Why this article?

I am writing this because of several reports in a variety of newspapers and radio channels about UNDP project funding in Mauritius amounting to “greenwashing”. In making such a forceful headline-grabbing claim, and deliberately triggering a UNDP investigation/audit/evaluation, Aret Kokin Nu Laplaz (AKNL) has in my view, crossed a red line. Why a red line, I explain in what follows later. But it is a red line which forces me to voice my opposition to this move, despite and yet also because of deeply held concerns I share with AKNL about beach access, the number of hotels and IRS developments, the whole EIA process and its decisions, the degradation of the coastal zone as well as the erosion of biodiversity.

I believe that as concerned citizens, we are haplessly affected by the decisions taken by our government, parliamentarians, our business sector but also by activists – the latter particularly, in our name and for our sakes. So we need to know at the very minimum what the case rests upon and what the implications and ramifications might be. So let’s see what specific dynamics we are currently hostage to.

This article proposes to explain briefly how the case is perceived by the public, what the complaint of AKNL is, what the international institutions appealed to, can and cannot do, and – more lengthily – how AKNL’s move is a case of misrepresentation – mainly through the media – of what the issue is, mistargeting of where the problem lies and who and what to target and which therefore has the potential to misfire.

What we read and hear about this case in the press.

In researching this, what is striking is that most, if not all, of the information on this issue is sourced from AKNL⁽¹⁾. In June 2019,  announces to the Press the sensational headline-grabbing “greenwashing” investigation: Described as a first for Mauritius, the case lodged in New York in March 2019 has been accepted and an investigation/audit/evaluation will be arriving in July ⁽²⁾.

One extensive dossier, which also provides a great deal of background information over what are EIAs and interviews the main protagonists is worth focusing on for how the case is presented and how it is being perceived ⁽³⁾. It is entitled “UN investigation: are the millions destined to coastal conservation wasted?”. The Minister for the Environment asked to comment on the case, tellingly, wonders “s’il ne s’agit pas d’opposants au gouvernement qui se cachent derrière une ONG pour faire de la politique”. Yan Hookoomsing discloses further unsupported allegations, including against the UNDP Country Office. This now verges on the sordid, sadly, as well as being tainted by partisan politics. It surely is not the best way to achieve expected results. A later piece in the same newspaper broadly urges support of the case AKNL puts forward ⁽⁴⁾. So what are the demands?

What is in the written complaint?⁽⁵⁾

On 25 February 2019 AKNL addresses a letter to the President of the 4^th session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, copy to other agencies. It is seeking support from them and accuses GEF and UNDP of gross negligence of continuously channelling funding to government “coffers” “with little effective results”. It says that is well aware that “the letter might cause a cut in environmental funding” (my underline). But it declares that “business as usual” and the “total ecological massacre” created by Government-backed hotel and real estate development projects should not be accepted in Mauritius. And it states that GEF and UNDP “are failing in their mission of enabling the diligent implementation of international agreements” to which Mauritius is signatory. 

What they ask “humbly” to UNDP and GEF is to

1. withhold all funding to Mauritius immediately and review funds provided over last 15 years,

and to ask government/Ministry of Environment, among other requests, to

2. Immediately implement ESA inventory and present a “draft ESA act”, instead of the “superficial and opaque Wetlands Bill”;
3. Freeze all EIA licenses and building permits for hotel and real estate projects in the coastal zone until the UNDP-GEF project “Mainstreaming biodiversity into the management of the Coastal zone in the Republic of Mauritius” is completed;
4. Cancel amendments to the ELAT Act;
5. Cancel EIA licenses that “will destroy coastal ESAs”.

Failing which, the money should go elsewhere - «where governments are truly committed to protecting the natural heritage of their countries and to developing sustainable economies with local people at the centre: UNDP and GEF in particular must stop wasting public money”.

Now, how likely is this wish list likely to happen with the coming of the evaluators? And what will this all lead to?

What the investigation can and cannot be about.

The investigation is being handled by SECU, the Social and Environmental Compliance Unit of UNDP’s Office of Audit and Investigations. SECU is part of the compliance mechanism to UNDP’s mandatory Social and Environmental Standards (SES). SES is to ensure that social and environmental sustainability is mainstreamed in its programmes and projects, so that adverse impacts to people and environment are avoided, and mitigated where not possible to avoid, that there is full and effective stakeholder engagement, including through SECU, which is a mechanism to respond to complaints from project-affected people, i.e. affected through negative impacts of its projects or programmes.

Final Terms of Reference for the SECU0012

When one looks at the key facts, the mismatch and lack of fit between AKNL’s demands and the key questions to be answered during the investigation come out. SECU is a project-oriented mechanism, focusing on the “Mainstreaming biodiversity into the Management of coastal zone in the Republic of Mauritius project” –

• Its key questions relate to the fit between the project and the policy framework, what has been taken into consideration in developing it; whether EIA scoping and approval was part of the project, how it affects the project and in its compliance to SES.
• It is not an audit on UNDP’s financing of projects, which have to be government approved.

This mechanism cannot deliver any of the demands in the AKNL letter. There will be the investigation, the field mission in late July, the release of a Draft Investigation Report for Public Comment in September and a Final Report to the UNDP Administration and relevant units in November 2019.

What the investigation cannot do.

The use of the term greenwashing is calculated to sting into reaction those accused.

It is an absurd demand... In this narrative, it would be better not to do any small thing which appears to show that the government is doing something positive in this case. We have then the absurd situation that, not having done enough – and showing very little policy coherence to the detriment of the environment – becomes good reason not to do anything at all. The charge is not that there is adverse impact on people and the environment when the Mainstreaming Biodiversity project is implemented – what SES and the SECU are designed for. The charge is that it may be implemented according to SES but it is against the grain of the government’s practices and against the backdrop of other measures which contribute to further erosion of biodiversity. Fully aware of the current situation, this is in fact what the project is trying to address.

How AKNL will communicate on the much-hyped process it has triggered, and on its outcome, will be important to scrutinise. Let’s leave it as an open question. But its handling of past episodes of engaging with national processes urges caution about what good can be made to come out of this and importantly, what lessons will be learned.

….For a project that is not even described. The irony is that not many people outside of the direct stakeholders know what the project which has triggered this action is all about: that is, its analysis of the existing situation, its strategy and proposed actions. Yet, the answers to the questions posed by the Terms of Reference will show to what extent the project will actually be a means to respond to some of the demands of AKNL. It will be too long to address these now and I will contribute more fully some answers to the investigation process.

What could/should be done to address the issues raised?

For the moment, it is the risks that need addressing, for a move that seems to misrepresent, mistarget and which may well misfire.

Misrepresenting: The scope and terms of reference of the investigation have been misrepresented. The investigation is designed to see if the project has harmed, and if it does not produce the expected results, what is the problem with the way the project has been framed?

The project cannot deliver policy decisions for the UN System. The questions being posed by AKNL’s demands, neither the SECU and the Stakeholder response mechanism is designed to do. These questions are political and call into question the very purpose of UN in-country engagement, based on intergovernmental norms and agreements. The questions posed, on a reading of the complaint and the media campaign and the pronouncements and build-up surrounding it are

1) Should the UN System or individual specialised agencies and programmes continue its engagement in countries whose governments are not giving the issue the attention it deserves?

As a corollary, 2) Should UN agencies only work with governments that actually show diligence in implementing its programmes? 

And thus leave its hapless affected citizens at the mercy of their destructive governments!

UNDP/GEF cannot call the government to account. No amount of misrepresenting the project as tantamount to greenwashing will do that. Because no UN agency has the mandate to do this, let alone a specialised agency to a member of the United Nations, a sovereign State. It can engage in policy dialogue, but the SECU mechanism does not provide for that. And triggering a complaint is hardly the best means to get government to dialogue. It is also now taunting and accusing UNDP, either this, or that. The reputation risk is there already from the wide press coverage.

What will be the fallout, if it pulls out? So ok, suppose UNDP and GEF – which UNDP has set up with other vertical funds – pull out somehow. Who will contribute the environment support that we badly need – the capacity, knowledge that AKNL is demanding? The investigation will show how UNDP and GEF have been central to bringing and sustaining against all odds – even frustrated activists, now – the environmental management agenda since the mid1980s. It has been an ally to organisations, concerned scientists and professionals in the public and private sectors working on that front throughout. There would not be an inventory of ESAs from which to hold government into account, and whose unfinished business the Mainstreaming biodiversity project is addressing, for instance. There is also the environmental legislation in gestation since the mid 1980s: through the National Long Term Perspective Study (producing Vision 2020) to the current legislation and mechanisms, including the National Development Strategy – which does not say what AKNL says it does –; the Environment and Land Use Appeal Tribunal which it has recourse to, which it either castigates, or applauds or settles out of court over.

This is serious because it opens to the charge that civil society has little credibility, does not do its homework well and has other agendas, for which biodiversity is an instrument not an intrinsic cause for concern, and is selective in its targeting.

Mistargeting.

Targeting environmental agencies. The targeting of UN organisations working in the environment domain without the clout to ensure compliance, is troubling enough in itself. It undermines the whole agenda. And it plays right into the hands of a government and of governments across the globe that seek to get rid of this encumbrance in their pursuit of futureless high-income growth, through business facilitation at all costs, and for short term business and political gains over a short electoral cycle.

Not targeting the overriding economic policies, their prescriptions, their incoherence. If we wanted to get to the bottom of what has caused this policy incoherence, this lack of fit between pronouncements and actual practice, it is because since Vision 2020 has been formulated, there has been a ground-shaking sea change (to use a ridge to reef metaphor!). The target should really be the single pursuit of economic liberalisation policies as well as skewed and misprioritised fiscal consolidation ones. They have undermined whatever has been built up in our social fabric, used up the non-renewable environmental resources and put ecosystem services under stress, as well as further corrupted our polity. One has just to analyse the causes of the problems evoked by AKNL’s demands to see what to target. How the issue is political and is undermining our common future.

Not targeting tourism policy and strategy. The reason behind the rush to give hotel leases is because of the tourism policy of reaching first 2 million tourists by 2020, now stretched to 2030. Which means further leases for hotel spaces also, as the “enclave tourism” and “real-estate tourism” approach remains its main strategy. Because the government still has a policy of giving hotel site and IRS leases on Pas Géométriques and providing for the infrastructure for it, and that is written in all the planning documents of the overarching National Development Strategy, despite what AKNL – which does a selective reading – says. It is this policy framework and direction that needs to be high on the policy agenda, for critical review, for reshaping, and what we need to get our incumbent governments and governments or coalitions in-waiting, to address.

Selective singling out of selected hotels and sites as sole culprits. It is that clear that sand-sea resort hotels contribute to the process of coastal degradation. Yes, there is considerable and totally justified public anger about the shrinking of public access to good sandy beaches. It is at the heart of the conflicts over a limited coastline, over the amenity value of the beach environment and the reason for AKNL’s popularity. But if wetland conservation, saving the Blue Bay marine park, the lagoon water quality, the dying coral are the real focus, then the questions to be asked are what are the causes of this, where are the responsibilities? It goes beyond new hotels. It compels us to interrogate much more than that, just from the beach angle – the campement site leases, the unplanned coastal urbanisation from the multiplier effect of hotel resorts attracting other businesses, including “tourisme chez l’habitant”, restaurants, services, etc. which have proliferated. It compels us to ‘take a long hard look’ at the land use management to balance amenity and access with conservation, at how to use the lagoons, our consumption habits, our waste management, etc. etc.

Misfiring.

Where is the citizen-centric leadership to come for this, if we engage in these sterile, ill-tempered confrontations? We have to craft our vision of sustainable development from probably different ideologies and perspectives, but bring them out to deliberate together, ask the right questions, build the resilience we urgently need! So how constructively are we to do this, to bring as many voices to shape it, when excluded by demagogic populism from so many quarters? The prospects in this election year are so desolate already when one looks at what is on the table, what is on offer about a desirable future, with these red mists about to descend upon us in the next half of the year.

It is an appeal to the AKNL coalition and the broader group of supporters to avoid this misfiring and build trust. To creatively use the space until October 2019 to discuss in the form of informed, broadly shared comments to SECU. But also to come with proposals and options of what concerned citizens as affected stakeholders want, starting from how we see the Mainstreaming biodiversity project, together with other platforms of stakeholder engagement facilitating this.

Back off the red line, please!

<p style="text-align: justify;">Nalini Burn Teelock co-founded the Society for the Protection and Conservation of the Environment (SPACE) &ndash; a campaigning, awareness-raising and policy advocacy NGO in 1988. SPACE joined other groups to create SOS Plages, a coalition to campaign for proclaiming beaches public and limiting private leases. Through that commitment and in her capacity as University of Mauritius Economics lecturer and researcher, she chaired the Environment Commission of the National Long Term Perspective Study, which developed Vision 2020. She also became member of boards instituted to create nature reserves, the national park, and was on the national selection committee for UNDP/GEF small grants programme. She became a freelance, independent international expert specialising in gender equality and human rights as from 1997. Gradually focusing on State financing issues, she worked in many Asian and mostly African countries (including Mauritius), mainly for UN Women &ndash; which she joined as staff for 3 years &ndash; as well as UNDP and other UN agencies. She continues to work professionally in this area of commitment on her return to Mauritius. She worked on the social inclusion and gender dimension with the team to finalise the Mainstreaming Biodiversity into the management of the Coastal Zone of the Republic of Mauritius Project. It was a way to reconnect with and contribute to both these agendas in Mauritius, but from then on, from a civil society standpoint.</p>

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	<p>(2)<a href="https://www.lemauricien.com/article/aret-kokin-nu-laplaz-un-expert-etranger-a-maurice/">https://www.lemauricien.com/article/aret-kokin-nu-laplaz-un-expert-etranger-a-maurice/</a> Mauritius Times also focuses on the use of funds angle <a href="http://www.mauritiustimes.com/mt/our-coastal-areas-at-risk-undp-investigates/">http://www.mauritiustimes.com/mt/our-coastal-areas-at-risk-undp-investigates/</a></p>
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	<p>(3)<a href="https://www.lexpress.mu/article/354989/enquete-nations-unies-millions-destines-preservation-cotes-sont-ils-gaspilles">https://www.lexpress.mu/article/354989/enquete-nations-unies-millions-destines-preservation-cotes-sont-ils-gaspilles</a></p>
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	<p>(4)<a href="https://www.lexpress.mu/node/356707#comment-4542662851">https://www.lexpress.mu/node/356707#comment-4542662851</a></p>

	<p>(5)<a href="https://info.undp.org/sites/registry/secu/SECUPages/CaseFile.aspx?ItemID=30">https://info.undp.org/sites/registry/secu/SECUPages/CaseFile.aspx?ItemID=30</a>&nbsp; Look up the India pdf <a href="https://mauritiuscoastalzones.blog/">https://mauritiuscoastalzones.blog/</a> has a piece from Platform Moris Lanvironnman entitled Enquête PNUD, which gives details about the evaluation and the investigation, the latter triggered more specially by AKNL and what SECU is. It is written in French</p>
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