House of Commons - International Development

Select Committee on International Development First Report

THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN AFGHANISTAN AND THE SURROUNDING REGION

3. Delivering humanitarian assistance in the current crisis

Funding and the international response

16. The inter-agency donor alert for the humanitarian crisis issued on 27 September replaced the 2001 Consolidated Appeal for Afghanistan. In addition to specifying the activities that would be supported, outlining plans in broad terms and setting out the food and non-food requirements, it described the co-ordination arrangements and common services that would be put in place. It was intended to alert donors (primarily national governments) to the projected requirements for a six-month period from 1 October 2001 to 31 March 2002, and provided a common reference point for donors to respond to the needs of the humanitarian actors on the ground. It was the result of a consultative process that included the UN, NGOs, local partners and other humanitarian actors. The Donor Alert called for US$584 million for the delivery of assistance and the protection of existing programmes for up to 7.5 million Afghans. The amount required was subsequently increased to US$657 million to take account of gross food requirements. The dramatic changes on the ground in Afghanistan following the Northern Alliance's rapid advance and the collapse of the Taliban on 9 November triggered an update of the Donor Alert. The revised Donor Alert was published on 27 November and called for US$662 million, which, taking into account funds received, left an outstanding requirement for US$319 million. Due to the level of unpredictability in Afghanistan, the aid agencies began to work to a 30-day planning cycle and the updated donor alert was intended to be read in conjunction with the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Assistance (UNOCHA) 30 day plan. A new Consolidated Appeal 2002 for Afghanistan will be launched in February 2002 to cover the period 1 October 2001 to 31 December 2002 and will incorporate the original and revised donor alerts.

17. Although the Donor Alert is comprehensive, bilateral donors and NGOs have engaged in projects outside it. These mainly cover the provision of items or services that are not core to humanitarian assistance but which are nonetheless important for refugees, displaced populations and the vulnerable. Such projects might cover supplementary feed, additional healthcare provision and education services.

PLEDGES AND COMMITMENTS

18. In its memorandum, the Department for International Development (DFID) indicated that donors had pledged over $720 million to the current crisis[28]. But many donors fail to turn their pledges into real commitments and then make the cash available (see table 1). David Walker of Save the Children said "Pledges have been made which are extremely welcome, now let us see the pledges delivered into hard commitments"[29]. It is unclear why donors hold back on making commitments once money is pledged. They may want to see how effectively the early commitments are used. But, whatever the reason, it is difficult for agencies to prepare properly if money is only made available at the eleventh hour. DFID was applauded by a number of the UN agencies for being the first donor to respond to the donor alert[30]. The timeliness and flexibility of DFID's interventions was highly praised[31]. Although not making the largest contribution it had carefully reflected the crucial elements of the package that needed funding. The UK is one of a small number of donors with a good record of turning promises quickly into cash. We encourage DFID to work with those donor countries which also responded rapidly to encourage other donors to ensure that their pledges are converted into real commitments and actual money.

Pledges by Donors since September 11[32]
Donor country	Amount pledged (US$)
United States	320,000,000
Japan	120,000,000
United Kingdom	58,823,529
European Commission	38,567,493
Norway	34,693,878
Netherlands	28,159,611
France	27,298,040
Germany	23,844,786
Sweden	18,691,589
Denmark	15,432,099
Australia	11,219,513

Major Donors by Total Contributions[33]
Donor Country	Contribution (US$)
United States	108,439,283
Japan	45,367,543
United Kingdom	36,460,930
Italy	28,076,699
Netherlands	21,681,215
Germany	14,578,049
European Commission	14,127,634
Denmark	11,586,316
Saudi Arabia	10,500,000
Sweden	10,390,924
Norway	9,756,152

Table1: A comparison of funds pledged and funds committed[34].

19. Despite the high level of pledges, there is a shortage of money. The 2000 Consolidated Appeal had been only 48 per cent funded[35] and the 2001 Consolidated Appeal, launched in November 2000, was also underfunded (see table 2). Carol Bellamy of UNICEF told us that the crisis in Afghanistan, even pre-September 11, was a consistently under-funded emergency[36].

Category	% Covered
Advancement of Human Rights	9.85
Alleviation of Human Suffering	67.67
Basic Social Services - Education	57.27
Basic Social Services - Health	48.94
Basic Social Services - Water and Sanitation	2.95
Refugee Repatriation	9.58
Sustainable Livelihoods - Community empowerment	11.7
Sustainable Livelihoods - Food security	11.24
Sustainable Livelihoods - Income generation	0
Sustainable Livelihoods - Infrastructure	0.24
Co-ordination	21.34
Overall total for 2001 Consolidated Appeal	42.84

Table 2: Summary of thematic group contributions to 2001 Consolidated Appeal[37]

20. The Donor Alert only covers the period up to March 2002 when additional funding will be needed but even now, most items in the current donor alert are only part-funded (see table 3). On top of this, money will be needed to cover the longer-term reconstruction. There is a desperate need to ensure that the Donor Alert is properly funded and that pledges are converted into resources: pledges alone cannot be spent. No witness to our inquiry ventured an explanation of why donors were willing to make pledges but slow to convert them into cash. Sakandar Ali summed up the lack of funds saying "What I do know is that the money is not enough, even for the six months that we have asked for"[38].

Appealing Org.	Revised Requirements (US$)	Total resources available (US$)	Unmet Requirements (US$)	% Covered
FAO	10,100,000	2,885,000	7,215,000	28.56
IOM	42,940,000	12,327,531	30,612,469	28.71
NGOs	29,450,000	2,083,472	27,366,528	7.07
OCHA	45,279,171	14,677,984	30,601,187	32.42
UNDCP	610,000	0	610,000	0.00
UNDP	35,750,000	250,000	35,500,000	0.70
UNFPA	8,215,000	8,215,000	0	100.00
UNHCR	108,000,000	63,352,555	44,647,445	58.66
UNICEF	108,948,000	39,773,873	69,174,127	36.51
UNSECOORD	1,168,950	1,168,950	0	100.00
WFP	257,335,553	207,711,897	49,623,656	80.72
WHO	14,098,542	5,406,742	8,691,800	38.35
TOTAL	661,895,216	357,853,004	304,042,212	54.06

Table 3: UN Consolidated InterAgency Appeal for Afghanistan Donor Alert 2001 Summary of Requirements and Contributions - By Appealing Organization as of 10 December 2001[39]

FUNDING HUMANITARIAN OPERATIONS

21. Complex emergencies and natural disasters occur all over the world. The UN is often best placed to co-ordinate the international response to these crises. UNOCHA tracks the financial responses to the various donor alerts that are issued and make this information available on the ReliefWeb web site. Most of the complex emergencies that UNOCHA is currently tracking are under-funded (see table 4).

Complex Emergency	% Covered
Afghanistan	52.14
Angola	46.01
Balkans	49.07
Congo	37.17
DPR Korea	59.49
East Timor	73.78
Eritrea	59.52
Ethiopia	38.80
Great Lakes	31.48
Horn of Africa Drought	12.81
Indonesia - Maluku	31.14
Russian Federation - Chechnya	85.92
Sierra Leone	77.69
Somalia	20.63
Sudan	61.71
Tajikistan	47.08
West Africa	24.78
West Timor	58.56

Table 4: Funding of complex emergencies in 2001[40]

22. Many of the UN agencies involved in the relief effort have to seek donations from bilateral donors and volunteers to fund their operations rather than receiving an assessed contribution. Operations are jeopardised when funds cannot be raised or when pledges are slow to be converted to hard commitments. The UN is faced with an ever-increasing number of commitments around the world and is repeatedly having to seek funds from donors. It is inevitable that an element of donor fatigue will creep in as will the temptation for UN agencies to inflate their requests knowing they are likely only to receive a fraction of what they ask for. We believe it is time for the UN to review the way humanitarian operations are funded. We suggest assessed contributions providing the core funding topped up by voluntary appeals through donor alerts.

23. Shortfalls in the funding of UN operations would be easier to overcome if more resources were available generally for development assistance and humanitarian operations. The UK, along with other OECD countries, is committed to the UN target of providing overseas development assistance amounting to 0.7 per cent of GNP, a target which has been met by Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. If the OECD's Development Assistance Committee's donors had reached their target of 0.7 per cent of GNP in 2000, overseas development assistance would have been US$168.6 billion instead of the US$53 billion it actually was. We welcome the Government's commitment to moving from the current 0.31 per cent towards the 0.7 per cent target, but urge faster progress, agreeing with Clare Short that if the UK is to persuade other countries - such as the United States which provides 0.1 per cent of GNP - to move in this direction "it has to get itself into a rather stronger leading position"[41]. We recommend that the Government announces a timetable against which the UK intends to reach the 0.7 per cent target.

24. As a result of the shortfall in funding, UN agencies have to make choices about what to cut from their programmes. As funding for the WFP and UNHCR in Pakistan was cut in the mid 1990s, the Afghan refugee programme had to be scaled down and the Government of Pakistan felt that it had been pushed into a position where its only option was to close its borders to prevent refugees arriving from Afghanistan. Donors seem unwilling to learn from their mistakes.

25. Most donors have staff on the ground who liaise directly with the UN agencies. The liaison personnel not only check on how donations are being used but are also able to offer advice, and to channel requests from donor governments for information. With bilateral aid, there are moves to streamline and harmonise donor requirements to lessen the burden on aid recipients of reporting back to many donors. We recommend a similar streamlining of donor procedures in multilateral donations to reduce the burden on UN agencies particularly with regard to the large numbers of requests for additional information.

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION'S CONTRIBUTION

26. The European Commission has provided _18.5 million for the Afghan crisis and a further _15 million is to be agreed shortly. The UK provides nineteen per cent of EC funds and the UK attributed share of the EC contribution is about £3.9 million[42]. Historically, EC development policy has lacked a poverty focus and has been especially weak on Asia. Clare Short said "Part of the EU's complete failure to distribute its resources in proportion to the poor of the world is [there is] so little for Asia. In the Asia pot in their budgets they have got little. They are looking to be part of helping the reconstruction of Afghanistan and understanding quite well that the EU, which is a major source of development systems, ought to be there and ought to be helping"[43]. If the EC is to play an important part in the longer-term post-conflict reconstruction of Afghanistan it should re-evaluate its Asia aid programmes. At the very least, the Commission should ensure that the money it has pledged to the Afghan crisis is turned into firm commitments forthwith.

DFID'S CONTRIBUTION

27. Prior to September 11, DFID was working within the UN's Strategic Framework for Afghanistan[44], which provided a principled approach to ensure assistance was focused on the needs of the most vulnerable. Between 1997 and September 2001 DFID provided £32 million for emergency food, shelter, healthcare, water supplies, support for agriculture, mines clearance, education, and monitoring and advocacy on human rights. The bulk of DFID's programme was focused on providing assistance to the refugees in neighbouring countries[45]. On September 11, DFID had sixteen commitments in the Afghanistan programme, totalling £5 million, of which ten projects were supporting refugee populations in Iran and Pakistan and only six were in Afghanistan (focusing on emergency relief but also food security)[46].

28. DFID has responded well to the current crisis. It was the first donor to respond to the inter-agency donor Alert and has been, after the USA, the second largest donor overall. DFID made £25million available from existing funds on 19 September[47]. Initial grants from the £25 million included:

£1 million to UNOCHA to improve coordination
£3 million to UNHCR for refugee assistance and protection
£3 million to UNICEF for a programme preparing the vulnerable for winter
£3 million to WFP for emergency feeding programmes
£2 million to WHO for coordination, technical assistance and disease surveillance
£3 million allocated to the Red Cross

29. On 28 September DFID announced £11 million was being made available to assist the poorer communities in Pakistan, particularly those most affected by the new influx of Afghan refugees. On 1 October DFID allocated £0.6 million of the £25 million to strengthening UN security arrangements (thus fully funding the UN security operation). By 12 October allocations to NGOs had been agreed with £21.5 million of the £25 million having been allocated to UN agencies, the Red Cross movement and NGOs. A further £15 million was made available on 18 October, from the Central Reserve, to remove blockages and help the international system respond to the needs of the Afghan people[48]. A full listing of the humanitarian projects being supported by DFID at 15 November is contained in the evidence printed with this report[49]. We were impressed that there was typically only four or five days between the approval of a disbursement and the funds being made available. We visited two projects in Pakistan which were already receiving money from DFID's £11 million programme. Inevitably, where there is a need for money to be spent quickly, the scope for evaluating whether projects will benefit the very poorest is limited. The Sarhad and Lady Health Worker projects are in our view sound choices. The fact that DFID was able to channel the money to projects so speedily is a vindication of its policy of maintaining an engagement in Pakistan despite the military coup of 1999.

30. In addition to the donations in cash and in kind, DFID has provided specialists to assist the UN agencies. We understand from talking to a number of people during our visit to the region that DFID's technical contributions were and are valued as highly as the cash donations it makes. DFID's Conflict and Humanitarian Department is highly thought of by UN agencies and NGOs alike - deservedly so.

28 Ev 117, [Para 33] and Ev 121, [Annex H] Back

29 Q86 Back

30 Ev 78, Ev 85 Back

31 Ev 87 Back

32 Ev 128 Back

33 http://www.reliefweb.int/fts_dev/reports/xls/OCHA_24_551.xls at 4 December 01 Back

34 The data for pledges is taken from the DFID memorandum to the Committee dated 15 November. The data for committed funds is taken from the financial tracking data provided on the ReliefWeb web site and is sourced from UNOCHA. It was obtained on 4 December. There is not a straight read across from one set of figures to the other but they demonstrate that there is a significant difference between what is being pledged and what is being committed. Back

35 UN Consolidated Appeal, www.reliefweb.int/appeals/2001/afg/index.shtml Back

36 Q180 Back

37 The Deepening Crisis In Afghanistan, UNOCHA, August 2001

http://www.pcpafg.org/Programme/strategic_framework/The_Deepening_Crisis_in_Afghanistan_Aug_2001.shtml Back

38 Q93 Back