Opinion Article on Committee Session #3

Uncertainty of the Foreign Aid : Addressing The Potential of Overlapping Measure For the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid

(February 27, 2021, ECOSOC’s Meeting)

By Huspidiatul Anwar Gemadiyah. February 27, 2021

UNITED NATIONS – The international organization had received many advice and critiques from the public, scholars, and practitioners to question the effectiveness of the international organizations.

The ineffectiveness of such a thing might occur due to an overlapping action conducted by the member states or due to the misunderstanding of the policy-maker to address an issue. As the debate goes on for the best measure to guarantee that both of the donor and the recipient could utilize the aid very effectively whilst also ensuring the transparency of it, it is still a long way to go to finish the session with a very comprehensive solution for the Evaluation, Monitoring, Verification (EMV) and audit process for the foreign aid.

Zimbabwe’s representative in ECOSOC is striving to give a proper measure to the “perpetrators” that misused the aid, several of the delegates such as Estonia and few others are agreeing on the notion of using the UN Security Council (UNSC) to be used and to impose an economic sanction towards the “perpetrator”. Moreover, it may not have any correlation on how UNSC should take action and impose sanction towards a matter that is not related to international security and peace.

On the other hand, several of the European countries, namely Finland and Netherland, are emphasizing on the so-called “absorption capability” to ensure the effectiveness of the foreign aid. Moreover, they would ensure it through their proposed solution on Foreign Aid Task Force. It is still in further discussion despite the UN already having the UN Country’s Team (UNCT) and Resident Coordinator (RC). The UNCT will help the inter-agencies and inter-UN Entities coordination for a member state, whilst the Resident Coordinator will help the intra-region entities and inter-stakeholders coordination for a member state. Simply put, UNCT for the external level whilst the RC for the internal level, whereas, both of the entities also coordinate the foreign aid that the state may receive to ensure that it has been used accordingly.

Seeing aforementioned identification, the international community should be concerned that another measure may not be a proper answer during this perilous situation and condition of the pandemic.

Never-ending threat : Armed Non-State Actor as an International Concern

(February 27, 2021, DISEC’s Meeting)

By Huspidiatul Anwar Gemadiyah. February 27, 2021

UNITED NATIONS – An armed non-state actor will be a never-ending threat for many countries. The potential threat that they may carry, their existence, their army, and their non-compliances to any national or international law, have become an inevitable factor that an armed non-state actor, especially for this matter, an insurgency group in which named Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), is an inevitable enemy for the many of the governments’ in Africa.

With a current development, it is being said that Joseph Rao Kony – the leader of the LRA – had been known to be fleeing away from his hideout to another place. It had been reported that such places namely the Central African Republic, Ghana, and Uganda, the potential place of Kony were being seen by several of the stakeholders.

The other resource of information said that in one of these potential places, there had been a presumption of arms that were imported from Russia and China. This kind of presumption should not invert the other member states perspective as a further proactive investigation must be done first to clarify the validity of this matter. In fact, since 2011, Chinese government has urged the LRA to stop any kind of all violence and hostilities. This was in fact in accordance with Wang Min, Chinese deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, had stated in the United Nations ever since.

What the council may need to do is how they could ensure the Transparency and Confidence Building Measure (TCBM) on the conflict-management process with this extremist group whilst convincing the LRA to have a negotiation process with the relevant actor in charge. Nonetheless, with Kony and his group fleeing away, it is what the council must focus first to resolve the potential threat that might come within the Central African Region.