 How do you persuade someone to stop bombing civilian areas? Not to recruit children as soldiers, or that they shouldn't raid villages to pillage the only food supply? There has never been a greater need for effective advocacy for the protection of civilians in conflict and crisis. But how do we do this protection advocacy? What skills and techniques can we use? How can we identify decision makers? What tactics work? And how can we manage risks? Welcome to the Advocating for Protection podcast, where we bring you the real experiences of advocates in conflict and crisis. In each episode, you'll hear from those who are lobbying in the corridors of the UN buildings in New York. Those who are face-to-face with armed actors at the front line of conflict zones and everything in between. They will tell us about their personal experiences, their successes, but also the challenges and how they overcame them. This podcast comes to you from the Global Protection Cluster's advocacy working group. Please be aware that it contains discussions of violence, abuse and exploitation faced by civilians in conflict and crisis. Good afternoon, good morning, and welcome to the Advocating for Protection podcast. My name is Roshin Mangan, and today I'm representing Save the Children, who, with Oxfam, co-chair the advocacy working group at the Global Protection Cluster. Today, I'm joined by two Oxfam colleagues. Abdul Wasim Mohamed. I'm Abdul Wasim Mohamed. I'm the policy and advocacy manager at Oxfam in Yemen. I'm based in Sana'a. I have been working with Oxfam for the past four years now in Sana'a. And before that, I was working on the development settings. And away before that, I was also working in Sokotra Island in the tourism field. But six to seven years after the conflict, I had two shifts to working in the humanitarian sector. And yeah, I've been doing this work now for the past four years with Oxfam. And Lawrence Robinson. My name is Lawrence Robinson. I'm protection and hunger policy advisor with Oxfam International. I concentrate largely on conflict, the conflict and hunger agenda, and the connection between food insecurity and protection. I've worked a little bit in the New York space before, so I'm excited to be talking about some kind of UN advocacy techniques and what protection of civilians week looks like, and how this year's event went. Great. Thanks, Lawrence. And that's a great segue into actually what we're going to be discussing today with both of you, which is the protection of civilians week or POC week in New York. However, maybe before diving into the POC week, I think it would be great to hear a little bit about your experiences, what motivates you, how did you get into this line of work? So maybe, Abdelwasa, you can start. As you may know, you know, the Yemen has been suffering conflict for the past nine years now, and it resulted into devastating crisis where we have up to two thirds of the country or the population are dependent on humanitarian assistance and also being affected myself from the conflict because when the conflict started, we didn't have anything to do, actually, and I consider myself as a resilient person and, you know, speaking some English and also I want to believe that myself, I have the heart of an advocate and I always do this on a personal level and I saw this opportunity with Oxfam and I thought this could be me and I could do this. What I liked about this work, also the values that are being demonstrated by Oxfam and I felt that I fit in and I can do this work and yeah, I have been doing it for the past four years now and traveling across Yemen, it's a challenging environment but it is really, you know, when you know that you are doing good and you are there to support people who are in need and also, you know, most of what we do in terms of advocacy is creating spaces and also doing our best to advocate at national level and also external level and I would like to say, you know, Oxfam is one of the prominent NGOs who are doing this, you know, in terms of advocacy and we are able to do a lot in terms of, you know, ensuring people's voices are heard at national and also at external level and yeah, we hope we'll be also able to do that moving forward. Yeah, I think that's so interesting, Abdel Wasa, what you're saying about you being affected yourselves and then how you can then give back and advocate and then obviously the link between national and international is where you come in Lawrence around what motivates you to be in the global advocacy space? What do you think your, you know, your work is really contributing to the likes of Abdel Wasa's advocacy at the ground? For me, it's exactly that. So how do we build those connections to try to achieve some level of impact? Obviously, we're working in really challenging environments and very different environments and we need to try to utilize a whole range of spaces from New York to local, national, political contexts to regional spaces with regional mechanisms. So for me, it's all about building those connections and using different kinds of expertise to try to work out what our goal is and then use our different skill sets to try to achieve that. So for me, I have some background in New York advocacy. I've worked with a number of different civil society organizations including coalition building organizations that work in New York to try to achieve, for example, steps forward at the UN Security Council or when we don't have action at the UN Security Council or steps forward in the UN General Assembly can we filter down some of these opportunities to those that don't have access to New York, typically? So that's typically where I feel like I'm useful sometimes is being able to bridge a little bit between those, the actions happening at the local, national level and then where can we achieve some things at the regional level, at the international level? Yeah, and I think Oxfam is very, very good at linking that critical piece which kind of brings us up, you know, you're talking about the New York spaces and being able to leverage the New York spaces. Lawrence, can you tell us actually what POC week is for maybe those who don't know? Yeah, so protection of civilians week takes place in New York every year and it's basically a week dedicated to quite practical and I'd say constructive discussions on the theme of protection of civilians which is a dedicated kind of topic on the UN Security Council agenda. They have an open debate on protection of civilians, the Secretary General briefs, there's a Secretary General report on protection of civilians which is meant to be sort of this like comprehensive reporting mechanism on the state of protection of civilians across all the different contexts. So it includes important figures and trends on the degree to which civilians are being affected by conflicts, the degree to which they're being actively targeted, the targeting of medical facilities, infrastructure for food security, a whole range of different topics related to how civilians are being affected by conflict. Then within that open debate, you have many different member states even beyond the UN Security Council come in and make a statement and then you have side events on a whole range of topics depending on what's interesting to civil society UN agencies and member states and like we worked on on conflict and hunger which has sponsors from a whole range of member states, UN agencies and civil society all coming together to agree we need to tackle this issue. So whereas the UN Security Council often talks about country specific issues on its agenda, this space is a bit more, it takes a bit more of a step back and looks at the kind of global trends. Over to you, Abdulwasa, in terms of what Lawrence is talking about is a wide spectrum of side events all on thematic topics. However, you came from Yemen to obviously elevate the protection needs and the protection concerns from Yemen. So can you maybe tell us a bit why you think it's effective, why you think it's useful and why you prioritized it? I think being in New York where everything or they say it all happens there, it is really a great opportunity for me especially in terms of prioritizing, I thought this is a great opportunity for me not only to share my perspective but also to ensure that the perspectives of Yemenis is also included and also I've been speaking to many civil society leaders, different communities, I was visiting IDPs, the internally displaced communities and also trying to understand from them and also to hear for their concerns and their views and also what they need to happen in terms of decision making and a forum like the UN Security Council is the best place for this and also I managed to engage and take part in a couple of events in line or they reflect the situation in Yemen like the conflict induced hunger. It was really great to see the level of participation from the different missions and also member states and also it was really great to hear other experiences from other contexts including context of conflict where experiences were shared, also I managed to an extent to share the issues and also the concerns from the communities in Yemen and also the mechanisms and the interventions that we do at Oxfam to elevate the suffering of the civilians. Also it was a good opportunity to pressure for action, for next steps, more things need to be done and actions need to be taken by the leaders at the UN Security Council and it was really a great opportunity to communicate the concerns of the communities and also to pressure for action. Yeah and I think that's the key word, action because I mean I was also a POC week where I had the opportunity to meet you and the big question I think is exactly what you're saying Abdelwasa is what's the action? So it would be really interesting to hear what does Oxfam do to really move some of these discussions that happen at the POC week forward? I reflect on this question quite often because often as advocates we're sort of encouraged to try to have these short term change goals over the space of a year you create like a one year advocacy strategy with you're going to try and achieve X goal or within a certain space of time you're going to try and move influence one actor to take X decision sometimes I believe one of the privileges of working for an organization like Oxfam is you get to take a little bit of a step back and look at the situation a bit of historical perspective and think critically about okay what will make a difference here so I'd say primarily one of the opportunities around protection of civilians week is to contribute what you can a little bit towards crystallizing strengthening some of these norms that we talk about international norms it's a really unsatisfying advocacy objective because it's so intangible but just the fact that you're contributing to the conversation and widening the broadening the consensus around discussions on human rights in a space like the UN Security Council the chances to interact with people on the margins have those side conversations have some bilateral meetings and then have the opportunity to follow up with them afterwards that's I think where the impact happens is that we can have meetings with different member states on the side we can build off of the conversation we can talk about what needs to happen next and I'd say that's one of the key themes that I noticed particularly within this year there's so much consensus around the obstacles we know that often the UN Security Council is paralyzed or it's unable or I'm willing to take action so in most of the conversations you hear discussion on ways to move that forward even from member states themselves we need to explore new mechanisms be that at the regional level through UN General Assembly perhaps through the group of friends on particular issues we have outcome documents from these things that we can point in reference to and we can work with those member states afterwards and within coalitions that are created actually during these events we can work within those to push the conversation forward and just maybe before moving on can you explain what group of friends is or what the concept is just in case anyone doesn't know essentially it's groups of of like-minded states that support a particular issue so for example there's a group of friends on conflict and hunger that includes a number of states that support the UN Security Council Resolution 2417 and want to see it implement it better and Abdulwasa I'm very curious to hear from you in terms of you were saying that pre-you leaving for New York you went and you consulted with communities consulted with different civil society experts consulted with Yemenis that maybe can't leave what happens when you go back from New York and everybody is scrambling for I assume asking you how it went and what's the outcomes but I'm really curious to hear from you you land back and then what happens well yeah you can imagine the level of excitement that people would have to hear the news what happened there for me in terms of bringing that experience back with me to Yemen and explaining the whole thing that happened the processes and what I was also able as an advocate because it was a huge responsibility on me that I have to carry all these messages and concerns and perspectives of the civil society and the affected communities as well to ensure that diplomats are aware or that we're trying to push them and also policy makers in New York to make sure that the UN Security Council resolutions are taking seriously and I have tried as much to link that to what's happening in Yemen because warring parties have always acted with impunity and also the UN Security Council members should do more to hold the conflicting parties accountable including the conflict induced hunger which is a huge crisis in Yemen. I have always tried my best in all these meetings to ensure that policy makers are aware or they are hearing the voices from Yemen the perspective including on the peace process for example that Yemenis want a lasting peace need more action from the UN Security Council and from all member states to ensure that protection of civilians is prioritized and also that access to services is always prioritized by the conflicting parties because to be honest for civilians civil society and also the activists that have been talking to people they hear that the UN Security Council is concerned this politician is concerned about what's happening but people need to see action I think we just need to keep knocking the door and keep pressuring those politicians the different targets the powerful nations to ensure that they are doing what they have to do to ensure that people are getting what they want that's why I always made sure that the people I meet around here in Yemen I assure them that I have delivered the message and I ensure that the international community take concrete measures but we will keep the pressure on that and also to support the flow of commercial supplies and to do something around addressing the economy, deteriorating economy and also the access to food and the fight needs to continue and as advocates we can never be relieved until we are sure that something out of these meetings is becoming fruitful and that the voices of the community affected people is always heard by these politicians and I think that's such a hot topic these days how do we make sure the affected communities are central to these discussions and I think your experience of consulting, moving delivering the message and then feeding back is an incredible example of how that global and national and regional levels as you were saying Lawrence should be connecting just I'm curious around a question around obviously the POC week it has a number of different side events we're talking about a number of different things from conflict-induced hunger to attacks on healthcare to access that protects just wondering Lawrence how do you pre POC week really prioritize what Oxfam is going to lean in on and maybe you could talk us a bit through what the preparation looks like for that yeah it takes a lot you really do need that access to New York to have the connections to understand what events are going to happen what are the main themes of POC week a lot of that isn't really transparent in the beginning and it's not all online so it is really helpful to have access to connections with different organizations and agencies who are present in New York with that access to try to get a sense of the lay of the land and then you can have those discussions with your key colleagues organization and with other allies on what to prioritize we used our kind of representative in New York and our connections there and other allies to do that we have a bit of a brainstorm amongst ourselves we have to think carefully as well like is this still a space that we are going to achieve some impact in it to what degree is it worth investing time and resources in it we have to be really critical about that we have to think about that because there's always an opportunity cost that we could do with that budget or with that time and resources elsewhere so we have to think that through but for us at least for this week we did think it was critical to engage particularly to ensure that we have Abdul Weser's voice and the voices that he's supporting from Yemen in these rooms to make sure that those perspectives are represented this space is not typically one in which affected communities are all that present you have the UN Security Council which doesn't include any kind of dedicated seat right to civil society we see more and more civil society briefers come in which were supported by different member states which is encouraging and you see that happening more and more but the side events are great in terms of actually having member states those that take some kinds of decisions at the international level on these topics that they actually get to hear from affected communities and those representing them if I look back at this year and what we were thinking we were looking at the context humongous levels of conflict induced hunger we knew that in this year's POC week that they were going to that was going to be a primary theme so we thought it being important to be there not with really specific change goals or anything like that but to be in the room so to make those connections to our partners, local level partners and colleagues in countries and in regions so that then we can build on that further for example in the conversations on conflict and hunger to try to, as advocates to try to make sure there's a continuity of conversation between New York and other regions between New York and other kind of policy spheres on okay well what does this resolution mean what can we do with it how can we actually implement it in practice and that's one of the key things resolution from the UN Scrooge Council or anything doesn't necessarily mean anything until it's implemented on the ground ultimately these are statements pieces of paper and things that need to be implemented I mean you've set a huge amount there and I think maybe just back to you Abdulwasa in terms of preparation priorities so you have global colleagues like Lawrence deciding and working with collective colleagues figuring out what the priorities are matching it with the actual advocacy priorities of the member states talking to the New York colleagues and you're there in Yemen can you maybe just explain to us then what's your preparation and prioritization look like you know you were talking about going to consult the communities but what does it individually look like how do you prepare for some of these conversations you had Yemen is a very challenging environment to work in and when it comes to priorities either access or funding shortages or fuel crisis or protection of civilian crisis land mines a lot of devastating issues that are you know sometimes recurrent sometimes you know they just come out of the blue and we have to deal with them we have also climate change crisis as well in Yemen you know we have floodings that thousands of people get affected and I want to mention here what a colleague a civil society colleague has mentioned you know the importance and the significance of NGOs like Oxfam you know where we have all these resources and we have colleagues like Lawrence and other colleagues in New York and in Washington DC who always you know spare no effort to create spaces for us but also for the civil society organizations speakers, leaders sometimes we're able also to secure spaces for civil society speakers to brief the UN Security Council which is a very important sip because she believed that the narratives are always competing there it's always either you know conflicting parties who are trying to push with their narratives and the international community they don't have that much of an insight of what's really happening in the ground and this is you know one of the ways where we come reach that gap and ensure that you know we are bringing the ground realities and we are bringing civil society speakers and to share their experiences to provide their observations and also their anecdote information about what's really happening and what also the perspective of the communities themselves how they want to see things moving and what they want also to see the international community doing the level of dedication from colleagues has been really outstanding in which you know myself and the civil society managed to meet with a lot of you know different missions different officials they were very interested to know more about what's happening and having opportunities like this is really great and it brings the ground reality and it's also stresses the urgency of the level of action that is needed to ensure that people are protected and the team was really perfect for this and I think that's great wording to end our session today I mean you're talking about bringing communities up to the New York level having incredible collaboration with New York colleagues both internal and external to Oxfam today we attempted to talk about and to share what POC means for Oxfam and for us as humanitarian advocates who work on protection of civilians I really want to thank both of you both Lawrence really was able to provide that global understanding and I think Abdulwasa you know your messages and your quest for making sure that those spaces are being held and the platforms are correct for the right people so I think thank you both so much I've really really enjoyed our conversation and maybe for those who are interested in you know understanding more about POC week you can go to the UN Occia website thank you so much thank you thanks thank you for listening to this episode of the Advocating for Protection podcast it's produced by the Global Protection Cluster's Advocacy Working Group which is co-led by Save the Children in Oxfam and includes members from National and International NGOs and UN agencies you can find out more information about the Advocacy Working Group on Global Protection Cluster.org look out for the Protection Advocacy Toolkit whilst on this website and if you have feedback or suggestions for future episodes email us at protectionteamatoxfam.org