Interview: Gwyn Lewis
UN will provide total support to the reform agenda
How hopeful are you about UN support and engagement for Bangladesh's democratic transition in the coming days? The road is very bumpy.There have been unprecedented devastating floods in Bangladesh recently. How is UN engaging with Bangladesh to support the country in regard to these floods as well as future plans?The 24th of October marked United Nations Day. On this special occasion, the United Nations resident coordinator in Bangladesh, Gwyn Lewis, spoke to Prothom Alo's Raheed Ejaz on UN relations with Bangladesh, the role of the UN in the changed circumstances, support for the reform agenda of the interim government and other issues.
Bangladesh underwent a change in political landscape on 5 August. How will UN's cooperation with Bangladesh be under these changed circumstances?Last month we celebrated the 50th anniversary of partnership between the UN and Bangladesh. So will you keep the basic cooperation intact, and also adapt with the demands and focus of this government? Reforms are the key agenda of the government. What are the priority areas you will initially engage in to support Bangladesh?
Gwyn Lewis: The partnership and relationship with Bangladesh is long-standing. We are celebrating our 50 years of partnership this year. It's a very strong relationship. It has been a relationship that has lasted and strengthened over the years. That type of partnership changes based on the requirements of the people of Bangladesh first and foremost, and on the governmental requirements. People also refer back to the independence of Bangladesh when the assistance was primarily food assistance, support for recovery after the war. Now it is a much more technical, sophisticated assistance because the type of support needed in the country is different and it is based on the prioritisation of the government. Obviously the prioritisation has changed.
The government has appointed commissions to look at new priority areas of work. So we are listening to those commissions. We are listening to the new interim advisors and the chief advisor in terms of how they would like to see the role of UN and we are adapting our programming accordingly. Some of the work that we are doing is fundamental and is being sustained. A big example of that would be everything to do with the flood response, the cyclone response, and we work closely with disaster management and the local government and the NGO community, and so on. We continue to provide assistance to the Rohingya refugees. That hasn't changed. But maybe some of the programmes and technical support such as on governance issues will change because the priorities now are different.
Last month we celebrated the 50th anniversary of partnership between the UN and Bangladesh. So will you keep the basic cooperation intact, and also adapt with the demands and focus of this government? Reforms are the key agenda of the government. What are the priority areas you will initially engage in to support Bangladesh?
Gwyn Lewis: The UN Secretary General did tell Dr Yunus that the UN would provide total support on the reform agenda and so that is what we intend to do and continue to work with the commissions and the government on. What we want to make sure is that the commissions are leading the process. The commissions need to be nationally driven. It's not that we are coming in and saying, we are going to do x, y and z. We are waiting for the commissions to tell us their priority areas.
Just to give a concrete example, one area of work is reforms -- police reforms, election commission reforms, reforms in the constitution, and what support is needed to make the decisions on the reform agendas. And second is, once those recommendations are made, how can the UN support implementation of the project? So there are two types of support. One is technical support and the other is implementation.
After the changed circumstances, the present government is not political in nature. So do you think there will be a change in the engagement between the UN system and the Bangladesh government?
Gwyn Lewis: For me, very frankly, it is important that we are respectful of the interim government in terms of how we work with the government. In some ways we have an easy relationship because we speak the same language. We are all development actors. So it is easy to understand the programming, the prioritisation, and the work that we want to do.
In this interim period we also want to make sure that we are respectful of the policy choices and the decisions that the interim government is making and the strategies that they are advocating for. So we are working with the offices as we would with any government because that dynamic is important. When it comes to national decisions being made by Bangladeshis, we will not be overstepping. In many ways the relationship is different because we are working with different people now, with different priorities, but we want to maintain the institutional support. We continue to work with the various ministries and organisations.
You will be aware that a major focus of the present government is human rights and governance. It is no secret that you had bitter ties with the previous regime on human rights and governance when you raised the issues. In that context, you must feel comfortable working with this establishment on the issues of human rights and governance. They have formed a commission, for example, on the long-standing issue of enforced disappearance.
Gwyn Lewis: We have been discussing the issue of enforced disappearances with the government for long. It is true that now it is a much more open and easier engagement. We can engage with both the families and the government at the same time. So it is a discussion together. In the past it was very difficult to bring these issues to the table. So in those types of areas it has changed quite significantly. With that change, we have already provided capacity, we have already been able to provide support because the demand is there. So that is an area of work where there has been a dramatic change. It really reflects the changing position of the government
There have been unprecedented devastating floods in Bangladesh recently. How is UN engaging with Bangladesh to support the country in regard to these floods as well as future plans?
Gwyn Lewis: When I met with the communities at the grassroots level, they said in their loving memory they had never seen floods like this. Around 18 million people were impacted by this and 45 per cent of the country. It started in May and we are continuing to see floods and it is really something that I don't think is getting enough support from the international community.
We really need to strengthen the mechanisms, whether it is early warning systems, whether it is building more resilient infrastructure, climate adaptation, and invest a lot more in protecting people and building the resilience of the people. Some people have been living on the water for two or three weeks. The suffering, the trauma is just absolutely devastating. We have to do a lot more.
There are two sides to the coin. One is, how do we get communities out of harm's way, how to we strengthen disaster management ministries, how do we do preparedness work, who do we do more investment in early warning systems in the regional level and so on.
Then on the other side it is adaptation, more mangroves, more on preventing river erosion, more on infrastructure, water systems and so on. We are working with the World Bank, with the Asian Development Bank and all of the big donors. It is something that has been incredibly overwhelming, also because it happened at the same time as the students' movement. So it's just been a very tough time for Bangladesh. We are really committed to doing more, raising the profile and increasing our capacity to support the government in this area.
I am optimistic about the vision of the interim government and the chief advisor. We will do everything we can to support them. All of the international community needs to give their strong support too
Now coming to the Rohingya crisis. How do you see the current issue of the Rohingya crisis?
Gwyn Lewis: It is very, very difficult at the moment and it has been on for a long time now. The last one year has been incredibly difficult. The crisis and the conflict in Rakhine have been continuing. People are continuing to be displaced. There is a lot of pressure at the border in Rakhine. The Rohingya people would like to go home, back to their villages and their communities. The call that Dr Yunus made in New York was for more engagement in this regard.
What about the situation Rakhine? You don't have access there. How are the Rohingyas surviving there? What are your plans?
Gwyn Lewis: We have a very strong UN team in Yangon inside Myanmar, so they are working where they can in Rakhine. A lot of the work is being done through national partners and community-based organisations because access has been so difficult. Some operations are continuing but not to the scale that it is needed. There is need for medical care, children are not going to school.
Back to Bangladesh. For long the media has been raising the issue of scrapping the Digital Security Act, now called the Cyber Security Act. The government has agreed to scrap the law. Hopefully that concern will be addressed and we'll get more space. But on the other hand, there are the issues of disinformation and misinformation particularly in the social space. How do you strike a balance between freedom of speech and curbing the issues of misinformation and disinformation?
Gwyn Lewis: It is a very fine balance. The Cyber Security Act that we saw in Bangladesh in the past has been used to silence journalists and quash any sort of dissent and criticism of the government. The UN Office of High Commission for Human Rights provided details comments on both the Digital Security Act and the Cyber Security Act and made suggestions to resolve the problems.
They said quashing dissent and not allowing journalists to speak is against human rights. Women are getting attacked on social media, about how they should dress. There needs to be some type of legislation to tackle that type of use and misuse of social media. It is needed for preventing violence, preventing attacks, preventing misinformation and disinformation against individuals and communities. So it is important that this is tackled and that the rights for everyone to speak freely are reinforced.
It is a difficult thing to do. So we would argue that it is important to have a cyber security act, but one that is there to protect the rights of people, not to stop political conversations.
There has been talk in some of the foreign media about a strong presence of the Islamic voice. Is this natural or do you see a rise of Islamist elements?
Gwyn Lewis: The voice of religious groups is also very important. Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country so it is natural for Islamic voices to be raised.
Or could it be that because the previous regime suppressed dissenting voices, these Islamic elements are now coming up in a strong way?
Gwyn Lewis: I am very optimistic about the current interim government. There is a huge amount of opportunity. Everybody's voices are being heard. That is very positive. Every community, every religious group, every ethnicity should have a voice. That is what democracy is about. That is why there is this conversation at the moment on the constitution, representation is critical and something that needs to be looked at. The voices of Bangladeshi people, regardless of what they believe, should be represented.
How hopeful are you about UN support and engagement for Bangladesh's democratic transition in the coming days? The road is very bumpy.
Gwyn Lewis: I'm very optimistic. There are going to be a lot of bumps along the way, but I am optimistic about the vision of the interim government and the chief advisor. We will do everything we can to support them. All of the international community needs to give their strong support too. The transitions that are being proposed are coherent, make a lot of sense. We need to get behind this transition process because people have lost their lives, they have risked their lives. We need to be respectful and supportive of this.