Migrant Odyssey

Lex Takkenberg - 30 years in the most scrutinised of all UN agencies

• stephen barden

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From the frontlines of one of the world's most enduring humanitarian crises comes a story of extraordinary dedication.  Dr Lex Takkenberg  takes us through his extraordinary four-decade journey working with refugees and displaced persons, including thirty years with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

What begins as an academic interest in international law at the University of Amsterdam transforms into a lifelong commitment when Lex joins UNRWA during the first Intifada. Through his eyes, we witness the evolution of conflict in the region - from the relatively contained stone-throwing confrontations of the late 1980s to the increasingly lethal violence that followed the second Intifada and beyond.

Lex  offers rare insights into UNRWA's precarious position between competing stakeholders. Initially established to provide relief while deflecting attention from refugees' right of return, the agency evolved into an essential provider of education, healthcare, and social services while constantly navigating accusations of bias from all sides. His account of developing "robust neutrality frameworks" reveals the extraordinary scrutiny UNRWA faces compared to other UN agencies.

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Stephen Barden:

Welcome to another episode of Migrant Odyssey. I'm Stephen Barden. Today's guest probably wouldn't normally be called a migrant, although he certainly worked in enough countries to qualify for that title. More important, Lex Takkenberg has devoted over 40 years of his life to refugees and the displaced. In that time, he spent three decades working for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees. He worked in the field in the West Bank, gaza and Syria as Director of Operations in Amman. In Jerusalem, he worked as General Counsel for the organization and finally as UNRWA's Chief Ethics Officer.

Stephen Barden:

When others would be happily retired, Lex has done nothing of the sort. He's currently a senior advisor to an organization called the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development, ardd, which is based in Amman in Jordan. He is a non-resident professor at Fordham University, is a guest speaker in God knows how many countries, has written some 25 publications and is in the process of writing two books, the first being his memoir of living in the Levant for those 30 years, and the second is what he calls a guide on organizational ethics for people working in multilateral organizations. Lex, welcome to Migrant Odyssey. Now this podcast is dedicated to my guests' personal stories and personal journeys. So, although I'd really like to hear about Anra and your work with it. Could we start with your story please? What was it in your life that triggered this lifelong dedication to the legal, human and ethical rights of refugees, and particularly, of course, to the Palestinians?

Lex Takkenberg:

for having me. It's my pleasure. In my case, the journey to Palestine started with more general work in the protection of refugees and asylum seekers. I studied international law at the University of Amsterdam and in my sort of final stages of my master's studies I became an academic assistant of the professor of international law at the time and was introduced to issues of refugee law, first through a moot court competition and then subsequently to a summer course on international refugee law at the University of Thessaloniki in Greece. And when I returned from that course in the Alton, my professor at some point took me apart and said Mr Takenberg he was very formal there's going to be a vacancy at the refugee work in the Netherlands, at one of the organizations dealing with refugee work in the Netherlands, and they're looking for a legal officer and I think you should apply. You have really the kind of profile that it takes to do that job. And then I said thank you, professor, but I still have a year and a half under my contract with you and I still have to write the thesis. And isn't it a bit early? Mr Teckenberg, you must apply for that position. Ok, professor, I will. I will do so. So I applied and, a bit to my surprise and shock they invited me for an interview and what I didn't know at the time was that he was a member of sort of an advisory council of that organization. So he had sort of strongly recommended me. So I was hired and still had to finish my thesis on the side but ended in a fascinating job. Thesis on the side, but ended in a fascinating job.

Lex Takkenberg:

And in five years I was really introduced to all aspects of refugee protection work, first in the Netherlands and then in a sort of a Western European context. I was introduced to the European Council on Refugees and Exiles and other international networks. And in my fifth year I started sort of thinking well, this is a wonderful field to work in, but I'd like to continue to work in this field internationally. And so I started looking for opportunities and obviously the logical candidate was UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the general UN refugee agency. But at the time they were sort of shrinking. You know UNHCR expands and shrinks with sort of the evolving situation and funding et cetera. So one friend who had a year earlier joined UNHCR told me well, there is not so much opportunity with us but UNRISE looking for people with a bit of a refugee protection background for a new program in the occupied Palestinian territory and why don't you apply for that? And it was before the time of internet and there had not been a formal vacancy announcement. But I followed the advice of my friend and sent an kind of open application to anrus headquarters, which at a time was was still in in vienna and was invited. I mean, at some point after a few months someone called me I think it was on a tuesday, saying well, we're interested in your profile. We need someone at short notice in Gaza. Can you start next Monday in Gaza? And I said well, I'm very flattered, but my wife is about to give birth to our second child and I have really some projects that I must finish. At the refugee council and they said don't worry, we're building up a roster of people for this program. Why don't you come to Vienna for a formal interview? And then you know if both of us are interested, we put you formally on the roster. And that's how.

Lex Takkenberg:

About a year after that phone call, I I joined anra, initially in the west bank, not in in gaza, in a program uh, indeed a protection program, a kind of pioneering protection program that anra had established in response to the uh sort of first larger scale outburst of violence after then 20 years of occupation, the first intifada as it is called, and that triggered a significant interest at the top of the UN. Even the Security Council issued if we think about the Security Council providing protection to the civilian population in Gaza and the West Bank, making use of sort of the resources in existing agencies. And, to make a long story short, that triggered kind of a program in UNRWA to mobilize international observers, but in such a way that it would not lead to an objection of Israel. You know it was not introduced as a new program but just people to sort of help UNRWA to carry out its operations under those difficult circumstances that existed from 1988 onwards. And so I joined that program.

Lex Takkenberg:

We were called Refugee Affairs Officers and it was essentially an international with a Palestinian colleague sort of being out in the fields at refugee camps and be present at places of confrontation and by simply being present with a UN flag and, you know, a UN marked vehicle and an international with a walkie-talkie, that already had a kind of moderating effect on the confrontation and also provided UNRWA with an accurate vehicle for sort of reporting accurate reporting on what was happening on the ground At the time. There was this interest at the UN top in New York. So that's how I started and got into UNRWA, initially on a five-month contract, and the five months became 31 years.

Stephen Barden:

Lex, you were 30 years old, weren't you, when you went into the West Bank.

Lex Takkenberg:

I had just turned 29.

Stephen Barden:

Yeah, so in our terms, you were a kid, basically, what was that? And it was your first time in a place of conflict. Yes, right, absolutely.

Stephen Barden:

Tell me something about what that young man saw and what he felt as he was going, because I assume you know, although you were a moderating effect, it was also. There was a fair amount, a huge amount of violence back at the time, and, and, and the Israelis were not very happy for you to be there. So what was that like through those, through the eyes of that young man, what was that like for you and what you saw?

Lex Takkenberg:

Well before my departure. I mean, I was a bit sort of anxious. The intifada in 1988, it started in December 87. So during 88, it was sort of frequently front page news in mainstream media in the West, including the Netherlands, and my colleague at the Refugee Council were a bit sort of nervous about what this young man would expect. So they gave me some training in dealing with cultural differences and you know how to deal with sort of Israeli soldiers at checkpoints. I remember that. And so I got a little bit of coaching by colleagues that had seen a bit more than me, and so I arrived there in early February 89 in beautiful spring weather.

Lex Takkenberg:

The initial impressions were like this is a warm blanket. You know, it feels a bit like being on a paid holiday, going around touring. And then one of the first things I realized yes, there was an uprising ongoing. There was, indeed there were outbursts of violence, but they were quite localized At the time. The sort of the scale of the violence, the magnitude of the violence was not as how it has evolved in later years. On the Palestinian side there were Shabab Palestinian youth throwing stones, by and large occasionally a Molotov cocktail. On the Israeli side there were soldiers that were primarily shooting back with rubber-coated bullets, sometimes with canisters with rubber-coated bullets. They were even, you know, at some point, you know, having stone-throwing machine or water cannons. It was not as lethal as it turned out later during the Second Intifada and in sort of the war since the turn of the century.

Lex Takkenberg:

So it was possible by having a presence of international officials, we were sort of encouraged to look a little bit official. I was often wearing a tie. You know it had an impact on. The soldiers were definitely not comfortable to see us and it had an impact and it was a program that, yeah, by and large, you know, was well received also by the Palestinian population. You know, yes, there were a lot of, even though the violence, the, the violence was often not lethal, there were a lot of palestinians that were nevertheless killed or injured or losing eyes or or others otherwise, you know, a lot of arrests.

Lex Takkenberg:

So there was, there was an appreciation by the Palestinian community for their sort of being UN eyes and ears who were specifically positioned in the fields to sort of, you know, be a witness, to be a presence to report, presence to report.

Lex Takkenberg:

It would often happen that, you know, if the youth were sort of intent on having a confrontation with soldiers, they would sort of barricade the roads, but when we would sort of appear a refugee camp, they would open it up. They would appreciate that there would be an international presence there. So these were some of my initial impressions, nothing too dramatic, nothing too talking, but at the same time I also realized we had to be careful with the Israelis. I mean, there could be, you know, even even at the time there was only, yes, there was still more respect for an international presence for un, the, the blue flag of the un, but there were limits to it. So we had to, you know, exercise restraint and and be cautious and be careful not to provoke a situation or make our presence, you know, be ourselves, a catalyst for intensification of the confrontations.

Stephen Barden:

Lex UNRWA has always been held in some suspicion, if you like, particularly by those nations who feel it's their moral duty to support Israel, right or wrong. That must have made it very difficult when you became more senior, when you, in terms of trying to get support and and alliances outside well, unrwa has has, uh has been many different things to different people, to different stakeholders.

Lex Takkenberg:

When it was the Americans who were instrumental in the initial establishment of UNRWA as an attempt to deflect attention away from the initial quest for a solution by means of return of the refugees to their original homes, as was recommended by the UN mediator for Palestine, and then, after the mediator was assassinated for making that recommendation, his recommendation was sort of taken over by the UN General Assembly at a time in late 48, in the famous Resolution 194. And then when the Americans, who were chairing a so-called UN conciliation commission for Palestine that took over the role of the UN mediator, tried to sort of convince Israel to take refugees back, they quite rapidly discovered that, you know, this run, this was a red line for the, for the new Israeli, for the, for the government of the of the new Israeli state, as they were, you know, keen on on establishing a firm Jewish majority, and refugee return would run counter to that. So the Americans shifted gears in the summer of 49 and were looking for an approach to integrate the refugees into the host countries, territories and host countries where they had ended up in the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank Jordan, syria and Lebanon predominantly and they needed an agency to manage that. At the same time, the initial relief effort, the initial humanitarian effort after 48, after May 48, was implemented by a number of international NGOs and towards the end of 49, those NGOs informed the UN that they were no longer ready to continue that as it went beyond their capacity. So the US took the lead to create a relief and works agency relief as a term standing for humanitarian assistance as continue to be required, and works as large-scale public works schemes to try to integrate the refugees into the economies of the host countries and then eventually to legally, you know, integrate them into the societies, so that pressure on return.

Lex Takkenberg:

So that's how UNRWA started. These large scale work schemes, you know, were met by suspicion by both the host countries and refugees themselves, so never got off the ground. But the refugees continue to be there and needed humanitarian support. And so the relief became an expanded humanitarian operation including basic education, comprehensive primary health care services, later also vocational training, ongoing relief and social services and in later years support for improving refugee camps and infrastructure works, microfinance protection and whenever there was renewed conflict, also emergency services. So that became anras sort of you know uh modus operandi after the initial years of its establishment. So, on the one hand, uh for the americans and and even, you know, for the americans funding the agency. This was part of their sort of cushion of support for the newly established state of Israel. You know, by taking care of flashpoints and potential resistance, they saw it as an extension of their support to Israel.

Lex Takkenberg:

Initially, israel had not so much to do with UNRWA before the Six-Day War. It's only after it occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank that UNRWA came in sort of that Israel came in direct contact with UNRWA. And it was Israel, it was actually the then Defense Minister, moshe Dayan, that proposed to the Israeli government, to the Israeli cabinet, to request UNRWA explicitly to continue its humanitarian operation Once, because under international humanitarian law, otherwise Israel would be obliged to provide such services to the occupied population, and also because UNRWA was by and large seen as being sort of a moderating factor. Yes, resistance came from the refugee camps, from the refugee camps. But even realizing that, you know, the refugee camps were potential hotbeds for resistance, you know, making sure that at least the population at large was fed, educated and provided with health care, you know would generally be seen as a moderating factor.

Lex Takkenberg:

So that's how the UNRWA-Israel relationship started and it became a bit of sort of a hatred-love relationship over the years, with, on the one hand, the Israeli security establishment sort of seeing UNRWA as this stabilizing factor, but on the other hand, they're also realizing that UNRWA's workforce you know, the educators, the medical staff, the social workers, the counselors, the logistical support staff, et cetera the engineers were all Palestinian refugees themselves. So it was only, you know, 1% of the staff that was made up of expatriates, you know. So it was not really seen as sort of a neutral UN agency from that perspective. So and yeah, that also extended when Israel had criticism of the sort of the agency's neutrality. That was also picked up by a number of the Western donors. So, yeah, that gives you a little bit of the atmosphere in which UNRWA was required to operate.

Stephen Barden:

So how did UNRWA and how did you know because I assume you were also involved in part of this how did you make sure that there was a sort of not a neutrality because you were there to look after the Palestinians but also that there was not, that it did not do the things that the Israelis accused UNRWA of doing?

Lex Takkenberg:

UNRWA was put in a more defensive position with respect to neutrality following the 1967 war. It started with scrutiny of the textbooks that UNRWA was using in its schools. These were textbooks of the host countries. Upon the recommendation of UNESCO in the early days, unrwa decided to follow the curriculum of the host countries in its schools to facilitate upward mobility. When kids came out of the basic and primary cycle they could continue in the secondary cycle and, for those talented enough, to go to university in host country universities. And uh and so andro was using the local textbooks.

Lex Takkenberg:

And uh and uh textbooks always sort of are never neutral and reflect sort of the state of affairs that a country is in. So the egyptian and jordanian textbooks being used in Gaza and in the West Bank, you know, reflected the absence of peace and so Israel sort of demanded sort of a censorship of the textbooks. And Israel got involved in that not just because of UNRWA but also because it directly administered the education for non-refugee children in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank. So that was the first area of, you know, first bone of contention and forcing UNRWA to partner with UNESCO in of acts of terrorism or involvement with terrorist organization. Initially the different factions associated with the PLO during the civil war in Lebanon and in the West Bank and Jordan. The lead up to Black September and in much later years, you know, the involvement of staff in Gaza and to a lesser extent, in the West Bank with Hamas became an issue. So in the decades that I worked with the agency I've seen the agency sort of develop a robust sort of neutrality framework that after some of the earlier Gaza wars, was sort of formalized in a written document sort of summarizing all the different steps the agency takes in terms of hiring staff, in terms of training staff, in terms of standards of conduct, in terms of social media training and other neutrality-related trainings, to neutrality of installations, neutrality of vehicles, neutrality of operations, all the different measures that the agency took and recognizing and I mean the US and Israel and some Western donors, owners required UNRWA to take measures to prevent being involved in sort of terrorism and terrorist acts and support of terrorism. And UNRWA always pointed out that you know there is no international definition of terrorism. These are all national lists and standards, national uh uh lists and standards.

Lex Takkenberg:

But as a, as a humanitarian actor like other humanitarian agencies both in the un and outside the un, uh, unrise, held by the four humanitarian principles, which include, you know, neutrality, uh, in addition to humanity, operational independence and impartiality. And so UNRWA has sort of framed its operations and couched its humanitarian, you know, management in the framework of the sort of humanitarian imperative, and that's how it has also explained it to its staff. You know, yes, the staff are Palestinian. Refugees are part and parcel of the unresolved conflict. Many of them are victims of, you know, human rights violations at the hands of the Israeli occupation.

Lex Takkenberg:

But as an organization we have to maintain neutrality to maintain the trust of our donors, to safeguard the security and protection of our staff and the people we're trying to help. So that gives you sort of an insight in how UNRWA has dealt with that sort of difficult challenge. And UNRWA has been under more scrutiny than any other UN agency operating wherever in the world. You know, with respect to this neutrality requirement and independent reviews. You know have assessed that, yeah, unrwa safeguards and management of neutrality, you know, goes beyond anything that other agencies have in place.

Stephen Barden:

And you must have dealt with both the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority and, I assume, logically, you logically the various governments of Gaza, both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, later on, at least under Mastaf. What was that like? Because you had, it must have been very difficult trying to work with all of those three, and they were all warring in many senses, weren't they? Because Hamas was warring with Palestinian authority and Israel was warring with both of them. That must have been very difficult on the one hand, and then I just want to add a little more complication to that. One is that UNRWA, when it's working with Palestinians outside Gaza and the West Bank, when they do do that, when they worked in Amman and places like that, there must have been a conflict there as well, because the Palestinians wanted to go back home, right, right. And therefore you know, any infrastructure, any, any permanent infrastructure that you were trying to put up would have caused them to think what on earth are you doing?

Lex Takkenberg:

You're trying to stop us going back home. Lots of complications, right, lots of conflicts. Well, I mentioned that. You know, unrwa represents different things to different stakeholders In the other host country.

Lex Takkenberg:

I worked for quite some time in Syria and indeed there is this expectation that, yes, the refugees are there, they are hosted, but they are entitled to return. This is firmly enshrined in international law. Firmly enshrined in international law. So our operations in Syria were constantly sort of looked against the perspective from both refugees and host authorities as to, you know, does this not jeopardize the right of return? Does this not amount to permanency, to integration, to tautin in Arabic, which is sort of settlement, and in particular, work that I was involved with myself, also as a senior manager when I was deputy field director and then field director in Syria, to more structurally improve living conditions for refugees that were still accommodated in very substandard conditions in some of the refugee camps, in army barracks that you know, that had been turned into refugee shelters when the refugees first arrived in the early 50s and initially the government was quite sort of reluctant and the refugees were reluctant to embark on more systematic improvement of housing conditions. But then we sort of made clear that, you know, even improving housing would not jeopardize the rights of the refugees to return. Even if refugees get a better situation in the present doesn't take their future or the historic doesn't jeopardize their historic claims and rights. So I have never, you know, I worked my initial 70 years in field management and went to headquarters in 2005. So I never was involved in managing Gaza and the West Bank during the Hamas years.

Lex Takkenberg:

I was there in, you know, after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and that was initially a period of hope. We really sort of, in hindsight, naively thought that the Oslo Accords would be the prelude to a more permanent political settlement leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state. And yes, I was in Gaza during the Arafat years, from the summer of 94 until I moved to Syria in early 2000. Move to Syria in early 2000. And yeah, that was a period of sort of nation building, of possibility, even of some projects where Palestinians and Israelis would come together as doctors, as educators, as social workers. Quite a promising period. I celebrated my 40th birthday in Gaza and it was possible at a time to bring some Israeli friends who would get an escort by Palestinian police from the main checkpoint with Israel to my residence in Gaza at a time and spent a couple of hours there and then they were escorted back.

Lex Takkenberg:

So it was quite a different period. It was sort of trying to figure out the modus operandi with the Palestinian Authority for a big UN agency to decide, you know how UNRWA's continued existence would fit with the. You know the desire of the Palestinians to establish some sort of a government and how the refugee, how support for the refugees, would fit into that. So it was a very different era and things started to change after the turn of the century when the second Intifada started, which was much more violent and where Palestinians also had guns and had guns and you know, through the imports of small arms that Israel had allowed to support the Palestinian Authority and that's when things started to deteriorate.

Lex Takkenberg:

And then when Hamas sort of won the elections in 2006 and took control of Gaza, and you know when the elections were then annulled in the West Bank and you know the then when Hamas engaged in armed attacks on Israel and that triggered the various wars, yeah, that made the situation much more complicated for the colleagues in Gaza and put much pressure on this sort of neutrality management.

Lex Takkenberg:

And then, as humanitarian actors, do you know, uh, uh, for humanitarian operation to to function, you have to engage with whoever has authority on the ground, so the UN, you know, on the ground.

Lex Takkenberg:

So the UN, you know also, even though there was sort of a no contact policy, you know, instilled by Western donors and UN leadership with respect to political engagement with Hamas, that had been, you know, was seen as a terrorist organization by, you know, israel and a number of Western countries, you know there had to be contact with the de facto authorities and, by and large, my understanding is that went quite okay, quite okay, subject to, obviously, the difficulties and the, you know, the fallout of the different wars when pressure on Hamas was put up by Israel. And then, you know, unrwa had to become involved in recovery and reconstruction operations, and then the challenges were also that UNRWA was criticized for its local staff unions being sort of seen as being affiliated with Hamas or being populated with staff that were sympathetic to Hamas, and so this added an extra layer of complexity to an already difficult humanitarian sort of situation to be managed.

Stephen Barden:

Yeah, and inevitable, I imagine. So was that the background to your being appointed chief ethics officer, to sort of get everything into line and to make sure that it was clean internally and externally? Was that what it was all about?

Lex Takkenberg:

Yeah, I mean, it was not a reaction per se to the sort of these specific UNRWA challenges, to the sort of these, these specific UNRWA challenges, uh, uh. What happened after the uh UN convention against corruption was adopted is that, you know, member states were sort of demanding from the UN you know, uh, act as you preach. You know you're preaching, uh, you're preaching, uh, uh member states to take serious measures against corruption and to promote integrity. So make sure you also have internally your house in order. And in 2008, the the UN established, you know, the UN secretariat established an ethics office, and and then, a year later, the funds and programs coming under the authority of the Secretary General were also instructed to establish an ethics office.

Lex Takkenberg:

And at that time I was UNRWA's general counsel and was sort of initially designated ethics officer in addition to my other functions, and that sort of coincided with a period that I, for medical reasons, wanted to sort of take a step back from sort of senior leadership.

Lex Takkenberg:

So I sort of was asked whether I would be willing to set up a full-fledged UNRWA ethics office.

Lex Takkenberg:

And so I took that opportunity and, of course, as UNRWA chief of ethics, I focused on the generic integrity challenges that a large organization has, preventing conflicts of interest, training staff about sort of integrity, standards of conduct, developing an unrest specific sort of ethics handbook, as we as we did.

Lex Takkenberg:

But then of course I also played a key role in the neutrality related aspects of ethics training. I developed an e-learning course on neutrality and social management sorry, on social media, because during one of the wars, pro-israeli organizations discovered that a number of UNRWA personnel had resorted to social media to ventilate anger with what had been happening in Gaza, and a small number of them, in doing so, had sort of crossed the border of what was sort of acceptable and, you know, resorted either to anti-Semitic tropes or to calling for violent resistance. And of course, for UN was for anra. This was embarrassing, and so then the organization you know decided to train the entire workforce on responsible use of social media. And that was that was something that that I was instrumental in, in developing and, you know, a combination of e-learning, of in-person training for for managers, you know, for a couple of thousand managers in UNRWA.

Stephen Barden:

So those kind of things, yes, it strikes me as somebody who's who's been fascinated by organizations and worked with organizations all my life, that in an organization such as UNRWA, which is so deeply involved in trying to make the lives of people better, if you like, that the model of neutrality is one that is possibly out of date. If it means you call it out the breaches, you call it out wherever you are, then that's right. That is neutrality, isn't it? It's almost equity, isn't it? It's that equity, that balance, that you basically say I will call it out wherever it is, whether it is in my own people, whether it is in the people that I'm looking after, or whether it is the people I'm protecting my people from, if you like, in other words, the Palestinians and Israel. Call it out. That, I assume, is the model you're talking about, is it?

Lex Takkenberg:

That's the starting point. But, especially after I sort of left, and I also realize and and, as we have seen, that israel has and, and pro-israeli organizations and and governments have sort of instrumentalized anti-semitism to sort of silence criticism of Israel. You know, neutrality in the UN context and in particular, how it has been implied to UNRWA it's also been to sort of silence UNRWA from being more vocal with respect to Israeli violations and sort of silencing Palestinians from speaking out, including Palestinian UNRWA staff from speaking out, etc. So, yeah, it started from that, you know, as I said, from the humanitarian principles, but it has effectively been sort of instrumentalized to sort of help, you know, silence criticism of Israeli practices. Yeah, it's been, uh, and that, that's that's very clear. You know it has almost been, yeah, weaponized and and, and, uh.

Lex Takkenberg:

I've even realized myself, as someone who has written as an academic during my three decades with the agency, how, how, in retrospect, I was still part of a kind of humanitarian framing that prevented, you know that constrained my thinking about the conflict, the place of the UN in the broader question of Palestine and so forth. You know it took several years after my retirement before I, you know I became sort of more, you know, I was able to express my, my real views on the matter more, more articulately and more, more, uh, coming more from, from, from a, from a position of principle, yeah, can I bring it up to date just briefly because, again, as I know you're going off ardd.

Stephen Barden:

What is it, what does it do and what are you doing there?

Lex Takkenberg:

ardd is a jordanian ngo, uh dealing with social justice issues in j and, by extension, in the Arab world. It started very, very simply as an organization providing legal aid to refugees and other migrants in the kingdom. It was established by two Jordanian-Palestinian sisters, both lawyers, who had done some work with Oxfam and who realized with the Iraqi refugee crisis that a lot of Iraqis needed legal aid that was not provided by existing humanitarian organizations or not in sufficient quantity and quality. So they decided to establish their own NGO and they, quite you know, rapidly became a implementing partner of UNHCR providing legal aid. We're talking 2008, the Iraqi crisis, as I mentioned. Then, quite rapidly, they saw that you cannot pursue social justice only through the court. You also have to engage in advocacy, in building capacity for people to claim their right, in doing research, in doing networking partnerships. And this coincided with sort of the Arab Spring, and they realized that a lot of that more structural work you could also only do in a regional setting, you know, working in partnership with similar organizations in other Arab countries. And so the name of the organization changed from Legal Aid Jordan to Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development, and it's almost like a mission statement. The Renaissance that stands for sort of peaceful transformation. Both, you know, renaissance in Arabic, al-nakhta is sort of both transformation that the Arab Spring aspired to achieve, but also referring to an earlier period of Renaissance, in the 18th and 19th century, from where the organization took inspiration and they sort of started to work towards this transformation in the direction of democracy and development by dealing with the various building blocks access to justice, including gender justice, social protection, gender and youth empowerment, migration, forced displacement, statelessness and then, when they gradually added uh, after after the organization was a decade old, they also added a think tank, and when the think tank was added, they they recognized that you know, the unresolved question of palestine was, uh, one of the open wounds in the Arab soul and psyche preventing this broader Arab transformation.

Lex Takkenberg:

And at that time, I had become friends with the founder of the organization, and so it was at a time the Trump actually pulled for the first time, funding from unrhyme 2018 and had, just a few months earlier, decided to move the embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem and sort of stirred up you know the whole uh status quo with respect to, you know, the the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, that I was asked to help sort of develop a modest program on the question of Palestine, an initial workshop on sort of the you know, the Trump or the US sort of attack on UNRWA at the time Trump or the US sort of attack on UNRWA at the time and from that workshop we established a program for reflection. We created a global network on the question of Palestine with Palestinian, arab and international experts working on the broader Palestinian question and especially, one of the initial objectives was to get the question of Palestine back also onto the Arab agenda, you know as much as it had fallen off the international agenda before the attacks of 7 October 2023. It had also fallen off the Arab agenda. You, you know there was sort of the push towards normalization. So one of the objectives was to get, you know, arab intellectuals, you know, more engaged on the palestinian question. So that's my, that has been my, my role. I'm I'm remotely uh, coordinating that program on the question of Palestine as part of this broader organization.

Lex Takkenberg:

It's a very well-managed local organization that has developed a great reputation to implement projects on time and within budget and as a result of that, it has managed to get a good portfolio of different donors. It was also affected by the Trump assault on USAID, but not, you know, only for one of their programs. You know they have a good diversified portfolio of donors and it's really a privilege to work for the organization. We have just opened, also an affiliate NGO in Europe Euro MENA Initiative for Democracy and Development. So it's sort of a sister.

Lex Takkenberg:

You know it's a daughter of ARDD. And so it's sort of a sister, you know it's a daughter of ARDD. We just had an inaugural workshop in Amman and a lot of interest from also Western governments in what we're trying to do, offering a kind of platform for dialogue that, contrary to a lot of the existing main app programs, is not originating in Europe but rather originating in the Arab world and in the main app region itself. So, yeah, that gives you a bit of a flavor what ARDD does. And so ARDD, almost from its establishment, has had a very strong link with issues of migration and forced displacement.

Stephen Barden:

So it's clearly a perfect subject, or perfect subject of interview for this podcast, isn't it?

Lex Takkenberg:

Well, that's what I believe, and I think I've mentioned to you in one of our earlier connections that it would be great for you to talk with the founder of ARDD, samar Muharrab, who was a true visionary Arab leader. I think you would find it interesting to hear from her.

Stephen Barden:

I would love to. I would love to, so I'm looking forward to your introduction to her With pleasure.

Lex Takkenberg:

With pleasure.

Stephen Barden:

Lex, thank you so much. This has been a delight. The pressures of trying to keep so many different interests and so many different conflicting interests going, if you like, or managing those, when you were at UNRWA must have been extraordinary. Your dedication has been extraordinary and is well documented. Thank you very much and we will hopefully keep in touch.

Lex Takkenberg:

Thanks again for the opportunity. It was my pleasure and I look forward to staying in contact. Thank you.