Caught between an obstructive regime and bureaucratic inertia, the United Nations in Myanmar has struggled to fulfil its mandate since the 2021 coup.
By ALLEGRA MENDELSON | FRONTIER
In April, the United Nations appointed Ms Julie Bishop, Australia’s former minister of foreign affairs, as the secretary-general’s new special envoy to Myanmar, filling the post nearly a year after Ms Noeleen Heyzer stepped down. The announcement praised Bishop for her “extensive political, legal, management and senior leadership experience”.
But regardless of her qualifications, many saw the appointment as putting the cart before the horse. During her 20-month tenure, Heyzer was unable to make any significant breakthroughs, and there is little reason to expect that to change with Bishop. Meanwhile, the UN’s vital resident coordinator in Myanmar position remains vacant.
“There is now a special envoy, who is welcome. We expect to also see a long-term resident coordinator soon, who can coordinate and give better cohesion to the UN system in Myanmar and make sure that [all agencies] pull in the same direction, which I don’t think they have been doing,” said a representative from the Swedish embassy in Myanmar who spoke to Frontier on the condition of anonymity.
In Myanmar, as in other countries, the UN has multiple agencies carrying out different missions, from UN Women to the UN refugee agency. Each agency has its own mandate and a representative appointed by the secretary-general. Together, they make up the UN country team, which is led by a resident coordinator.
But Myanmar hasn’t had an official resident coordinator since September 2021, when Swedish national Mr Ola Almgren retired. Since then, the country team has been led by temporary representatives who lead their respective agencies while simultaneously serving as resident coordinator.
After Almgren, the head of the UN Population Fund Mr Ramanathan Balakrishnan assumed the post ad interim for two years. He was replaced in December last year by UNICEF head Mr Marcoluigi Corsi, who still holds the position today. While the secretary-general’s office told Frontier each temporary resident coordinator will serve at least six months, the extent of their tenure isn’t specified.
“When they are taking on this RC ad interim role, they don’t relinquish their role of whatever agency they’re leading so they’re carrying both these weights. They aren’t getting paid extra for working as the RC,” said the first of three sources familiar with UN operations in Myanmar who all spoke to Frontier on the condition of anonymity.
Mr Charles Petrie, an international security consultant who served as the UN resident coordinator in Myanmar from 2003 to 2007, said that heads of mission are likely to prioritise their own agency’s mandate, rather than the country team as whole, if only because that’s where their expertise lies.
“You’re asking an individual who is very much agency-focussed and is very much attuned to the mandate of his or her agency to take responsibilities for which they haven’t been trained or prepared for and are not supported,” explained Petrie.
He said this is compounded by the tremendous pressure each agency is under from the State Administration Council, as the military junta is formally known.
“With a regime like the SAC, the agency heads are much more concerned with the role of their agency in the country, their ability to fulfil their mandates, and would be hesitant to jeopardise that on behalf of the whole system.”
A question of legitimacy
The first anonymous source familiar with the UN said that one reason no permanent resident coordinator has been appointed is to avoid being seen as legitimising the military.
“The role was advertised, and someone was selected for the position, but they concluded that the SAC is going to ask for an official letter of credence, signed by the Secretary-General, and they can’t do that,” they explained.
Mr Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, confirmed to Frontier that “the Secretary-General has selected a Resident Coordinator” but given the “current political situation in Myanmar that person has not been officially deployed”.
Some Western governments opposed to the coup have also sought to avoid presenting credentials to the regime, leaving ambassador posts empty and appointing chargés d’affaires instead.
While a meeting between the UN’s top official in the country and junta leader Min Aung Hlaing may be a step too far, UN agency heads have presented credentials to regime ministers, and acting resident coordinators have met with senior junta officials. Mr Martin Griffiths, the UN’s undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, even sat down with Min Aung Hlaing in August last year.
Mr David Mathieson, an independent political analyst, said that while avoiding meetings with the junta is a “completely legitimate” reason to leave the resident coordinator position vacant, it’s inconsistent with how the UN has been operating in the country since the coup.
“That hasn’t stopped multiple members of the country team from going up to Nay Pyi Taw and de facto legitimising the regime, so why would a full time RC be doing anything different to what they’re all doing now?” said Mathieson.
Meanwhile, leaving the position vacant could be undermining the UN’s credibility in the eyes of the regime. To those outside the UN system, the “ad interim” before the resident coordinator title may not mean much, but it has implications on the ground.
“You fall short of political backing because whoever sits there as acting [resident coordinator] has not been chosen by the secretary-general to carry out the job, and especially when you deal with military people who understand hierarchical structures, you are not able to have a major impact. Instead of running, you limp,” said a second source familiar with the UN who spoke to Frontier on the condition of anonymity.
The UN has repeatedly stressed that its engagement with the regime should not be seen as conferring legitimacy. Dujarric told Frontier that the UN “does not engage in acts of recognition of governments” as this is a “matter for Member States”.
Instead, the UN has largely justified its limited interactions with regime officials as an unfortunate necessity to reach people on the ground.
“Engagement with the SAC is very transactional in the sense that we don’t engage for the sake of engagement and we don’t engage with policy discussions,” a third source close to the UN told Frontier. “The UN engages with all entities as long as they can give us access to certain people in need.”
The UN country team told Frontier that it’s important for “senior officials to be present” in the country so they can “effectively carry out the full range of their functions and responsibilities”, which requires being accredited by regime officials.
Engaging with armed groups opposed to military rule, meanwhile, has been seen as too risky, because it could result in the SAC cutting off access to regime-controlled areas, resulting in the UN and other aid groups reaching fewer people. But as non-state armed groups carve out increasingly large chunks of territory in Myanmar’s borderlands, there are growing calls for the UN to reevaluate its approach.
Sources told Frontier that the UN has been carrying out some limited work with local civil society organisations, but mostly in secret so as not to compromise the safety of their partners or the people they’re helping.
The second source said that another challenge the UN in Myanmar faces in carrying out this work is “internal bureaucratic hurdles” that require the team to adhere to strict protocols rather than what would be most effective.
Stuck in the system
These protocols and other important decisions, like leaving the resident coordinator position vacant, are dictated from the UN headquarters in New York. Those working in the country team, who are more familiar with what is happening on the ground, have limited freedom to exercise their judgement.
“The one point that always feels a little misdirected or misunderstood is how much weight and how much decision-making capacity people think that the UN country team has on its own. Many of these decisions come from those outside the country and much higher up,” said the first source familiar with the UN.
“There is a lack of field-level understanding at the UN headquarters in New York of what is happening in the country, but it’s the decisions being made there that affect the team in Myanmar.”
Multiple sources told Frontier that concerns have been raised at various levels of the UN, but nothing has been done. The representative from the Swedish embassy told Frontier that Sweden, the top donor to the global UN emergency fund so far this year, has raised the absence of a long-term resident coordinator with the secretary-general and other UN member states.
“They listen but the problem is we haven’t really seen a resolution to this,” they said.
A growing lack of faith in the UN to handle the crisis in Myanmar is evident in a lack of funding to its Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for this year, which, as of publication, had only received 11 percent of its US$994 million appeal. The UN country team in Myanmar told Frontier that “1.8 million people targeted for assistance in 2023 missed out on support from the humanitarian community because of underfunding, as well as access blockages”.
The representative from the Swedish embassy said another reason for the limited financial support is the number of crises around the world, from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to Israel’s war on Gaza.
“Other conflicts have come to the fore for many of the major donors. Most countries will look at their own interests and neighbourhoods. Currently, many European donors are looking at the terrible situation in Ukraine and the threat that Russian aggression poses to ourselves,” said the representative.
While some of these problems may be outside of the UN’s control, the second anonymous source said the UN could still be doing more.
“There hasn’t been a self-criticism session where the UN asked itself ‘are we really doing all we can or in the manner that we could best serve the people?’” they said.
“If donors had trust in the UN delivering, the humanitarian response plan would not be at 11pc. The fact that they don’t give money is a clear indication that they have no confidence.”
