Brev till IEC från sju sektioner 11 april 2000 Underlag till styrelsemöte 1-2 maj 2000

Brev till IEC från sju sektioner 11 april 2000



Dear Mahmoud,

On the 8 April an informal meeting of representatives of sections Boards and Staff of seven sections (*) was held in Brussels, to discuss commonly held serious concerns regarding our movement.

The participants at the meeting emphasized how much we all value the work done by Amnesty International staff and activists throughout the world. Without such dedication thousands more human rights victims would suffer torture and death.

However, today a large organisation cannot survive and be effective without being willing to address hard and even painful issues. Trust and mutual support are vital ingredients to enable meaningful constructive criticisms to be received and subsequently addressed effectively. We sincerely hope that the following points will be received in this spirit and that subsequent dialogue will reinforce our solidarity...

As sections we are stakeholders in our Movement, and as stakeholders we have brought some concerns to the attention of the IS and the Secretary General over recent months. We consider though, that these concerns are symptoms of three broader key issues, which are: quality, planning and management. The overall responsibility for addressing these concerns and finding and implementing both short term and long term solutions must lie with the IEC. It is our responsibility to highlight below from our perspective how as sections these concerns affect us in our work on behalf of the international Movement, and support the efforts of the IEC to address these issues.

I. The first area to be spot-lighted is the research capacity and output of the IS and related issues of quality control. We want to address what we consider to be substandard work in the area of research as highlighted by the recent campaign on Saudi Arabia and the forthcoming campaign on torture. While recognising the difficulties involved in information gathering on Saudi Arabia, we find the 19 page report "Secret State of Suffering" to include very little new information. Furthermore, the report makes sweeping allegations which, while no doubt true, are inadequately documented. There is only one page on arbitrary arrest and detention; four pages on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, of which two pages are devoted to judicial punishments. Is this enough to really make the case? (see also footnote 1).

The adequacy of research for sections’ campaign and other needs has been a major concern as has been the lack of creativity and ingenuity in the information-gathering process, analysis, research output and insufficient coverage on too many countries. Beyond that, accuracy of research has been identified as a problem by some sections. We also believe that the IS could be more flexible in its use of the research capacity in sections and in commissioning research from non-AI professional sources.

On the Torture campaign, the strategy discussions happening now (largely, we believe, as a result of section concerns about the lack of an overall strategy for the campaign) should have happened over the course of the last three years. Terribly ill-informed decisions about the campaign were taken in the IS, without section consultation; even contrary to IEC direction (ACT 30/01/94 states that the IEC decided on a major campaign on Torture which would include a “major report in the form of a manual for action.”) For the past several months some of us have been in discussions with the IS about the need for just such a document. As a consequence of an IS decision not to produce such a document, several sections were recently asked to choose in an ad hoc manner without any further information between a delay in the launch of the Torture Campaign or a substantive launch document! This was a wholly inappropriate choice with which to be faced. While we acknowledge and appreciate the current efforts to do what is possible within the timeframe of an October launch, we remain concerned about preparations in the IS for the campaign. One such concern relates to the state of country strategies' preparation and how they will link in with the (three) umbrella issues-prevention, impunity and discrimination-outlined in the 15 March 2000 letter from Vincent del Buono to Section Directors and Campaign Coordinators. A related concern is the regularity with which other planned actions in the Action Planning Bulletin are delayed or postponed.

We are aware of difficulties in the IS and underscore the importance of increased allocation of resources.

II. Our second concern relates to our preparedness and the response to crises. Notwithstanding the latest efforts, the general feeling among some sections is that our answers in general are too late, and not fast, flexible and innovative enough to be relevant. It makes us wonder how much progress has been made on crisis response work in the six years since the Rwanda genocide 6 years ago. We believe the political leadership and planning response to crises has been insufficient. Are we sufficiently prepared to be a leading information source and to communicate adequately should a major crisis start now? For several of our sections, concerns have been raised to the IS repeatedly, such as Kosovo and Chechnya, but it took too much time to know whether they have been heard. We also need urgently to adapt our communication programme to have more impact in the outside world.
We are having an increasingly difficult time projecting exciting campaigning program in our appeals for financial and membership support. Improvement in the preparedness on crisis work and planning on major campaigns, such as the agenda for the 40th anniversary and the next theme campaign, should start now.

III. The above issues have been raised by sections with the IS, sometimes quite vigorously. We feel that the usual section-IS route for finding solutions to problems and concerns may be close to exhaustion. There is a growing realisation amongst our sections that there are underlying leadership and management issues that must now be addressed by the IEC without further delay. These issues include strategic and operational planning, financial management and development, and a variety of personnel issues, which would in large part be the task of the SMT.

One concern involves fundraising. We are fully supportive of the fact that the IS has made fundraising a stated priority. However, we feel that more attention needs to be given to translating that priority into daily operations. Several of us have experiences with the IS which raise questions about how the IS understands its role in relation to section fundraising and section assessment payments to the IS. As AI's fundraising work world-wide becomes more sophisticated, sections need more specific and timely information about program plans and expenditures.

Another concern is the more general feeling that section needs are often not heard and understood or responded to at the IS. Complaints or concerns of individual sections are often indicative of a broader experience of sections; some of us perceive our attempts to address these issues in a constructive and timely manner as being brushed off as the concerns and complaints of merely one or two sections not shared by the rest of the movement The reason we are signing this letter jointly to the IEC is to counter that impression, and we believe that many more sections share our concerns as well.

While some of the above issues may be addressed in various program reviews underway, we do not feel that these issues can wait until the next ICM for action. The research and campaigning concerns are, in our view, not primarily ICM policy-type issues. They need immediate and concentrated attention right now. We cannot afford to wait another 2-4 years for these problems to be corrected.

In summary, we realise that many of the issues raised above are complex and that solutions may not be immediate. However, we feel they are extremely important enough to address, beginning now. The consequences of not successfully resolving them are so profound that we believe nothing less than AI's future is at stake.

We are not in a position to decide how you should address these concerns but we recommend that the IEC take a far more active role and exert greater leadership in ensuring that management provide the appropriate level of quality and quantity of products, including research; that planning be done more effectively and that the servicing needs of sections be more fully met. Our perception is that some of these problems have derived from the lack of clear standards and processes of accountability at all levels of the organisation. We therefore call upon the IEC to see that staff are held accountable to management, management to senior management, senior management to the IEC itself, and the IEC to the movement as a whole. We expect the IEC to provide the movement with an efficient and effective IS, including the necessary management level monitoring and performance appraisal at SMT level, as well as overall personnel development strategies.

We believe that with firm resolve and good faith these problems can be addressed and our movement greatly improved. For our part, we feel that there is a role for the sections (e.g. Section Directors Forum and meetings of Section Chairs) to assist the IEC and SMT through dialogue and other forms of cooperation. We look forward to working closely with all of you toward that end.


Kind regards,


(*) France, United Kingdom, USA, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium (fr and fl)