Lise Grande is the Residential Representative of the United Nations (UN) and Country Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Armenia. She was recruited as a political officer for the United Nations in 1994 and is due to complete her mission in Armenia at the end of May 2005.
ONNIK KRIKORIAN: Before coming to Armenia you've had quite an interesting personal and professional history. I'd be interested in hearing more about that.
LISE GRANDE: To be honest, my background is not really that common for someone who works for the UN and what I mean by this is that I never really expected or coveted a job as an international diplomat or civil servant. Instead, I started off in the trade union movement and was very active in labor mobilization and the kinds of issues which are very far away from the world in which an international civil servant lives.
While I was working with trade unions, I was often part of what we call international solidarity missions where you are sent to support revolutionary movements and in my case, I was in Palestine working initially in support of, and at one stage directly for, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Because of this connection, when the UN needed someone with that kind of political background they rang me up and asked me if I wanted to be a political officer for the occupied Gaza strip.
I was thrilled by the opportunity and said to the UN that I'd be delighted. I even said that they didn't even have to pay me although fortunately, they did and this helped my bank balance a great deal. So, I started off in this really extraordinary position of providing political guidance for the work that the UN was undertaking at the time that Arafat returned to the occupied territories. I started in 1994 and arrived in Gaza in May the same year.
Arafat and the boys from Tunis came back in June and I watched how the PLO tried to reunite the structures that had existed outside of Palestine with those that had grown up inside and how they tried to reunify the movement. It was an extraordinary period of history. After Palestine I was transferred to Sudan where one of my main responsibilities was to look very carefully at how the Islamic government was conducting affairs.
Having spent so much time in Palestine I had become increasingly familiar with political Islam in both its positive and some of its more negative forms. When I was transferred to Sudan it was under an Islamic regime and in 1998, the famine broke out and the UN needed someone to organize famine relief. Although I never considered myself a humanitarian I ended up becoming one of the chief operating officers for famine relief.
From there I was transferred to Tajikistan and again, part of what I was doing was reviewing and looking at the Islamic regime in the country. Of course, in Tajikistan, when the Soviet Union collapsed, you had a civil war between the communists and the Islamic militants. The UN had brokered a power-sharing arrangement between the two sides but it required constant negotiations, particularly with the Islamists and that was the role I played.
Then I was part of the first civilian team that went into East Timor after the Indonesians marched in. There had been a referendum and the Indonesians had not accepted the outcome. The UN sent in a military force to try to stabilize the situation and I was part of the civilian support team. After that, I did three very long and difficult years in Angola where my primary responsibility was to negotiate between the rebels and the government and protect civilians caught up in the war.
Then, unexpectedly, I was promoted to Chief of Mission. To be frank, I wasn't properly qualified for that position and I don't think that I was really inclined to the post. I wasn't really interested in being someone who had an ambassadorial status although for the two years I've been here in Armenia, I feel honored and privileged by it. My next posting will be back in the Congo where I'll be a strategic planner which is much more to my liking and suitability.
OK: You're the UN Residential Representative in Armenia as well as head of UNDP. Maybe it's all a bit boring compared to what you've been doing in the past?
LG: [laughs] It was very different... very different.
OK: Yet, while many people speak very highly of your time in Armenia, there are others that are generally unhappy that international organizations such as the UN are often reluctant to take a stand on certain issues. Am I being unfair?
LG: No, I think you're absolutely correct and have gone straight to the heart of the dilemma between what we call constructive engagement – how you encourage governments to move along the lines of international principles and best practices – and being decisive in public. The responsibility for any head of mission or Ambassador is to keep that balance and to find the right way to engage in dialogue with the government while also recognizing that you have a responsibility to speak out on certain issues in a way that is effective.
I think that many of us that hold such positions realize that we sometimes get this balance wrong. There are times when we should speak out more but we don't and there are occasions when we have raised concerns but didn't really help the situation. It's one of the most important and complicated parts of your job to get right. It's a learning experience and if you look at diplomats that have had a long career, they really do know how to achieve that balance. It's something that I think you learn through trial and error.
Of course, there are always going to be expectations from civil society that a head of mission speaks out more and we do have that responsibility. However, there are also times when what you say publicly might derail a whole process that has been going on internally and you obviously want to avoid that.
OK: And, of course, the UN is here to work in collaboration with the Armenian government and to pursue policies and programmes that are mutually decided between the two.
LG: Again, you've gone straight to the heart of the matter because the UN is an inter-governmental organization. Now, the challenge comes when governments are not observing international law. As the custodian of international law and principles, the UN is often called upon to help governments correct that situation. Although this relationship is supportive, it is also corrective at times or at least, it should be.
OK: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) appear to be the main focus of the UN in Armenia . However, for those that might not know, what are the MDGs?
LG: The Millennium Development Goals are really quite an extraordinary and historic achievement. During the 1990s, at the end of the Cold War, the UN held a series of global summits where an attempt was made to reach consensus among the member states of the UN on a number of social goals. In other words, what was the global community going to collectively commit itself to?
By the time we hit the millennium, while there wasn't this consensus yet, Kofi Annan, in a remarkable piece of leadership, was able to distil discussion into eight concrete and measurable goals. These are the Millennium Development Goals and in September 2000 a summit was held in New York. Kofi Annan presided over the event and about 160 world leaders, including the Armenian President, came together to agree on these goals, pledging as the leaders of their respective countries to achieve them by 2015.
Since the birth of the UN there had never been such a clear and unified social agenda. However, five years after the summit, it has become clear that what is lacking in the majority of countries is a concrete plan to achieve those goals. Here, I think the responsibility for coming up with that plan lies with the governments of the member states but in the case of Armenia that's not so much of an issue because the government does have a development strategy in the form of its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).
OK: I've seen this reference to the year 2015 in the PRSP. Was this coincidental or has the PRSP been designed around the MDGs?
LS: It was a strategic insertion. When the PRSP was developed, while the process was not being driven by the MDGs, it was aimed in this direction as a result of constant discussion and review. The PRSP, as you probably know, is not an action plan for the medium-term. It's a short-term action plan and right now, is in the process of revision. This process is literally going on as we speak and the first revision is expected sometime around September.
In its present form, the PRSP aims to achieve many but not all of the MDGs. For example, while there a reference to the need to empower women in the PRSP, there's not an action plan for achieving that goal. However, the PRSP does refer to the need to halve poverty by 2015 and also deals with issues relating to education and health.
OK: According to the UN, is Armenia on track to reach those goals?
LG: Yes, it's doing well.
OK: However, there are concerns that although economic growth is high, the level of poverty in Armenia has not been reduced as much as it could. Much of the wealth that has been generated has not been equally distributed.
LG: Absolutely. In fact, when the United Nations negotiated its cooperation framework with the government last year, our over-riding objective was to reduce economic, social and political inequality. That framework differs from other strategies which state that growth is the main priority. Of course, the UN is not against growth but there is also the need to reduce inequality.
Growth that mainly benefits a small elite is not something that is good for any country and the UN has come out very strongly on this and makes no apologies for doing so.
In our opinion, the single most important issue in Armenia is this growing inequality between those that are benefiting from economic growth and those that are not. Let me be more precise on that because there are obviously lots of ways that you can look at the question of inequality. Maybe I should refer to the fact that at the end of the Soviet period, Armenia was one of the most equal in terms of income distribution in the world. However, as a result of this early and very painful part of transition, within a few years it became one of the most unequal. In fact, at one stage, in terms of income inequality, Armenia was second only to Brazil.
Now, if you think about the social and political implications for a country that is essentially wrenched apart, you will find that you have an astonishing gulf between those with money and those without. This raises some very important questions with regards to what is going to happen to Armenia. Income inequality that was at its worse from 1996-9 is improving and the gap is getting smaller but you have other kinds of inequalities. For example, people in Yerevan are benefiting substantially more from economic growth than in the provinces.
In four regions – Gegharkunik, Shirak, Armavir and Aragatsotn – poverty is actually increasing and higher than in 1996.
OK: So what's the solution?
LG: I think that if you are very serious about poverty reduction you have to be very serious about creating jobs. One of the main issues with the PRSP is that it's not really a strategy for creating employment and anyone who lives in a capitalist country knows that in order to lift people out of poverty you have to create jobs. This is an inescapable fact but if you are not fully committed to the idea of throwing resources at the creation of jobs, to be honest, you are not going to be able to solve the problem of poverty.
There are many ways to create jobs such as introducing tax incentives and retraining, for example, but in countries where you have a weak private sector it is usually the government that takes the lead in creating employment. This has been proven to be as successful as the first approach although it depends on how you do it. The Armenian government is probably very comfortable with the idea that it should be the private sector that takes the lead in creating jobs but one of the things that the UN has noted is that the private sector is expected to carry quite a burden.
It is expected to create jobs with limited resources, the market is still basically unregulated and in a sense quite immature, and given all of that plus the transport blockade and other problems that the private sector faces, to assume that they are going to be able to create enough employment to absorb all the labor in Armenia is quite an assumption. In that context then, the question that I think needs to be addressed if you're serious about poverty reduction is what else can be done? What else can the government do in the short-term to help move people out of poverty?
OK: I understand that there is a difference between Yerevan and the regions but that's not to say that poverty doesn't exist in the capital. I can't remember the precise figures but it's something in excess of 30 per cent and because this poverty is urban it is one of the most depressing forms of poverty there is.
LG: That's right. Yes.
OK: Considering the amount of new buildings, shops, restaurants and cafes in the center of Yerevan , however, some people say that poverty figures in Armenia aren't accurate and are actually inflated so that the government can receive more foreign assistance. They say that most Armenians receive remittances from abroad or are working in the shadow economy. Are you confident that the statistics for poverty are accurate?
LG: This opens up an interesting set of questions. The numbers that are used for the statistics indicate that poverty has declined from 55 per cent of the population in 1999 to 42 per cent of the population in 2003. To calculate that they use the number of people living on less than $2 a day which is a pretty low standard so let me use another. Guess what the poverty rate goes up to if you use the benchmark of $4 a day?
OK: It's about 80 per cent.
LG: That's right. It goes up to 78 per cent. If I were to try and live in Armenia on $2 a day I'd find that a pretty grim existence and living on $4 a day is pretty bloody difficult as well. When you look at it that way, statistics for poverty can be quite a cynical exercise. You know, if the difference between 42 per cent of people living in poverty and 80 per cent of the population is just $2 a day then let's get a grip on what we're talking about.
In my opinion, the idea that poverty doesn't really exist here in such a grotesque form is a misplaced understanding of what is actually going on.
Instead, I think the most humane way of dealing with this question is to hand those people a pay packet of $4 a day and ask them to live on it and then talk about poverty. In my experience, people who are poor and struggling in destitution and misery have a very different outlook on the world than those that do not and I believe very strongly that it is our responsibility to understand with sympathy and to take action on behalf of those living in a reality that we quite clearly are not.
OK: I've spent many years with some families living in poverty and one thing that strikes me is that psychologically, these people have been destroyed. This is a real obstacle to overcome if you want to lift people out of poverty.
LG: One of the things that have been remarkable for me in coming to a country that once had full employment as well as education and decent healthcare for everyone is to see what happens when it loses all of that in a short period of time. This isn't just the brutal reality of living in a free market economy that's not really free and certainly isn't working properly compared to what you had only a few years before.
OK: There's no going back to that system so what we're talking about is the need for the government to provide social services to those that need them. The issue here, of course, is that although there's been economic growth, tax collection hasn't been encouraging to say the least. There are some very large businesses making profits but posting losses, for example.
LG: Yes, this is a concern that is also shared by the government as well as many international organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF, USAID and others. The consensus of opinion is that the Armenian government will not be able to provide social services if it can't raise enough revenues to cover them. If you want to do that you've got to tax people. Now, there is an ongoing debate about whether the current tax structure is the right one. I have to say that I'm persuaded by these arguments.
I think the tax structure should be adapted so that more people will be encouraged to pay their taxes. Having said that, it's also clear that there are ways in which people that should be paying taxes are able to avoid their obligation to do so. It's not just the structure and has a lot to do with corruption. Even if you get the structure right you still have to find a way to make it absolutely clear that corruption will not be tolerated. Nevertheless, the Armenian government has managed to increase tax collection quite dramatically during the first part of the year.
They really have made this a priority, they've gone after tax evaders and if you look at the numbers, it's very impressive. The government is doing something but until there is a national integrity system which stops diversion and corruption you're not really going to get much further.
OK: Is corruption a concern of UNDP?
LG: Yes, it is. We have a whole programme to assist civil society monitor the implementation of the anti-corruption strategy, the creation of which was quite an elaborate and involved process. However, while being viable, it may not be as strong as it could have been under other circumstances. Transparency International, I think, has a very targeted and intelligent critique of the strengths and more importantly, the weaknesses of the strategy.
That said, there is at least a strategy and what UNDP is trying to do is to develop methodologies so that civil society can monitor that it is being implemented properly. We have focused primarily on the two sectors that affect poor people the most -- corruption in health and education. What we're doing is developing a standardized way of monitoring what progress is being made.
