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Norway's Whole-Of-Government Approach and Its Engagement With Norway’s Whole-of-Government Approach and its Engagement with Afghanistan Cedric de Coning, Helge Lurås, Niels Nagelhus Schia and Ståle Ulriksen Department of Security and Conflict Management Affairs International of Institute Norwegian Security in Practice 8 · 2009 [NUPI Report] Publisher: The Norwegian Institute of International Affairs Copyright: © Norwegian Institute of International Affairs 2009 ISBN: 978-82-7002-259-5 Any views expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. The text may not be printed in part or in full without the permission of the author. Visiting address: C.J. Hambros plass 2 d Address: P.O. Box 8159 Dep. 0033 Oslo Norway Internet: www.nupi.no E-mail: [email protected] Fax: [+ 47] 22 36 21 82 Tel: [+ 47] 22 99 40 00 Norway’s Whole-of-Government Approach and its Engagement with Afghanistan Cedric de Coning, Helge Lurås, Niels Nagelhus Schia and Ståle Ulriksen Executive Summary Norway has been a prominent supporter of the UN’s Integrated Ap- proach and has actively contributed to the development of NATO’s Comprehensive Approach. Norway’s own whole-of-government ap- proach has, however, been limited to its engagement with Afghani- stan. There is already a growing body of literature on the whole-of- government approach. Surprisingly little has been written about Nor- way in this context. This report represents a first attempt at compre- hensively explaining the Norwegian whole-of-government approach, as well as and analyzing its effectiveness to date. In order to establish the basis for a comparative analysis, the first part of the report provides a brief introduction to the history of the whole- of-government approach. Amongst others, the report features short discussions of the approaches followed by Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The second part of the report exam- ines Norway’s whole-of-government approach within the Norwegian foreign and defence policy contexts. The report then explains the Norwegian approach as it applies to Afghanistan in general, and to the Norwegian Provincial Reconstruction Team in particular. The third part is a comparative analysis of the Norwegian approach, where the strengths and weaknesses of the Norwegian model is considered by contrasting it against some of the other country experiences intro- duced in part one. The rationale for a national whole-of-government approach is greater effectiveness. It is driven by the assumption that a government’s for- eign engagements will have a more meaningful and sustainable impact when the various government departments involved pursue a common strategy, have a shared understanding of the problem, a common the- ory of change, and an agreed plan for implementing such a strategy. We have found that Norway lacks a comprehensive strategy for en- gaging in fragile states in general, as well as a whole-of-government strategy for any particular country, including Afghanistan. The report recommends that Norway consider adopting a law, or high-level pol- icy document, that make it a requirement for Norway to have a na- tional whole-of-government policy towards every country where it is engaged in initiatives related to peacekeeping, peacebuilding or con- flict resolution. 6 Cedric de Coning, Helge Lurås, Niels Nagelhus Schia and Ståle Ulriksen The report recommends that such Norwegian whole-of-government strategies be limited to the higher strategic level. This will provide space for operational and tactical flexibility so that the Norwegian go- vernment can pursue coherence with local and international strategic frameworks, while also remaining flexible to changes in the situation on the ground. The report express concern about the negative effects a Norwegian whole-of-government approach might have on the special relationship between the Norwegian government and Norwegian civil society. The report recommends that a forum be established where Norwegian civil society and government can regularly engage each other on issues re- lated to the country’s international engagements, and its whole-of- government approach. There is a significant fissure between policy commitments to an inte- grated or comprehensive approach, and the challenges of navigating the real-world dilemmas that decision-makers face when trying to co- ordinate multiple independent agencies. Despite the significant policy- level initiatives undertaken internationally, and in Norway, to facili- tate an integrated or comprehensive approach, this coherence dilemma remains characteristic – not only of Norway’s engagements – but in- deed of most peace, stability and reconstruction operations today. Table of Contents 1. Introduction.......................................................................................9 2. The Whole- of-Government Approach..........................................11 2.1 Canada.....................................................................................13 2.2 The Netherlands......................................................................14 2.3 Sweden....................................................................................15 2.4 The United Kingdom ..............................................................16 3. Norway’s Whole-of-Government Approach ..................................19 3.1 The Norwegian Foreign Policy Context .................................19 3.2 Norwegian Defence Policy Context........................................21 3.3 The Role of Civil Society in Norway’s Foreign Policy, Development and Humanitarian Interventions .......................23 3.4 Norwegian Policy Coordination on Afghanistan....................25 3.5 Norwegian Policy Implementation in Afghanistan.................28 3.6 The Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) Model ...............29 3.7 Foreign Policy, Development and Humanitarian Policy Action......................................................................................33 3.8 Rule of Law and Policing .......................................................34 4. Critical Analysis..............................................................................37 4.1 Lack of Strategic Policy Planning...........................................37 4.2 Process vs. Structure ...............................................................39 4.3 The Tension between National and International Coherence.40 4.4 The Tension between Strategic and Operational Coherence ..42 4.5 Local Context and Local Ownership ......................................43 4.6 Relationship with Norwegian Civil Society ...........................44 5. Conclusion ......................................................................................47 Bibliography .......................................................................................49 1. Introduction Peace and stability operations are managed more effectively when the interdependency and interconnectedness of the political, security, governance and development dimensions of these operations are rec- ognized. On this point there is broad consensus, both internationally and in Norway. Various models have been developed, including the Integrated Approach and Integrated Missions concepts by the United Nations (see for instance Eide et al., 2005; de Coning, 2008), the Comprehensive Approach by the European Union (see Gross, 2008) and NATO (see Jakobsen, 2008), the Effects-Based Approach to Op- erations (EBAO) among NATO member states, including the United States (see NATO, 2007a & 2007b; Mann & Endersby, 2002; MNE, 2008), and a range of Whole-of-Government approaches, of which the best known is probably the original Canadian 3D (Diplomacy, Devel- opment and Defence) concept (see Patrick & Brown, 2007; OECD/DAC, 2006). Norway has been a leading proponent of the UN integrated approach and an active supporter of NATO efforts to develop a comprehensive approach, including in Afghanistan where Norway leads a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). It would thus only be natural that others should expect Norway to have an advanced approach to integration, and that the international community would be interested in how Norway manages its own whole-of-government approach. It may seem odd, however, that many studies and reports that compare differ- ent whole-of-government approaches do not deal with the Norwegian model.1 One reason could be that surprisingly little has been written about this, whether by the Norwegian government itself, or by the re- search community. It may well be the lack of available data that has resulted in Norway not being covered to the same extent as Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada and others. This report aims to address this shortcoming by describing how the Norwegian whole-of-government approach works, and by making a The authors would like to express appreciation to all the respondents who granted insights and views, both in Norway and Afghanistan, as well as the Ministry of Defence for fund- ing the research. The authors are all associated with the Department for Security and Con- flict Management at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). 1 Neither of two of the most comprehensive and authoritative reviews (Patrick & Brown, Greater than the Sum of its Parts? Assessing the ‘Whole of Government’ Approaches to Fragile States, (2007), and the 2007 OECD/DAC report on Whole of Government Ap- proaches to Fragile States) includes Norway. The countries covered by the studies are
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