Bruno Pouezat, the UN Resident Coordinator in Azerbaijan, faces a very specific kind of challenge. A country which, 15 years ago, was in urgent need of massive international assistance is, today, a stable middle-income country expressing a desire to become a donor itself. Its turnaround poses, therefore, a significant question: why are the UN and its agencies needed there at all? It is a question increasingly faced by the UN in middle income countries worldwide. “The situation is evolving so quickly it is a little hard to be clear on this; but the challenge is self-evident, we need to continue demonstrating value added for the government,” says Mr. Pouezat. “This is an entirely new ball game.” Back in the early 1990s, as the country gained independence from the collapsing Soviet Union amid a terrible conflict with neighbouring Armenia, the UN system’s role was clear. Over the course of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, Azerbaijan lost up to 16% of its territory, and the UN was called in to provide emergency shelter, healthcare and emergency feeding for more than a million refugees and internally displaced people—as well as mitigating the effects of major economic upheaval. After the war ended in 1994, that role shifted, and in 1995 the UN moved towards longer-term aid, mobilizing funds to accelerate reconstruction and the building of institutions—helping Azerbaijan’s transition from a state-controlled to more open economy. Most crucially, Azerbaijan came to an agreement with major oil companies to exploit its resources in the Caspian Sea. Once the oil came on-line, its fortunes took a significant leap. From 2003-2007, Azerbaijan enjoyed one of the highest economic growth rates in the world, averaging 21% a year. Even after the global financial crisis began to take hold in 2008, it proved to be better insulated than many other transition economies. The former Soviet satellite in urgent need of international help had become a self-confident and economically independent nation. The country’s President, Ilham Aliyev, was reelected in October 2008 with 89% of the votes. The UN, once welcomed with open arms, was now looking to justify its presence. “This is one of the fastest evolving situations for the UN, and that brings a whole set of challenges we haven’t experienced anywhere else,” says Mr. Pouezat. “In 1994, Azerbaijan signed the contract of the century; and the first oil started flowing in 2003/2004. From 2003, the economy started at growing 55% a year, the state budget at 70% a year. It doesn’t take very long for donors to quit, and for the core resources of UN to collapse both in absolute terms and in relative terms.” As a result, a highly unusual situation has emerged. “The government has become our largest donor: (comprising) more than 60% of our resources over the past five years. This year it is close to 80%.” Thus, the UN system has become, effectively, a contractor to the Azerbaijan government—and finds itself increasingly in direct competition with the private sector, as well as other bilateral development agencies, such as USAID. This shift in fortunes has made it a constant challenge for UN agencies to win attention. Unlike other places the UN system operates, there is no official development dialogue between the government and the donor community; there are no coordination meetings. “Nor should any UN representative find him or herself in the position of saying what the world wants. What really matters is national ownership and leadership; what the country wants,” says Mr. Pouezat. In this environment—given the investment it would take to change working practices— Azerbaijan is unlikely to follow the Delivering as One approach any time soon. Instead, the UN agencies there have focused on more ad hoc forms of extracting efficiencies from the UN system. “In a sense it’s a positive environment for the UN—it forces us to focus on what really matters,” says Mr. Pouezat. “We’ve been coordinating activities without [Delivering as One] for a long time. The challenge is to apply the ideas… without recourse to the tools.” So, what value can the UN add in a middle-income, post-Soviet country like Azerbaijan—faced with a self-confident leadership and significant competition? According to Mr. Pouezat, there are several key elements—including expertise in fighting growing inequality, advising institutions on better service delivery, and offering experiences from other countries in similar situations. The UN can also offer international validation. “Legitimately, Azerbaijan wants recognition of its achievements by the international community—we give credit where credit is due,” says Mr. Pouezat. “We’re cheaper and faster than private sector consulting firms, or regional development banks. (And) we’re not after their oil! We’re impartial, focused on the country’s interests, not ours.” Getting that message across, however, can be difficult. On the plus side, the UN does have avenues that competitors might not, a network of local contacts and, in theory, “a capital of trust accumulated through 15 years of in-country work with a wide range of partners in Government and civil society”. But, in Mr. Pouezat’s experience, these routes have proven significantly less effective in Azerbaijan than in other countries, such as his previous posting in Moldova. In Azerbaijan, “it has proven hard to even identify a counterpart in the Government willing to go through the hoops of our Common Programming Process. The challenge is to make it worth their while.” “That is easier at the level of project counterparts, who can see direct benefits from our work with them. It is much harder at the strategic coordination level. At the policy level, our effectiveness is also limited by the absence of the usual fora of an effective policy dialogue between Government and its international partners.” Despite these hurdles, the UN in Azerbaijan has developed ways and means of making an effective intervention—and Mr. Pouezat points to its work on gender-based violence as an important example. “It’s clear that if agencies each bring $10,000, they won’t get attention. But if we use the communications expertise of UNICEF, the substantive expertise of UNFPA on gender-based violence, the organizational capacity of UNDP, and our collective network with national organizations—such as the Heydar Aliyev foundation—it can work.” “It is perhaps premature, but we now have spots on TV where we see national celebrities talking about gender-based violence, in a society where talking about these things usually makes people uncomfortable,” says Mr. Pouezat. “It is not a joint programme, but it is coordinated work. The challenge is how to identify the lightest possible approach that still allows us to achieve the intended results in terms of national priorities, but minimizes the expected workload.” So, how can the UN reconcile this more diplomatic approach with the clear rules and procedures required under the UN Development Assistance Framework? “The individuals I have raised this issue with have been very understanding and accommodating,” says Mr. Pouezat. “They all empathize with the difficulties of the specific situation. And there’s an ongoing effort… to reflect the fact that so many of our beneficiary countries are middle income.”
- Mark Turner |