporting.” I worry that in the desire to reach consensus, the UN as well as the Member States will reach a “lowest common denominator” that reduces this concept to the point where it is no longer meaningful. Figuring out how to make this norm robust without establishing new conditions will be key to ensuring the inclusion of a “peaceful societies” goal, but even more, to ensuring one that has any potential at all of making a difference to communities worldwide.

Read the full summary of the Reflection and Strategy Meeting here. 

only a phase, these dark cafe days

They put up scaffolding on E's and my favorite cafe, and now it's too dark to work there. We tried a different one and it's also dark, but also pretentious and vaguely irritating. I have become an old lady since moving to the suburbs - it's too loud in here!, etc. 

In other news, I have had this song stuck in my head pretty much since leaving my job: 

A Rights-Based Approach to Resource Extraction in the Pursuit of Sustainable Development (my advocacy brief is finished!)

Since literally ten hours after leaving my job, I've been grateful (really, not in the #humblebrag kind of way) to be doing consulting work for the UN office of the Sisters of Mercy/Mercy International and the Mining Working Group at the UN (MWG).

As part of their ongoing work around the UN's Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (OWG on SDGs), the MWG has focused on promoting a human- and environmental-rights-based approach to sustainable development, including natural resource management and particularly extractive industries. In other words, the MWG is trying to convince governments and other players at the UN that sustainable development means focusing on people, and on communities affected by mining and other "development" efforts that prioritize making money over any (health, environmental, security) cost. During the process of figuring out the global "post-2015 sustainable development agenda," the MWG wants to remind the UN of this opportunity to prioritize the lives and realities of people whose involuntary sacrifices allowed a lot of (Northern, corporate, stock-owning) people to get rich... and to inform the UN that no, this is not "development."

The first project I've done for the MWG is an advocacy brief, which I drafted based on a longer report by a key MWG member and which was professionally laid out by a graphic designer (!). It outlines a rights-based approach to resource extraction and highlights some important pieces of the MWG's recent sustainable development-focused work. It's here: http://miningwg.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/advocacy-brief.pdf 

Maria Gunnoe, organizer on Kayford Mountain stripped of coal from top-down. Credit: OVEC (via Mining Working Group)

Arizona Healing

I've wanted to ride out west since I was 12. Today I went on a three-hour trail ride and then hung around making friends with beautiful horses and funny looking burros with my guide / Arizona cowboy dad Terry. One of the best days I have ever had. 

Solo Hiking in Flip Flops

Today I went vortex-visiting, to two of Sedona’s famous vortexes (note: not vortices, as my Lonely Planet helpfully informed me. Just in case I might accidentally be grammatically correct.) I figured I wouldn’t end up hiking far, and those who know me will know I hate socks and the shoes that require them… so I just stayed in the flip flops I was wearing for my after-breakfast nap in the sun. I went to Boynton Canyon and to Airport “Table Mesa” (uh hello, redundant). I didn’t feel much in the way of electromagnetic energy – and none of the pull-over-on-the-side-of-the-road awe I’d felt yesterday on Upper Red Rock Loop Road, where I took pictures of the cloud-covered rocks and texted J + E, “God exists.” But I did feel peace, and sunshined serenity, and that’s maybe better than inspiration or magnetic jolts or whatever it is you’re supposed to feel.

The flip flops though were a little treacherous. “Nice shoes,” said one of twenty-five middle-aged ladies in Lululemon and hiking sneakers I passed along the trail. I laughed, embarrassed, said something about not going far, thought haughtily to myself, “I hiked a mountain in Ethiopia in flip flops”… and then nearly stepped on a snake, which hissed snakelily as it slithered under a dry bush. Lesson learned, I thought.

vortex selfie

Sedona is a strange place, not my “scene,” really. But I’ve come across all kinds of people, including the taxi man who prepped me on the town’s history and told me his grandfather was a prominent movie-man, who’d come to Sedona when it was founded, less than half a century ago. He told me his grandfather’s name, helpfully, in case I want to look him up. Now I’m sitting by the fire pit across from a friendly lesbian couple in jeans, sharing a bag of chips and a mimosa in a water bottle. The chattier one complimented my suede purple oxfords. :) It smells good here, the air is cold and clean, the food is decent, and there’s plenty of booze.  

For more on Sedona's vortexes, see "John and Micki's Metaphysical Site." This is not a joke. 

10 years in the city

This summer it’s ten years since I started college in the city (and also ten years I’ve been best friends with my college friends). Aside from my year in London and Uganda, I’ve lived in New York the whole time. The apartment I just moved out of was my third New York apartment - my second in Brooklyn.

Last night I was chatting with a bartender at the airport, who charged my laptop for me and talked me into opting for the better Pinot Grigio (worth it). He asked where I was from (because I said I hate Boston) and when I said New York he asked, “Born and raised?” I said yes and he was skeptical, so I clarified: “Suburbs. But I’ve been in the city for ten years.”

I didn’t even realize I was lying! I guess I don’t have an obligation to tell everyone I talk to that I’ve moved back in with my parents, but I took the 7:01 Metro North train into the city yesterday morning with my dad (I was the only woman amongst all the suits in my train car, by the way)… I’m officially a resident of the suburbs. I changed my address and my voting registration and I’m almost all settled into the garage (a lightbulb and picture frame pending). “10 years in the city” is, for the time being, over.

#peacepost2015

Today was both my first event as an independent consultant and the end of my last tie to my old job. Our Reflection and Strategy Meeting on Peaceful Societies - the culmination of months of planning and what felt like thousands of emails - was held this afternoon, and I am proud of how it turned out. The room was full - with more peace/security/disarmament people than development people! - and the mood was dynamic and honest and thought-provoking. Peggy Kerry (sister to John, NGO liaison at the US Mission) was there, and the DPR of Liberia had the final word. There might be an appetite to continue this convening with an informal listserv and hashtag and, we hope, some follow up meetings. We will see how people react after they've had a chance to process. 

I'm happy I got to work with this pretty amazing group of people and organizations, on an issue I really care about and want to work on, and that the event happened (and I chaired it) even though I lack an "institutional affiliation."

Also got a good piece of advice from an experienced UN media hand: "An independent consultant should always have a business card. You never know who might want to hire you!" So I'll add business-card-making to my weekend plans, along with yoga, running, hiking, and (I hope) lying in the sun.

Photos via Twitter: @Peace_Women & @Shafferan

The packing-up-my-apartment playlist

For years I had a tradition of listening to Hootie and the Blowfish - Cracked Rear View as I packed up. This worked a little better for dorm rooms than for one-bedrooms... and I can't listen to that album on repeat anymore. This time I've diversified, East Africa style.

Radio and Weasel - Breath Away

Kigoma All Stars - Leka Dutigite

Diamond ft. Davido - Number One (Remix

Radio and Weasel ft. East African Rebels - No Goodbye

UN Pride

I was proud to work at the United Nations. Proud when I got offered the job, proud when my first consultant contract got renewed, proud most of all when after 20 months of hard work, I was hired as a staff member. I bought UN bumper stickers (for my non-existent car) and a UN peace mousepad. I sailed through the staff entrance (no more security check-in!) proud and thrilled to work there, to be part of something so important, to dedicate my time to an organization that represented all of my most closely held ideals: universality, peace, diplomacy. I marveled at the many languages and cultures I witnessed and how each block between UN HQ and Grand Central brought me back to a more New York New York, from this hybrid and multiple territory. I loved everything I got to learn – it was like school, I said! – and I showed up on time to events for a full year, clutching my notebook and looking around expectantly, waiting for the work to start.

Within this giant and overwhelming behemoth, as I learned and re-learned its never-ending acronyms, navigated around its renovations and shuttered entrances, there was one tiny piece of it I loved the most: my own organization. A difficult mouthful of a name, a confusing (lack of) mandate, a semi-autonomous structure meant it took me six months to figure out what we did, exactly; staff turnover and two offices separated by the Atlantic Ocean and half of Europe meant my responsibilities were constantly shifting and my title never quite a good descriptor of what my actual job was. We were externally facing, tasked with information and communications, with planning events and building relationships and swimming through different pieces of the UN structure depending on what we were asked or who we tried to help. We were flexible, nearly always about to run out of money, all of us on one or two month contracts, with technology that never wanted to function and mountains of work that would never be finished. I loved it. 

And I was proud of my office, too, proud that we straddled one of the most progressive edges of the UN, that we worked on innovative finance and rights-based development and renewable energy. Proud of myself, that when the New York boss left I kept it afloat, along with a colleague I never agreed with who was only a few years older than I.

Most of all I was proud of the relationships I made, of the people I got to know in and around the UN, whose trust I earned and whom I learned from. My work community included all kinds of people, of all ages and from all corners of the world. They were smart people, good people, complicated people, with egos and dysfunctions just like anywhere else. I was proud to be one of them. 

Karibu, etc.

Three weeks ago I left my job after almost three years at the UN. Tuesday I'm moving back in with my parents, at the age of almost-27. I'll be spending the next few months consulting, traveling, and (I hope) writing. The writing part will happen here. 

On the agenda for tonight: finishing my report of a one-day workshop on Shared Prosperity in Emerging Economies, for which I was the rapporteur last Friday in DC. Oh, and packing up my apartment.