*EPF318 03/29/00
Text: Interview with Julia Taft on Non-Governmental Organizations
(From electronic journal "U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda") (2960)

(Foreign policy-makers rely on the advice provided by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to help ensure that U.S. foreign policy reflects the views and ideas of the American people, says Julia Taft, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. Taft says that "if an issue resonates with a non-governmental organization community -- which is really a community of conscience -- and the NGOs use their international affiliates and contacts, the impact is felt not only in U.S. policy, but in Europe and throughout other parts of the world." The following interview with Taft, conducted by Contributing Editor Susan Ellis, is included in the March issue of the State Department electronic journal "U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda, which addresses the topic, "The Making of U.S. Foreign Policy." The Internet address for the journal is: "http://www.usinfo.state.gov/journals/journals.htm".)

NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS: THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE
An interview with Assistant Secretary of State Julia Taft

QUESTION: How would you assess the impact of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the making of U.S. foreign policy?

TAFT: There are over a million NGOs in the United States representing various religious faiths, cultural groups, environmental organizations, social service groups, and business associations. A non-governmental organization is any non-profit, voluntary citizens' group which is organized on a local, national or international level, task-oriented, and driven by people with a common interest. We are able to reach out to these groups for advice and my sense is that they have a very significant impact on our foreign policy. Because we are a democracy, foreign policy-makers solicit the views and ideas of NGO representatives to help ensure that U.S. foreign policy reflects a broad spectrum of the interests of the American people.

Q: What are the key factors that have led to the growing size and influence of NGOs around the world?

TAFT: In some countries, we are seeing an absolute explosion of non-governmental organizations. I remember reading recently that in one African country alone there were 20,000 non-governmental organizations. Many of these were local self-help groups, just like many NGOs that started in the United States.

So, the number of NGOs is growing because people need to have control over some part of their lives. We see in the developing world non-governmental organizations trying to make decisions about common issues that affect their members in order to help them to improve their lives.

And in places where there is no well-organized government infrastructure, the NGOs themselves often play a role in self-government. So there's a real growth of NGOs, even in societies that are not accustomed to them, like the states of the former Soviet Union.

Q: In what ways do NGOs work with the State Department and other U.S. government entities in the area of foreign policy?

TAFT: The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has a formal advisory council on voluntary foreign aid. It has been in existence since the early 1950s, and it provides a way for private organizations and individuals to learn more about U.S. government assistance programs and to advise on their direction.

There is also an advisory council made up of NGOs that has regular dialogues with the State Department on economic policy.

In the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, which I head, we spend about a third of our time meeting with non-governmental organizations. They are very much partners with us in the provision of international relief assistance to refugees, as well as in assisting in resettling refugees in the United States.

In addition, there is a very active group of population and family planning organizations that have been extremely helpful to both the U.S. government and the United Nations in crafting plans of action and documents on what the world ought to be doing about making family planning more accessible.

There also are environmental groups, and now we have women's groups that are working on Beijing Plus-Five, the follow-up to the Beijing Women's Conference in 1995, which will be part of the UN General Assembly's agenda in June.

Q: Do you think the State Department is doing a good job building global partnership with NGOs? What are some success stories?

TAFT: I think the best example is where we actually work together in the field, and that is in refugee relief programs. We have staff that are assigned to work with refugees and with the NGOs and the UN agencies, and we have become really inseparable partners as we all try to work toward saving the lives of refugees.

We are also having very good success in the environmental field where NGOs regularly work with the State Department on international environmental policies, global warming, and similar issues.

There is also the extraordinary success story of the 1999 Cairo-Plus-Five Review document, which outlines progress and challenges in implementing the program of action that emerged from the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994. We worked with scores of NGOs throughout 1999 while drafting the Review, and they were extremely helpful in the negotiation of the document.

Q: In what areas have NGOs had the most influence?

TAFT: Two examples often are used to illustrate how really important NGOs are. One is the moratorium on commercial whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission. The moratorium followed an international effort involving like-minded governments working with U.S. NGOs and their regional counterparts all over the world to reduce the killing of whales in order to preserve and protect the whale population.

That same technique was used on the issue of banning anti-personnel landmines, where key international organizations and NGOs worked together, mostly through a Web site. They devised an e-mail system that extended throughout the world in an attempt to enlist signers of petitions, to develop a meaningful message, and to work on strategy. That landmine ban initiative totally revolutionized the way much of the world thinks about landmines, including the need to deal with victims of mines as well as to ban anti-personnel mines.

Those two examples demonstrate that if an issue resonates with a broad non-governmental organization community -- which is really a community of conscience -- and the NGOs use their international affiliates and contacts, the impact is felt not only in U.S. policy, but in Europe and throughout other parts of the world. Governments will sit up and listen because this is the voice of the people.

In the humanitarian field, as I indicated earlier, NGOs have a very large influence on the selection and numbers of people who will be admitted annually to the United States for refugee resettlement.

The United States is by far the world's most generous recipient of refugees for permanent resettlement. We take about 50 percent of all refugees who are referred by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for permanent resettlement around the world. And we have done this because, of course, our own country was founded by refugees, so this is part of our national character.

Every year about eight percent of the U.S. immigration quota is set aside for refugees. The U.S. government helps financially, but it is the voluntary agencies -- working with the Congress, the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and communities throughout the United States -- that are responsible for resettling each refugee.

This year, for instance, our admissions level is 85,000. All of those 85,000 refugees who come to the United States will be processed by voluntary agencies before proceeding to communities throughout the country. That has led us to listen very carefully to the recommendations of these NGOs and to see if we can meet their requested levels for admissions. If it weren't for their support, their advocacy, their understanding, I don't think we would have a solid refugee resettlement program in this country.

That being said, we have a long way to go in other aspects of foreign policy. Much of the work of foreign policy has a dimension of national security, and therefore there is less willingness to open the dialogue to people who don't have security clearances, people who are not affiliated with government.

And so, there are many issues that we address in the State Department which, unfortunately, do not have the benefit of broad debate, broad exploration, and ideas from NGOs.

My field involves global issues which have less secrecy attached to them. But I think we, as a department, need to do much more to systematically open up our minds and our ideas. We need to vet them with people who, although they are outside government, often have a very good sense of what works and what the problems are.

Q: What are the key tools used by NGOs to influence foreign policy-making?

TAFT: You'll see picketing. You'll see Web sites. Many NGOs have campaigns on issues. They all have newsletters. They all have boards of directors whose members are influential in their communities, and there are those that are an association of associations, bringing together NGOs with similar interests to form a coalition.

The largest one of that type working internationally is called InterAction, which is the group I headed before coming to the State Department. What we did to get our message out was to work very closely with all of the member organizations on the two or three messages we wanted to tell Congress that year. And all of us needed to tell Congress the same message.

While I was president of InterAction, one of the messages we sought to convey was that the United States needed to increase its foreign assistance, that the American people supported the concept of foreign aid.

We started what was known as the One Percent Campaign, aimed at explaining that less than one cent of every tax dollar goes to foreign affairs. And it really started grabbing hold. It was four years ago that we started that campaign. Unfortunately, all of the buttons and brochures that we developed at InterAction on that campaign I could use today, because foreign affairs is still less than one cent of the U.S. tax dollar.

Q: Do you routinely solicit the input of NGOs as you develop policy related to population, refugees, and migration? If so, what means do you use to do so?

TAFT: We often send out faxes to interested people saying, "Here's what we're thinking about. If you have any ideas, get in touch with us." And we use the forum of meetings in the State Department on a regular basis. For people who can't get here, for organizations that can't come, we talk by phone.

Q: Are there any reasons to discourage the influence of NGOs on U.S. decision-making?

TAFT: They are made up of citizens, and they are entitled to be heard. And that's what we try to do. However, the government must retain the right to evaluate and decide on the advice it receives. Sometimes if NGOs do not like what they hear from policy-makers, they might oppose the policy and go to Congress or to the press. But I feel that we have benefited greatly by having a regular dialogue. We don't always agree on everything, but we certainly -- at least in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration -- have been able to maintain a very solid constituency for what we are trying to do, in part because we have been informed by the NGOs' experiences and their ideas.

Q: How does the U.S. government balance the views of NGOs and other interest groups so as not to give undue weight to any one group in its foreign policy decision-making?

TAFT: We try to broaden the debate to groups with a variety of views. Very seldom are people really comfortable with bringing in opposing groups without a balance. So almost all meetings have people who represent a broad spectrum of opinions. In that way, we don't just get one viewpoint that we're comfortable with, or one viewpoint that's totally opposed to what we want.

Q: How can NGOs be more effective in their efforts to influence foreign policy?

TAFT: It seems to me that the real challenge for NGOs is to work much more extensively with their counterparts in other parts of the world, making sure that they are maintaining a dialogue, and that they are being informed about what the particular concerns and issues are in other countries. In that way, when we hear from our NGOs, they understand and can put into context their counterparts' concerns, and they can advise us about them.

I see the emergence of more of these kinds of networks of U.S. NGOs and their foreign counterparts. USAID has spent quite a number of years and dollars to help in the creation of NGOs in the developing world and in the former Soviet Union. But I think U.S. NGOs need to be very closely attuned to grassroots NGOs in other countries in order to make sure that we understand the needs of the people in countries that receive U.S. aid.

Q: What do you think can be done to raise the level or frequency of dialogues between key NGOs in the foreign affairs community and the State Department?

TAFT: Every regional, functional, or policy bureau in the State Department develops its own Strategic Plan -- a well thought-out document that outlines the main issues of concern, prioritizes them, and details how certain kinds of objectives will be achieved. I would love to see us open up a process early in that strategic planning program to test whether or not the objectives we think are important are also important to a mixture of non-governmental organizations.

We need to get think tanks involved. We need to get business and labor groups involved. We need to solicit input from any group that has a stake in international affairs. I think we could do this through Town Meetings. We probably could do something through Web sites where we would create some interactive process and say, "If you are really interested in this issue, these are some of the things we are thinking about. If you have ideas, just let us know."

We might find out that there is a great deal of interest. It has to be efficient, because we don't have the time or the people to devote to extensive consultations. But with new technology and an open attitude, it seems to me we ought to be able to do something.

Q: Where would you like to see the NGOs' role enhanced?

TAFT: We need not be timid in reaching out to these organizations, and our public outreach should be a two-way street. We want to tell them what we're doing, but we also need to get their reactions, discover what their priorities are.

Public opinion polling is sometimes very important to inform us about the priorities in the countries that we're dealing with. We need to constantly remind ourselves that policy evolves; it is not set in concrete. We think the world is pretty dynamic and that we need to be receptive to ideas about how to improve, how to articulate what it is we do in a better way.

Q: How do NGOs affect the U.S. role and involvement in international organizations such as the UN and NATO?

TAFT: The NGOs are strong partners with many of the UN specialized agencies, and particularly the humanitarian agencies. The UN Family Planning Association works with and through NGOs all over the world in its programs. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees works with and through over 400 NGOs to be able to provide relief and assistance to refugees. So there's a strong relationship operationally.

At major UN global meetings -- including the Cairo Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Women's Conference, and the Rio Summit on the environment -- the role of non-governmental organizations has been absolutely pivotal in helping to develop the plans of action, trying to raise global attention to the issue, and also providing advice and support on the best way to move the issue forward in the international arena.

The thousands of people representing NGOs from all over the world in those conferences are the same people who will maintain the advocacy, the awareness, the follow-up from those conferences all over the world. And I think that's great.

Q: Do NGOs have a role to play in the way governments interact with each other?

TAFT: I think their role is more in making their respective governments receptive to the kinds of policies that other countries will be proposing and in gaining their support for them.

Let me give you an example:

We are going to be introducing a resolution on China at the UN Human Rights Commission. We have been talking with all of the member governments of the commission about this China Resolution, and, at the same time, Tibetan organizations around the world are going to their governments saying, "We want you to support this resolution." We think it's good for governments to hear not only from us on such issues, but from their own people as well.

So human rights groups are involved in laying the groundwork for most of the resolutions in the UN Human Rights Commission by influencing their governments to do the right thing when they go to Geneva. The NGOs' basic responsibility in this area is in setting the climate, establishing priorities, and letting their governments know that there is a political will of the people on whatever the issue is.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: www.usinfo.state.gov.)
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