WORLD BRIDGE BLOG

Assessing President Obama’s first 100 days in office is all the rage in the United States, especially given the high expectations created by his election and the ambitious agenda that he set for his new administration. But the mainstream media are unlikely to apply humanitarian criteria, so it is left to Refugees International to make an initial assessment.

The President has changed the tenor of the U.S. approach to the world, and this has humanitarian ramifications. Obama, joined by Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Gates, has been stressing in multiple public settings the importance of development assistance, humanitarian aid, and diplomacy, in addition to military action, as tools for U.S. engagement and problem solving. The administration’s special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, has relentlessly emphasized the importance of addressing chronic poverty and the vulnerability of displaced people in both countries as part of the overall U.S strategy in the region.  

Both Obama and Clinton have made conscious references to the need to resolve Iraq’s massive displacement crisis, recognizing that creating conditions for safe return is fundamental to the long-term stability of the country. In the case of Sri Lanka, the administration has abandoned the Bush administration’s reluctance to publicly criticize the government for pursuing a military victory over the Tamil Tigers at the expense of Tamil civilians and has issued strong statements calling on both parties to allow them to find safety outside the conflict zone.

The change in message and tone, however, amounts to meaningless rhetoric without the resources to back it up. Here, again, the signs are promising. The administration’s supplemental funding request, just submitted to Congress, includes significant additional funding for refugee programs, with an emphasis on funding for Gaza and for displaced Iraqis. If the supplemental goes through as requested, the State Department’s refugee bureau will have nearly $1.8 billion in resources for FY09, a remarkably high figure considering the overall budget difficulties that the U.S. is facing.

For UN peacekeeping, which is critical to protecting civilians in the midst of conflict and post-conflict transition periods in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan, the administration has requested more than $800 million in the supplemental to close gaps and pay off arrears. Further, the President intends to submit a foreign affairs budget that includes full U.S. funding for its multilateral peacekeeping obligations in FY10, abandoning the Bush administration practice of submitting requests that it knew were inadequate, then relying on supplemental funding to make up the difference.

What is puzzling in this context is the slow pace of appointments for humanitarian positions in the administration, which is in sharp contrast to its performance in the diplomatic and economic arenas. The U.S. Agency for International Development still does not have an administrator, and the key humanitarian departments within the agency are hobbling along with rotating and/or acting staff. Obama has just announced the intent to nominate Eric Schwartz as the Assistant Secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, but it will be at least another month before he is able to assume his post.

Therefore, for major policy decisions everything is on hold. There are tough issues to tackle: overall foreign aid reform; appropriate strategies to advance development and human security in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq; U.S. policy on responding to internal displacement; how to provide more effective support to returning refugees and internally displaced people. The Obama humanitarian team needs to be in place as soon as possible to start moving on these and many other challenges.

Evaluating an administration at the 100 day mark has been a convention of U.S. politics since President Roosevelt used the period as a challenge to his administration to take radical action in the face of the Great Depression. In the lifetime of an administration, however, it is a mere blip. So while the overall signs are encouraging, the administration hasn’t come anywhere close to facing a defining challenge in the humanitarian arena. As President Clinton learned in the face of the Rwandan genocide and President Bush learned in the face of Darfur and Iraq, taking the necessary steps to relieve massive human suffering, especially when created by conflict, is no simple matter.

Will the Obama team be ready to overcome a challenge of this magnitude? It is impossible to say, but like their predecessors, they will be judged on results.