Doha – April 29-30,2014
• Excellencies and friends, I would like to briefly address the issue of the Regional Strategies that many of you raised in recent contacts with our office. As you are aware, the purpose of the Regional Strategies, broadly speaking, is to adapt UNAOC’s global mission, aims and commitments to regional conditions, challenges, and needs.
• Regional Strategies, as originally envisaged and announced by the first High Representative at a meeting of UNAOC Focal Points in 2009, exist to reinforce a dynamic partnership among all relevant international and regional organizations and stakeholders, including Member States, civil society organizations, and the private sector.
• This is achieved through creating an open forum for their discussion on UNAOC-relevant matters. To be clear, these forums for open discussion are, by necessity, owned at the level of the regions and the governments of the regions they serve.
• The original concept of the Regional Strategies was to create a political tool to introduce and consolidate good governance practices and effective policies around cultural diversity and human rights for all citizens. It was made clear that such a tool needed to be context-sensitive, according to the specific circumstances of individual countries and regions.
• As with other areas of UNAOC’s work, the means we have used to achieve the aims of the Regional Strategies are themselves evolving based on what we have learned from our activities to date. Based on the precious lessons we have learned over these last 5 years, President Al-Nasser has provided guidance that will inform our direction on this issue in the coming years under his tenure.
• First and foremost, the Regional Strategies are owned at the level of the regions and the governments of the regions they serve.
• Second, Regional Strategies are, at their best, a light, non-bureaucratic forum for Member States and UNAOC to share guidance, principles, and best practices on cross-cultural issues with regional stakeholders. What informs the content of what we share is UNAOC’s and partner organizations record of conducting experimental projects to address identity based tensions around the world.
• Third, per the original vision of the Regional Strategies, we strongly encourage Member States to take the lead in convening meetings to advance the aims of the Regional Strategies and to make available the resources to convene such meetings, with the involvement of civil society and the private sector in such meetings. UNAOC, for its part, is limited to supporting such meetings by the presence of the High Representative or by sending Secretariat staff to present and serve as resource people for specific sessions. This inherent limitation of the capacity of the UNAOC Secretariat was recognized as early as 2009 in the then High Representative’s comments in Rabat at the UNAOC Focal Points meeting.
• Fourth, should Member States use the forum that Regional Strategy meetings occasion to suggest specific projects, on a case by case basis, UNAOC would be happy to make recommendations or suggestions based on our own experience. On the rare occasion that UNAOC would directly undertake the execution of a suggested project, it would only be able to do so through the financial support of relevant Members States and other regional stakeholders.
• I hope that this helps clarify what the Regional Strategies are, their aims, and the direction UNAOC we will be moving in with Regional Strategies in the coming years.
• I look forward to hearing your views on this topic and updates regarding existing Regional Strategies. In addition, I am interested to hear from our Austrian colleagues concerning their new initiative, collaborating with Romania, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan, to develop a Central Europe-Central Asia bridging strategy.