WORLD BRIDGE BLOG

After President Obama made his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly last Wednesday, the collective sigh of relief within the UN and UN missions was audible.  His speech embodied the spirit of optimism and hope contained in the UN Charter, rather than the hostility to the UN that characterized the US attitude over the previous eight years.  From my informal conversations with delegates, there was a sense that Obama had said all the right things. In a way, his speech formalized what I had been hearing is the constructive, friendly role that the US has been playing in various negotiations.  Eschewing unilateralism, Obama embraced cooperation and collective action.  Ultimately, Obama’s speech confirmed that the US has faith in the UN to help solve the world’s multitude of problems.

Obama laid out four pillars in his speech—non-proliferation, the pursuit of peace, climate change, and the global economy.  The pursuit of peace and climate change directly relate to the work of RI.  In his speech, Obama pledged to strengthen US support for effective peacekeeping. The US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, in recent Congressional testimony laid out ways in which the US would support peacekeeping; it "will support reforms that help achieve economies of scale and realize cost savings; that strengthen oversight, transparency, and accountability; that improve field personnel and procurement systems; that strengthen the process of mission planning; that reduce deployment delays; that encourage stronger mission leadership; and that clarify the roles and responsibilities of all UN actors, in the field and at headquarters." In addition, Obama mentioned supporting the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan to bring peace to all Sudanese, an issue that RI has tirelessly advocated around for the past three years.

With the creation of the Ken and Darcy Bacon Center for Climate Displacement, RI has entered the climate change world, a very new world to most of us working at RI.  RI is focusing on a very small part of the climate change agenda, specifically climate displacement.  Obama recognized that climate displacement would emerge as a serious problem if countries do not act now to arrest climate change.  He said, “Our efforts to end conflict will be eclipsed by wars over refugees and resources…Land that human beings have lived on for millennia will disappear.”  Obama pledged that the US would move forward to do its part to address the threat of climate change—invest in clean energy, promote renewable energy, make deep emissions cuts, and share new technologies with other countries.  Very importantly, Obama made reference to the need to help developing countries adapt to the problems of climate change.  In terms of climate displacement, this will mean measures to ensure the preservation of people’s livelihoods so that they do not become displaced, but it will also mean ensuring that people who are forced to leave their homes receive adequate protection and assistance.

Obama recognized the wide gap between words and deeds and that implementing the changes he outlined would be extremely difficult.  For the first time in eight years, the US is pledging to play the role that Refugees International has urged since the day it was founded, to work constructively in cooperation with other countries to end suffering, with a strong UN in the lead.


Photo Credit: Richerd Drew - AP