SWY16 - UN seminar

Dr Rao was one of three lecturers from the United Nations on the SWY 16. He now works at the UN University in Tokyo, but until last year he was in Jordan working with leader training in the UN. We had three sessions with Dr Rao, on January 29 th (14.15-16.00) and on February 2 nd (9.30-11.15 and 14.15-16.00).

During the first session we talked in general about the UN and the challenges it faces today. The great ideal of the UN when it was established was to save future generations from war. For the past 16 years the UN agenda has gone beyond war and peace. They now work with other crucial matters in the world society such as development, human rights, education and science, children and health. The UN today provides framework and guidance on how to handle difficult issues.

UNICEF is deeply concerned with child soldiers, one of the many challenges the UN faces. Pollution is another great concern as the rapid pace of development causes an equal rapid pace of environmental problems, such as global warming. The impacts of global warming on our globe are still undergoing research.

Other challenges we discussed were the protection of equality, terrorism and globalisation. The responsibility lies within us and the member countries of the UN. The UN provides a platform where you act, but they have no power of action.

After the World Wars the greatest concern for the UN was to prevent nuclear war, thus we had the era of the Cold War. After the end of the Cold War and the fall of communism we had a new era and time of world peace. But since the two World Wars we've had a series of small wars and civil wars. The numbers of deaths in after-wars exceed by far the number of deaths in the two World Wars. Today we face the war on terror. The fact that the UN is always in a context of war is a very damaging factor. Dr Rao argued that the "axis of evil" is a point that is fundamentally wrong. To frame the world like that is to provoque fundamentalism.

One of the key words in Dr Rao's seminar was the individual. Each person is potentially divine. We must understand exchange and realize the potential in ourselves. Like mentioned before, the UN is often mentioned in the context of war. All individuals must change this context. Mass demonstrations, that we experience all the time, are powerful signs that institutions are forced to see the power of individuals. The rights as individuals per se are just being recognized and this is an emerging trend that has come to stay. If we can unite the peoples of the UN and follow the same international laws and practice, we have a very promising agenda in which all individuals can contribute. We talk about human security rather than national security. Personal and individual security is at stake in all “national security” matters.

Today the three richest people in the world have a fortune that equals the GNP of the worlds 50 poorest countries. In the west most people are beneficiaries of globalisation, but few others are today.

These are the conditions that create future conflicts and wars, and this is where we must react. We see every day the rage, anger and frustrations that spring out of simple human values, for example in the Middle East. This rage cannot be understood and explained by the West. The conditions for all individuals must be improved and here lies our biggest challenge.

Keys to solutions are making contact, establish conversations and dialogue. Dialogue from tolerance is a very powerful tool! Communication needs to be based on tolerance and 90% of communication is non-forcing and non-persuasive listening.

UN University

We also talked about the UN University in Tokyo, its role and kind of education. The UNU is more a research facility than a University. It offers 2-6 weeks courses for young mid-career people.

The UNU is a network of institutions and cooperates with other universities in the world. Virtually every global issue concerns the UN and issues of global concerns change rapidly, such as global health and national security. The UNU does research and provides knowledge and education on these crucial issues.

It consists of 14-15 branches; research and training programmes (short term, one time funding) or centres (long term with strong funding). Some of the institutions under the UNU are found in Helsinki (economy and development), Holland (information technology), Switzerland (urban sustainability), China (trains people from development countries on software), Africa (natural resource management), Middle East (study of leadership and leadership development training), Argentina (biodiversity), Head Quarters NYC (peace & governance, war) and UNU in Tokyo (tangible).

Leadership

Leadership comes from military leadership and it has its own historical purpose. Religious societies were the first to set up organisations. In older times the follower was blindly accepting the leader. After World War II a new kind of leadership was needed and the United Nations was founded. It worked on how to generate wealth, corporate leadership, borders and boundaries and recognised choices of the individual.

All of us are leaders of nature. The textbook says that leaders are born or made, but we all have a chance to excel in something and we can be leaders in those fields. We distinguish between active and passive followers and an active follower is a form for leadership. The followers are the ones that make leaders happen.

Dr Rao distinguished between leadership, followership and spoilership. The latter being for example to have the power to wreck a peace process.

What distinguishes spoilership? A political understanding of who is the potential spoiler is a start of good leadership. Co-opt, convert and eliminate spoilers. Leadership is not glamorous, but human, simple and beautiful. In the past leadership was concentrated on followership and glamour. Today bad leaders fail mainly because they are unable to identify the spoiler.

Keys to a good leader are integrity, humbleness and honesty.

Dr Rao ranged leadership qualities as follows:

1. integrity and honesty
2. physical stamina
3. courage in what you believe in and courage to fail what you believe in
4. communication skills

We have decision makers and opinion makers. According to Dr Rao the effort is to change the context. If you don't understand changes, you won't understand the context in which leadership is needed. Master the change, not only understand it.

Globalisation

Some causes of globalisation mentioned were free flow of information easily accessed through media, cross-border information, travelling makes the world smaller, borders are more blurred. Free trade and multinational enterprises, privatisation, deregulations. National identities are mixed and weaker. Today we have clear winners and loosers of globalisation.

Globalisation gives more efficiency. In our world ¼ of the population live of ¾ of the worlds resources. There's something fundamentally wrong in consumption parties. We can buy power and support through privatisation, through welfare, through aid.

Globalisation is directly linked to wealth generation. The age of colonialism was lawless. In the long run there will be mostly winners of globalisation because there's no reason to believe the potential will fade out and there are rules in place that demand legalisation. This age of globalisation is more structured and influenced by legal and political issues.

WTO provides rules, laws and puts systems in place. Consciousness of individuals to choose labels, no labels, consumer movements, free flow. We face economical and political globalisation. We also have the cultural aspects of globalisation. Who are the loosers culturally? Indigenous peoples vs. tourism (mobility of people as well as capital), tourism wins and the urban poor loose. Globalisation allows a cultural variety within a national frame.

We also discussed globalisation and the SWY 16 programme. Cross cultured youth gathered, international travel, international food, national presentations, contact through internet. The pop culture is lead and followed by youth globally. Dialogues nee no preparation and are unstructured. They give the opportunity to converse, not convert. It's up to us to be the active agents.

In the last session we had a more open conversation in the group on various themes, such as environment, ecology, sustainable development, peace and governance.

I think Dr Rao's seminar was extremely interesting and I had fun being part in it. We did experience some language barriers in the group, as we did throughout the programme, but I believe all the participants learned a lot from listening to Dr Rao and from taking part in the discussions we had. All the above mentioned is just a summary of what we discussed, and even though I tried to take notes most of the time, my hand simply couldn't follow as so many had things to share, questions to raise and issues to discuss. I truly hope the SWY programme will invite just as qualified advisors from the UNU in the future.

Pia Skjelstad