Nicholas Kristof has an op-ed in the Times about the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar (Burma). This got me thinking about what the UN might be doing, and in particular about the rights-development link. In India, I had a chance to visit Chhattisgarh State, where the Indian government confronts a Naxalite insurgency. The UNDP and UNICEF were active in this region and others facing civil unrest, working to bring relief to both sides and to make resolution of the conflict a priority.

I was surprised, therefore, and quite disappointed to find essentially nothing on UN websites about the Rohingya in Myanmar, outside of the UN Human Rights and Refugee machinery. Nothing at all in the UNDP Annual Report; the UNICEF Report briefly mentions "Internally Displaced People" in Rakhine State (the epicenter of the problem) but says very little, and never mentions Rohingya specifically. Evidently, back in 2014 UNICEF used the word "Rohingya" in a report and may or may not have apologized to the government! (Update: It appears the Secretary General himself has been asked not to mention the Rohingya publicly.)

This is at odds with the proclaimed goals of these agencies, which make promotion of human rights -- all human rights -- part of the very definition of development in their work. But its also a reminder of how political these issues really are. In my India research I spoke with a highly placed UNDP staff person who claimed that she would be just as willing in Laos (her former post) to bring up rights, as she was in India; and the former Resident Representative insisted he too pushed for rights everywhere he worked. But there are, evidently, exceptions. What is surprising is that this is true even with Aung San Suu Kyi as effective head of government, as Kristof points out. I'd like to think that these agencies are pushing behind the scenes for change, but its not at all clear that this is the case.