Can Development Work in Wartime?

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1:02slash policy live to learn more and get started with MooMo. That is start.moomoo.com slash policy live. Regulatory fees, exchange fees, and index option contract fees may apply. Fees are subject to change. I'm Ravi Agrawal, foreign policies editor in chief. This is FP Live. So we know that poverty and the lack of infrastructure are real problems in many parts of the world, and the challenges that even as you try to improve conditions, there are active conflicts that are making everything worse, more forced migration, more inflation, fewer $8, so what does the world do? My guess this week is a former Prime Minister who runs UNDP, the UN's development program tasked with helping to eliminate poverty and accelerate sustainable growth.

2:02I know, it's a big task, but he has a remarkably can-do approach, and I think you'll enjoy hearing his take. That is coming up, but first, I'm watching with great concern what seems to be the outbreak of one more war, and it's really not getting much attention. I'm talking about Ethiopia. Here's my read on things. Seven armed groups in Ethiopia have formed an alliance to oust Prime Minister Abe Ahmed, and the political dispute has now turned violent, with deadly clashes breaking out in the northern region of Tigray. As of this recording on Thursday, October 1, it seems to be a fast-moving situation. In recent days, the National Army recaptured the strategically important town of Alamata after it fell to rebel forces earlier. I know there are so many bad things happening around the world, and it is hard to keep track, but Ethiopia really could spiral out of control. It was only in 2022 that a peace treaty ended,

3:06a devastating two-year war in Tigray, in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed. Hundreds of thousands of people. If this war escalates, it'll be bad enough internally, but it could also draw in other actors, neighboring Eritrea, which is not on good terms with Abe's government. There is Egypt and Sudan, whom Ethiopia's army chief accuses of supporting the rebel alliance. And then there's even the United States, which recently ended an arms embargo on Ethiopia. All of this, as a brutal El Nino effects crop production, which could now be a harbinger for a broader humanitarian crisis. Look, I know all of this is a lot to keep track of. I'm going to share some related reading if you want to learn more in the show notes. But this reminded me of something I learned last week, when I guest hosted an episode of the world's toughest job, an FP podcast in partnership with the UN Foundation,

4:07that looks at what the next UN Secretary General should focus on. One strand of thinking put forward by Thant Mint U, a historian, and the grandson of Utahn, who ran the UN in the 1960s, is that the next Secretary General should really just focus on conflict resolution. Delegate almost everything else. Comfort Ero, who was also on that show with me, went a step further, and made the case that this person, the next Secretary General, should put all their energy specifically into solving one conflict, the Sudan conflict. And the reason they make this case is that if the next Secretary General, who will start in January, can just show that the UN can actually still make a difference, and can reverse this global trend of impunity in wars. A lot of other good steps could follow, in a lot of other arenas. Regular listeners will know I'm looking for reasons to stay positive about the world,

5:09so I quite like this proposal. I'm going to link to that conversation in the show notes as well. Okay, time for this week's interview. And it is the last of our spade of episodes focusing on the UN. We've had the World Bank's Ajay Banga on Job Creation, Maria Ressa on the UN Scientific Panel on AI, and Mike Waltz, Trump's UN Ambassador. Now, finally, Alexander DeCrew, the administrator of UNDP. DeCrew was previously the Prime Minister of Belgium. When I last saw him, he was making the case for more defense dollars. Now he's arguing for development dollars. But he has an interesting premise. Instead of just fixing things that are going to break once again in a conflict, he is focused on building longer-term resilience. Whether it's in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Gaza, or Haiti. And he has some fascinating examples, including convincing Afghan farmers to stop growing poppy. A lot of these issues can feel so downbeat.

6:11DeCrew is focused on solutions. It's worth airing them out. Let's dive in. Alexander DeCrew, welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you for having me. So you just got back from Ukraine, and that made me wonder. What are you doing there in terms of, you know, this is an active conflict zone where infrastructure is being destroyed. Civilian infrastructure is being hit every single day. Energy infrastructure is being hit every single day. How do you think about development in an environment where the very opposite is still ongoing and could be ongoing for several months and years to come? Well, let's first hope that it would not be ongoing for months and years to come. And now, this is the majority of our work. 60% of what UNDP is delivering with the liver approximately 5 billion a year, 60% of that work happens in conflicts and fragile environment.

7:15So this is unfortunately the state of the world where we live in. What do we do there? We try to give the Ukrainian population a chance of having a decent living. And we do what we call recovery work. Now, recovery work, very often people have the view that, you know, you have a crisis, and then when the crisis is over, then you do recovery. That's not how we work. Yes, in circumstances such as one in Ukraine, you need to do life-saving. But at the same time, from the start, you also need to do future building. And future building is making sure that the private sector can still function, making sure that people have shelter, making sure that healthcare and education keeps functioning. So it's not because you're in a crisis that you should wait for the end of the crisis before doing the recovery work. And give me a sense of the work you are doing in a place like Ukraine. Where can the UNDP be most helpful, again, given that this is an active conflict zone?

8:21And as we speak, energy infrastructure is being hit. All kinds of residential buildings, even in Kiev, are being hit. Exactly that. Energy infrastructure is the biggest chunk of work that we do in Ukraine. Because today, energy security and security in the classic sense are intimately linked. No access to electricity is no schools, is no hospitals, it's no water and no sewage. And so electricity that is still available, and especially going into direction of winter, and winter is in Ukraine, are not easy, that makes a difference between being able to still live, or actually not being able to live at all in that location. Today, 6.6 million Ukrainians are dependent on the work we do to continue providing them with electricity. The needs are gigantic. I mean, half of the generation capacity has been destroyed. We rebuilds there the energy infrastructure of the future.

9:27What we see is that classic energy grids are actually very vulnerable in a period of war, because you have those choke points where generation happens. You target that, the whole thing is out. What we do now is decentralize grids, much more concentrated also on renewable energy, which has advantages in many domains, on the cosy side, on the renewable side, but also these are grids with much more redundancy. Obviously, we also build a lot of passive protection around those infrastructures, which is something that the world never has done. Meaning, the past, when you build electricity grid, you did not have to build it to be resistant to drones. This is unfortunately the new phase of war. And maybe let me finish on that. The phase of war in Ukraine has dramatically changed. It used to be that the front line was at what you would call the contact line in the east. Today, the front line is in the whole country. Today, civil infrastructure and civilians are being targeted.

10:28I mean, this is energy infrastructure, but it's also shopping malls, it's buses, it's border crossings. It's, and we are here in the context of UN General Assembly, all those things that are happening is the reason why we built the United Nations of the Second World War to say these things should not happen again. And unfortunately, we're in these circumstances again. Last element, the escalation that we've seen over the past weeks, that is a very dangerous evolution. I agree. There's on many dimensions, you are sometimes inches away from an accident happening, and all the sequence of things that could happen after that. These new jet-powered drones, especially, are deeply worrying. I want to move to a different arena, not of active conflict, but it has been for decades. You travel a lot. You have also been to Afghanistan in recent months. I want to contrast this with Ukraine, because in Ukraine, you are working with a government that I imagine is simpatico,

11:33that has similar goals and objectives to what you do at the UNDP. In Afghanistan, of course, you have the Taliban now, which has a very different understanding of women's rights, for example, than you do at the UNDP. Give me a sense of what development work in a place like Afghanistan means. Our development work is with local authorities. And we are in discussions with the Taliban, but we don't work together with them. But let me give an example of something that has worked extremely well. There's people enough in this world who will tell you what's not working. We are the organization of what works. And what has worked extremely well in Afghanistan is almost completely eradicating the production of puppies leading to opium production. 95% of that production has been terminated. And that has worked because we have worked together with farmers,

12:34and we have worked with them on alternative livelihoods. Alternative livelihoods, which are typical agricultural and fruit production. And it has worked well because we have used a systems approach. So we worked with the farmers and saw how we can improve and increase the productivity. Then we worked with food processing companies and helped them to raise capital. This was not to public money. This was mostly private capital. Then we worked with those fruit processing companies to up their standards. Because we needed to export as well. And if you want to export to certain standards, you need to meet. Then we helped them to instead of just buying fruit day by day to make long-term contracts, which gave the farmers a certain level of stability. And that has worked extremely well in thousands of farmers today our part of that value. And the Taliban did not interfere? No, well, they are actually a partner in this. Because there was a problem of drug production in Afghanistan.

13:35There was also a huge problem of drug usage in Afghanistan. So they are actually a partner of what we do. This is one thing which is work. You mentioned women's rights and rights of girls. This is obviously a gigantic issue that we have. The fact that girls cannot go to school beyond the age of 12 years old is something which is totally unacceptable. But also from a development point of view, it's just very, very poor policy. I mean, if a country like Afghanistan needs a gigantic, if you say we are going to find a solution for those needs and half of the population, we're not going to use a talent they have. That's just really, really poor policy. And this is a discussion we have almost on a daily basis. Where have we been? Successfully, it's entrepreneurship for women. And we have tens of thousands of women that we helped in really, really small investment to get our businesses going.

14:36And that is something which is acceptable because it is more being done at the regional level. So many issues that we have, but there are things that work. And maybe let me, let me finalize on that. Look, we also have very difficult conversations with what we call the de facto authorities. And we know that for member states, they have very often the same concerns as we have. But turning your back on Afghanistan today is we think not a good idea. Look, this is a country that has been in conflict for decades. And if you turn your back on Afghanistan, you can almost guarantee that five, ten years down the road, we will build a consequences of that. And I think that despite all the differences of opinion and despite all the things which we totally disagree with, we need to engage. But a country that today is really at the crossroads

15:41of almost all problems you can have. I mean, an economic contraction of almost 20%. Impact of climate change, which is really on the ground. Natural disasters, last year heavy earthquakes, conflicts with their neighbors. And then on top of that, and that's the big change, is over the last year and a half, almost five million returnees coming back from Iran and coming from Pakistan. Now, there is no country in the world, even the most prosperous, the most stable country that can today say, you know, if I have between 12 and 15% of my population increased because of a returnees, I'm going to deal with that. I mean, this is extremely hard for them to manage. And supporting that and using it as a leverage for the type of change on girls and women rights and civic space discussions, that I think is the right way, the right way forward. And I think it's one of those locations where UN organizations obviously have an edge

16:41in being operational. And we'll be back in a minute with more of foreign policy live. Remember, you can catch these conversations live and on video on foreignpolicy.com. Subscribe as get to send us questions in advance in addition to a range of other benefits, including our magazine. Sign up. Also time to layer up your wardrobe. This is the time to reach for your dependables that keep you warm while looking great. This is the time for Quince. They've got everything from your favorite pair of pants to Mongolian cashmere sweaters made from premium materials like organic cotton. Quince's clothes are always a great choice. Plus, they're affordable. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less

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18:47With MooMo, you get deeper insights into the market, with tools that let you follow institutional and insider activity, analyze earnings, set custom price alerts, and access real-time market depth, all without leaving the platform. Right now, MooMo is offering its new users up to $1,000 in NVIDIA stock, plus 8.1 API on uninvested cash for a limited time, plus deposit $100 and get up to $200 in trading vouchers. Go to start.moomoo.com slash policy live to learn more and get started with MooMo. That is start.moomoo.com slash policy live. Regulatory fees, exchange fees, and index option contract fees may apply. Fesor subject to change. So we've talked about Ukraine. We've talked about Afghanistan. Let me take you to another conflict arena that I'm afraid is much more polarized as an issue at the UN, and among its member states, Gaza.

19:52You've also visited there recently. Give us a sense of how you work there, especially in the face of severe disagreement among your member states. About the role of UN bodies there, we all know how UN bodies have been accused of being in some cases in Kahuts with Hamas or involving Hamas operatives. There have been a lot of allegations of anti-Semitism hurled at the UN. How do you navigate all of that? In what is still, I'll remind everyone, an active conflict zone where many Palestinians have died this year, even after the ceasefire. Yeah. So first of all, I was in Gaza in a few months ago. This is one of the most disastrous places I've visited, and I have been Minister of Development for six years before, been in many desolate places. Gaza today is a place where you would wish every person, and especially children do not have to live.

20:56Dangerous everywhere. Not just the attacks, just the fact that more than 2 million people are being squeezed together in 30% of the territory. It's just a very dangerous place. With gigantic problems of hygiene and sanitation. We are active there as a few other UN agencies. I think we have proven over the past years, unfortunately, it's already years, that we are capable, that we are efficient, and we have earned the trust of all parties in that conflict. And we have earned that trust because obviously our priority is helping the population of Gaza. But you're not death to the security concerns, which are being voiced by Israel. And I think we have proven that we are a partner that can be trusted. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't have requests.

21:58And our requests are basically true requests. I mean, request number one, and that's an obvious one, is please give us more access. I mean, there's so much more that we could do. And I think we have proven that we can be trusted in this dual use discussion, which we understand. But I think we should be trusted in that. Second element is that there is need for Palestinian leadership in Gaza. Today, that is not there. That Palestinian leadership is not authorized to be there. You cannot have even if the zone is smaller now, more than 2 million people living without any type of political leadership. I mean, we all know that if you create that type of void, then something else comes in the middle. And then third element is please, we need security. And then I say, we, it's the inhabitants of Gaza, but also our staff. We need that violence to end.

23:01And okay, there was yesterday meeting based on a board of peace, and so on, and there's a list of projects coming out of that. And there is a perspective of saying, look, in moving forward, there needs to be governance reforms taking place in Gaza. I mean, my answer is, game on. I mean, let's go. I mean, we are ready to do that. We have the capability to do those governance reforms. But please, let us not wait. I mean, there's been 22,000 children killed in that conflict. And tens of thousands who have lost their parents, or lost their brother, or lost their friends. We cannot have a generation being lost. And I don't think we're pretty far off that. And you've been now talking about many conflicts in the world, and maybe that's an overarching team.

24:02Look, we can, we can, we discuss a bit about what works. I give some examples of what work. We also have to be very clear, or what is not working. I mean, what's not working is the geopolitical power play with the conflicts that are coming out of that, with increasing energy prices, with increasing cost of living, with development gains that have taken decades to build, being wiped away in just a few weeks. I mean, we cannot accept that. And we do not talk often enough. And I don't want to sound flower power, but we don't talk often enough about peace. I mean, peace and end of conflict is the basis of human progress. And unfortunately, today, what is happening, it's not human progress. What is happening today is development and reverse. And that is not just heartbreaking for us that you and the P. It should be heartbreaking for all of us. I couldn't agree more. I want to ask you about how to raise funds for all of these things that you do. And, you know, the last time you and I spoke, you were wearing a different hat.

25:02You were Prime Minister of Belgium. And when you were wearing that hat quite rightly and quite understandably so, you were among a group of European leaders who were calling for more defense spending, dramatically ramping up Europe's defense budgets across the board. For what is a very obvious reason, a massive threat from Russia. I'm curious how you see all of this adding up, because we have leaders calling for more defense spending. We have leaders calling for spending in other areas, whether it's data centers or mitigating for energy, as energy prices go up. Now, you are calling for more development spending. Where is it coming from? How are you making that work? So, first of all, I'll be starting by saying that I still stand behind what I said years ago. I mean, there was a need in Europe to increase defense spending. And there's a good reason for that. And we at UNDP, we don't contest that. The financing of development is more than only public spending.

26:05We can have a long discussion about ODA going down. This is a fact. It's a fact. Overseas development assistance has gone down. Yes. But the financing of development is way broader than public money. Public money has its role to play. But next to that, you have the financing, very international financial institutions, and regional development banks. And next to that, you have private investment. And next to that, you have well-utilizing remittances. And then you have domestic resources mobilization. That is a full picture. And for example, if you look at the least developed countries throughout the world, more than half of the least developed countries have a public budget, which is less than 15% of GDP, 1515. Most of the developed countries have a budget between 40 and 50%. I'm not saying you should be jumping to that. But if you're only raising 15% over GDP, then you shouldn't be surprised that it's hard to develop your own development.

27:08By the way, UNDP, 30% of what we do today is what we call government development finance, which means we work in a country, for example, DRC, and we work with their own money. And this is something many people don't know. But this is a big part of what we do, it's helping governments. Just making sure that in any place in the world, there is people making money. And there is no problem with making money. I mean, I have no problem with that at all. But pay some taxes. I said some taxes. I didn't say to the level of certain European countries. But paying a decent contribution when you are making a profit or having value added in a country, I think it's a logical thing to do. Now raising taxes, many, if you would have government leaders here, all of them will say, oh, but it's very different than my country. The basics of collecting taxes in an efficient way, it's actually quite textbook. And doing that, and for example, we do that with the OECD,

28:11the project called Tax Inspectors Without Borders. It's a bit like mid-sense of Frontier, but it's not the doctor. It's the tax collector, man. You're being such a European in New York right now. I know, I know, I am. But collecting taxes in an efficient way, it's a good way of just raising part of financing for your own development. We're almost out of time, just very quickly. I have to ask you about the United States, which many of us have begun to see as the record in chief of the Liberal International Order. How are you navigating the Trump era with reduced funding, and also nodding to the fact that you want there to be fewer wars, but the United States has contributed to at least one more this year. So, man, I lost to finish with that question. Look, the United States have been a contributor to UNDP.

29:15They're not anymore at the same time I see, that despite sometimes criticism to the United Nations, which is certain parts of that we have to acknowledge. I mean, can we be more efficient? Yes. Is there too much overlap? Yes. Do we have to show more volunteerism in being the moral authority in the world, being the one that is always looking to try to find a solution for conflict? I think in these things, we need to improve. And also, the United States have, actually, this burst, quite big amounts in humanitarian operations and others. For the moment, not in development, but they have launched an initiative called Trade Overade, which we support as UNDP. Because if the United States says that trade is an important element of development, we agree with that. And the trade, of course, is in both directions and trade is one of the things

30:16which can lead to better development outcomes, job creation, capacity building, and so on. And then, look, the United States are one of the 193 member states of the United Nations. The political choices that are determined by domestic democracies are something we respect. Besides that, just gives the fair chance in showing what you are capable of. And I think we are capable of providing quite some value in countries that believe in economic growth, which is through the benefit of populations throughout the world. If that's the objective, I think we have something to offer. Alexander the crew. Thanks for joining us. And that was Alexander the crew, the administrator of UNDP, the UN's development program. As always, if you like the show, rate us, share it with a friend,

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