How I learned to write a "Note Verbale"

Greetings people. I am posting a somewhat amusing document written by a former academic who is now a UN political officer in Khartum. The intended audience for this paper was a group of newly graduated phd students who started work at the UN. The paper contains some useful lessons on working at the UN but also explains the usefulness of the note verbale, the french equivalent of our revered memo. All you need to know about writing a memo and policy implications contained in a couple of pages. Who needs all those 501 lessons?

I am putting this up for people who might be interested in working at the UN even though some of the stuff said (ie. you will never take credit for your work!) is relevant for all major bureaucratic organizations. I also thought this might be good procrastination material. Finally, I am putting this up in order to educate people like Darren who clearly have a lot of learning and growing up to do. (You are welcome...!) Enjoy!

NB. This is copyrighted material and should be treated as such.

How I learned to Write a ”Note Verbale”

By Musifiky Mwanasali[1]
United Nations Mission in Sudan, Khartoum

My brief for this workshop is to share my views about how academics need to learn to speak to policy makers. I am here to talk about my experience about the difficulties I once faced (and still do) as a (quasi-)academic moving to the policy world, and what lessons I have learned on how to “translate” academic knowledge to policy practitioners and, since translation is a reciprocal transaction, how to respond to the exigencies of work in the policy world in a non-academic language.

Verily, verily, as a dear friend of mine who used to be in this very situation would say, I can’t pretend to give any advice or insights, let alone offer guidance or a treatise on the skills you as young academics can use in your aspiration to make a difference in the policy world. All I can do is reflect, in retrospect, on some of the lessons I learned, often the hard way, when I joined the policy world and began interacting with colleagues and supervisors who, in the academic world, could have as well been my students.

The views I will now express are personal and subjective. Look at them as anecdotes informed by my experience as a ‘practitioner’ working for the Organization of African Unity, which became the African Union in 2002, on issues in an African context. The “note verbale,” that glorious piece of diplomatic communication which I have chosen as the title for this presentation, is emblematic of the challenges I first faced when I joined the policy world. It is a very simple piece to write: no high school degree needed for it. But my new supervisors dealt so roughly with my first note verbale that I learned very quickly, and with shock, the uselessness of the Chicago Manual of Style! I must admit that I have since stopped reading it. I learned many other lessons along the way, on notes verbale and such, and I even became quite adept at drafting very good ones. But that first draft, I still remember it.

What else have I learned that I can share with you?

You shall take no credit for your work

Academia is about production, acquisition and dissemination of knowledge according to agreed protocols (methodology, verification, universal applicability, etc) in recognized or accredited settings. The policy world is about experience preferably acquired in the “real world” regardless of how it was acquired.

Academic titles are supposed to convey appreciation for the degree of intellectual maturity one has achieved. Research pieces are always full of (self-) references, and a bibliography testifies to the author’s scholarship. There is little or no equivalent in the real world. Quite the contrary, there may be a certain resistance to “intellectuals,” often accompanied by derisive comments on (in my case) “consultants”: “They hold higher degrees but have no clue of what our work is all about!”

Lesson learned: You shall not flash those little two or three words and a dot that precede or follow your names (until you are fully integrated; by this time it shall be too late to do so, anyway). Since yours will always be “drafts” that you will submit to your supervisor for approval, you should resign yourself to claiming no credit for your work.

Think outside the box, act inside it

Creativity and imagination (“innovation”) are a key to professional success and personal fame in academia. One can write about the ‘State and the Crisis in Africa’, or the ‘Crisis of the State in Africa,’ or even the ‘African State in Crisis.’ One can go a step further with a title like the ‘Vampire State in Africa.’

Some friends in the think-tank world (this is the subject for another workshop) are fond of contrasting “hegemons,” like South Africa and Nigeria, to “Lilliputian states,” like Swaziland and Lesotho. Experts have written extensively about the balance of power in international relations. Even among African governments, there is a (rather tacit) recognition that some countries are more important than others in the defense of the interests of the continent. But in the world ruled by the sacrosanct principle of sovereign equality, there are no hegemons or Lilliputians.

The fifty-three member states of the African Union do not seem to feel uncomfortable with the fact that only five of them should shoulder three-quarters of the organization’s annual budget. But these ‘free-loaders,’ as it were, have fiercely opposed any attempt by the “big five” to control a representation in the structure of the organization proportional to their assessed contribution.

During the debate on the Protocol on the Peace and Security Council of the African Union in 2001-2002, the Lilliputians of African politics soundly defeated every attempt by the hegemons to create a category of permanent (i.e. the hegemons) and non-permanent members of the fifteen-member quasi-Security Council for Africa. In the end, the organization settled for a rotating system of five members sitting for three years, and ten for two years. And in the African representation in the UN Security Council, one will easily find Lilliputians seating alongside hegemons, as is the case at the moment.

Relevance, not elegance

This is by far the major pitfall academics talking to policy makers should avoid. It is about “redacting” excellent analytical pieces but trivial or impractical policy recommendations. Academic sophistication in explaining the world is not readily digestible by a policy world hungry to transform it. Policy-makers expect ‘actionable recommendations.’ Most of what academics write about doesn’t generally meet that need.

Structural adjustment or investments in farming and agricultural production may be an elegant and “tested” framework for economic recovery in a post-conflict society. But the reality is, people who lived through a civil war are very unlikely to abandon the practices that helped them survive economically for an elegant policy framework that is unrelated to their daily struggles. The poppy seeds rural economy in Afghanistan is an example.

Some years back, a debate raged in some think-tank and academic circles about what was known as “economic agendas in civil wars.” The initiator of the project, a respected economist, academic and policy wonk, was (rightly or wrongly) accused of obsession with theoretical elegance in his effort to unveil, with econometric modeling, economic grievances at the roots of civil wars.

It’s all about member states!

Consultation is a word one often hears, and consultation is what one is expected to undertake at all times. No policy recommendation can fly if it is not acceptable to member states as a whole, the Hegemons and the Lilliputians alike.

The African Union Constitutive Act condemns unconstitutional changes of governments. The coup d’état tops the list of such acts. But member states refused to include in the same category attempts by incumbents to change the constitution in order to extend their tenure in office. Also, they fiercely resisted the inclusion of electoral fraud as usurpation of power, a form of coup d’état and therefore an unconstitutional change of government.

Government reactions to putschists are also informative. During the constitutional crisis in the Comoros, nearly the entire membership of the Organization of African Unity refused to recognize the government of Colonel Azali and pushed ahead with sanctions. But in Madagascar in 2001, when Marc Ravalomanana seized power from President Ratsiraka, whom he accused of election rigging, the OAU was split in the middle. Ironically, the same governments which strongly opposed Colonel Azali’s coup in the Comoros took sides for Marc Ravalomanana - the one who unseated an incumbent - and recognized him as duly elected head of state.

Obviously, governments have their own interests – agendas. So do bureaucrats, you might add. Yes, but who doesn’t? Who would you prefer to deal with: those whose agenda is clear and known, or the ones who claim to be objective in a policy environment where everyone knows or suspects everyone else of harboring ulterior motives?

Constructive Ambiguity

You may be asked to draft statements that intend to convey the impression that something is being done about a certain situation when it is actually the opposite. In ordinary language, “we are monitoring the situation” simply means we are doing nothing about it. “Extensive discussions” could mean that we spent more time on procedural matters than on substance. And “comprehensive solutions” may not be as they sound.

Constructive ambiguities are generally used in an attempt to accommodate competing positions. In trying to satisfy everyone, nobody truly is, and whatever decision is reached cannot be implemented.

“Protocols” are intended to be operational, but some are notorious for their absolutely confusing meaning outside the small circle of those who drafted them. Take the Protocol on Abyei, the oil rich area in Sudan. The country is now debating the delineation of the line separating the north from the south. Abyei is hotly disputed by both the north and the south. But the Protocol for Abyei cleverly considers it “a bridge between the north and the south, linking the people of Sudan.” But where is Abyei: in the north or the south?

Forget the Chicago Manual of Style…

…and the esoteric jargon of your discipline. C.Wright Mills (I believe) once wrote a damning piece on sociospeak. Do heed his counsel, and more. You decide the audience you write for and the purpose of your publication, and this decision influences the level of analysis and the terminology used. Often, this is an audience of your academic peers.

Writing for a policy audience is quite a different task. Preference should be given to short pieces, of one or one page and a quarter. Even for reports, the length is usually set in advance (“not more than 8000 words”), and the words are not always of your choosing. In the OAU, colleagues were fond of ‘deploy efforts’ or ‘it being understood.’ In the UN, there may be no paragraph (and a lengthy one) without ‘including.’

As for the style: the audience may not have the same level of conceptual sophistication. Make every effort, therefore, to shun the jargon of your discipline and write (or speak) in a language that is understandable. It will help immensely if one uses the language of the audience. Doing this would guarantee your consultancy for ever.

Pay attention to the meaning of your words. Advocating “structural conflict prevention” sounds great and trendy, but member states rarely admit to having domestic troubles and when they do, they are often allergic to “external intervention.”

By way of conclusion

Academia and the policy world serve different yet complementary purposes. Each performs useful functions in society. Each is subject to a set of rules and procedures that legitimize its purpose in society. The goal should not be to conflate them or make one subservient to the other. The ideal - and the challenge - is how to help the two worlds communicate and enrich each other. This is a challenge for both academics and policy makers.

I specifically talk about my experience in the OAU/AU. A dear friend of mine, who was once a professor before joining the OAU and the UN, and now back in academia, pointedly reminded me that as someone who has worked in both the AU and UN (as I continue to), almost everything I said on the OAU/AU applies, mutatis mutandis, to the UN as well: whether it is the anti-intellectualism, the fact that you are not supposed to claim credit for any papers that you produce, let alone put your name on it, the very suppression of the use of academic titles, the philosophy that the member States are king and queen and so the Secretariat is just that, that is, subservient to them and their agendas, the bureaucratese in which reports are to be written (forget the Chicago manual...), the fact that the majority of freeloaders are not uncomfortable with only a handful of states paying three-quarters of the budget (for the UN: US, Japan, Germany, etc.) but resist every attempt by the big contributors to influence all major decisions by the organization. All this is just as true of the AU as of the UN.

I point this out, so that I don't give the impression I am hammering away at the African Union and that your experience will be totally different in the UN. A standard education requirement for UN jobs in political affairs often reads as follows: “Advanced university degree (Master's or equivalent) in Political Science, International Relations, Social Science, International Economics, Law, Public Administration or related fields. A first level university degree with a relevant combination of academic qualifications and experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.” In practice, this means (1) Ph.D. in Political Science is not really required, and (2) a young (or old) Ph.D. joining the organization without ‘a relevant combination of academic qualifications and experience’ could be hired as a P-2, which is the beginner’s level.
[1] The author takes sole and full responsibility for the views expressed in this piece.