Examination of Witness (Questions 211-219)
THURSDAY 20 MARCH 2003
COMMISSIONER POUL
NIELSON
Chairman
211. Commissioner, thank you very much for giving
us time on what we know is an extremely busy day, and thank you
for moving the meeting forward. It enables us to get back to London
before Brussels gets closed down, so we are also grateful for
that. As you know, we are the development committee of the House
of Commons. We are conducting an inquiry on trade and development
aspects of Doha and we obviously have some questions we would
like to ask you on that; but may we trespass on your good will
by first asking you a bit about Iraq? Last week we published a
report on the possible humanitarian consequences of conflict in
Iraq, and I have to say that we are fairly pessimistic. We are
concerned that insufficient attention has been given by the coalition
to the humanitarian consequences of conflict in Iraqa country
where two-thirds of the people are already on food aidconsiderable
problems as the Oil for Food is suspended, and we are concerned
about what happens to internally displaced people. We heard Chris
Patten on the UK radio saying that those who break the china in
the china shop have to pay to repair it. I think by that he was
talking about the reconstruction costs in Iraq, rather than the
humanitarian costs. It would be helpful to have your steer on
what the Commission is doing or how you see the role of the European
Union now in any humanitarian plan in Iraq. We would be very grateful
for that.
(Commissioner Nielson) I am absolutely prepared
to cover that. The first point, wethat is, the Commission,
which is also the European Union but a more narrow and more purely
humanitarian-defined aspect of whatever the EU ishave been
present as a donor inside Iraq, carrying out complementary activities
to the Oil for Food programme over all the years. The level of
spendingquite classical stuffon water, basic health,
service activities, focussing on vulnerable groups, and again
not overlapping with the Oil for Food programmewas at a
level of 13 million
annually, carried out through European humanitarian NGOs, and
the Red Cross/Red Crescent organisation. A good, well-run activity.
We have people still inside, by their own choice, in these organisations.
So we have this as a starting point. In the regular programming
for ECHO's work this year we have had 15
million for the continuation of this money, to be utilised from
around June-July, which is the cycle of this programme. That existing
programme, and the 15
million for the rest of this year and part of next year, is now
being adapted to the needs on the ground. We are making two emergency
decisions of 3 million
eachone to cover Red Cross activities and the other, UNHCR
and the Federation of Red Cross activitiesto handle the
first waves of refugees in the border regions. This is on the
basis of available budget money. The general level of ECHO's budget
is around 500 million
a year. It has been reduced by Member States and Parliament by
50 million for this
year and we were told that we could access the emergency reserve
if something happened. The emergency reserve is 217
million this year. This is obviously what we have to do. We have
been using that in the years of Afghanistan; for some Middle East
and southern Africa food crises; in the Horn of Africa in some
years, and in the Balkan period. So in a number of years we have
been at the level of 700
or 800 million,
as compared to the more or less stable 500
million for the regular ECHO budget. We are programming not in
any way rigidly, because the western Saharan people are in camps
and everybody forgets them. There are people in the Palestinian
Territories and UNWRA; we are the main funder of support in Chechnya,
without which the international society would not be there. Again,
it is quite a feat to be able to do that. We do not want these
other crises to be forgotten or neglected because of this. That
is why this emergency reserve is necessary. It is a very cumbersome
procedure to get that money released. It is a very solemn thing
to access it. We need the consent of Member States and Parliament.
When we look at these past years, the average time it took to
get the money was 83 days. This reflects the fact that the Commission
cannot just decidequite contrary to the public image of
this powerful institution. In this situation, of course, that
is totally unacceptable. The normal way to do it would be for
me, as responsible, to wait until we have the appeals coming in
from UNHCR, Red Cross and all the others, and applications from
the humanitarian NGOs, and then go to Member States and Parliament.
By that, however, we would render the Commission irrelevant as
a humanitarian provider in this case. There is one more reason
why it is important that we are able to do some up-front mobilisation,
and that is to preserve the role of the United Nations as the
co-ordinator of humanitarian aid. It is extremely important, not
only for this conflict but for future conflicts. It is a very
basic principle. You may know that the United States has asked
us to move our office of co-ordination in the region from Amman
to Kuwait, where the Americans have set up this humanitarian assistance
command which will be closely co-ordinated with the military.
We have refused that very clearly, and argue that we need to give
OCHA the overall co-ordinating role. You may also appreciate here
thatfunding big NGO humanitarian organisations who are
working on the basis of people working with them voluntarilyfor
us not to stick to the clear principles of impartiality and neutrality,
and not to insist on having this humanitarian space respected,
would be a major mistake. All of this adds up to the need to have
a situation where we must put the carriage in front of the horse
and push it from therein terms of not waiting to have established
the normal application basis for attacking this emergency reserve.
This is the internal drama during these hours. I announced something
in the neighbourhood of 100
million of new, fresh money being needed. This is on top of the
21 million. We also
have to find more money than we have in the budget for the Palestinian
situation, and more money especially for Zimbabwe, and to some
extent Angolawhich are the two worst cases in the southern
African crisis. Not to have enough money for an independent effort
in Zimbabwe would also be very wrong. This is what I am trying
to do. We have a relatively good picture of the contingency planning
and the different scenarios which have been worked out during
these weeks and months; the pre-positioning of stocks, tins, and
all of this equipment, is being done. So coping with some sort
of probable range of contingency is as organised as it can bebut
anything can happen. We have no clue. There is a clear distinction
between humanitarian aid and what might follow. No opening, no
position at all concerning reconstruction. The history here is
also that we were never doing development co-operation in Iraq.
It was not a classical developing country. It also should not
be very difficult for you to understand that the need for poverty
focus has some consequences.
Mr Khabra
212. The present situation is that major countries
in the European Union have serious political differences with
the objectives of the attack on Iraq. The US and the UK have taken
a decision. Do you think that, with the difficulties in co-ordinating
and co-operating after the war as far as the reconstruction programme
and humanitarian aid is concerned, the EU will be able to sit
with the United States, particularly to sort out all those differences
of opinion, and work unitedly together to help the people there?
(Commissioner Nielson) I have to divide my response
into the two categories of humanitarian aid and all the rest.
I insist on that distinction, because it is very real here. We
have a clear difference in delivering humanitarian aidwhich
we do without any political interference or any political element
in it. It is a very puritan operation that the Commission runs
in this. We do not mix that up with reconstruction or politics
or anything. This is where we serve the international community
in a constructive way, by insisting on this. We have not yet had
any discussion on reconstruction, therefore. We were never there
as a development partner, and I do not have a clue as to whether
we will get there in that capacity. We have not had any discussion
about that.
213. There is a question about oil in particular.
Who will control the oil?
(Commissioner Nielson) A very interesting question,
but none of my business.
Mr Colman
214. I was at the UN headquarters for humanitarian
aid in Larnaca, Cyprus, last weekend. You did not mention them.
Are you working with them, with DaSilva, Kennedy and all the people
there? They said they had very good relations with you.
(Commissioner Nielson) Yes, that is the link.
Hugh Bayley
215. I understand the politics of why you cannot
consider reconstruction, because it might be seen as encouraging
military action. However, would you concede that much of the need
for reconstruction in Iraq comes as a result of 12 years of sanctions?
Do you imagine that there will be a debate about that when the
hostilities are over?
(Commissioner Nielson) So far, our analysis has identified
this very real need of what I like to call "classical humanitarian
assistance", partly as a function of the sanctionslike
we have to reach that conclusion concerning the objective need
for the Palestinians, given their sanctions, if you like to call
it that. That is where we are, therefore, and the rest has not
been considered. In fact, it is very simple.
John Barrett
216. Is it going to be simple or possible to
have this clear distinction between reconstruction and humanitarian
aid, when you have issues like clean drinking water? As part of
the reconstruction of the country, are you not going to deliver
these very basic humanitarian needs of the people? Whereas in
theory it might be fine, will it not be the case, as in Afghanistan,
that aid agencies find that they cannot divide humanitarian aid
and reconstruction, because eventually they delivered the same
thing?
(Commissioner Nielson) Yes, but the technicality of
this is also different in a conflict and afterwards. In a conflict,
securing safe drinking water has to do with chemical pellets that
you put into a jerrycan to purify the water, or very small mobile
systems set up in refugee camps, and so on. What we have been
doing so far is to provide water for vulnerable groups of people
who do not have access the way things are, even now. We are not
running water supply systems as such now, even if we have been
there for some years. We are focussing on groups that are especially
vulnerable. It is not a very great perspectiveabsolutely;
but none of this was supposed to be a long-term thing. The reality
of your question exists of course, especially in a postwar, post-conflict
situation, because then you have to make calculations of the sustainability
of what you do and, in a way, the payback of continuing on a very
ad hoc basis. That is not yet something to be decided on. We will
always face this phasing-out, so-called "exit strategy"which
is a euphemism, because normally the humanitarian providers simply
get out of there at a certain stage, whether or not they have
a strategy. In recent years we have managed this handing-over
better. It has been quite good in Kosovo and in East Timor. It
is also working nicely, even with all the problems in Afghanistan.
However, these are cases where there is a normal presence is defined
for a development partner, also in our capacity, afterwards. Whether
that will be the case here after the conflict, we have no answer
to.
Mr Walter
217. The humanitarian situation in Iraq is not
something that starts tomorrow. The conflict situation has been
going on for many years. Sixty per cent of the population are
totally dependent on food aid under Oil for Foodwhich is
an expensive programme. In global terms, we are talking of $10
million a year and $250 million a month simply on food. How do
you see that being paid for? Do you see an immediate call on future
oil revenues as the payment mechanism or do you see the international
community, in the short run, having actually to write out the
cheques for it?
(Commissioner Nielson) We do not have an international
community. Some of us are trying to create one. Any politician
with some experience would say that the oil is there and it is
better used for this than anything else, but I do not know who
will be controlling that oil.
Tony Worthington
218. Thank you very much for the decision you
took on not moving to Kuwait. That was crucial. It now has to
go to the Security Council and I think that the right decision
has to be made: that, both on the humanitarian and on the reconstruction
front, it is a UN mandate with the UN in control. Do you have
any knowledge or views about the Security Council, if it is going
to meet on this, on what views are going into it and whether you
think it is too optimistic to get that out of it?
(Commissioner Nielson) I do not know. The normal thing
to expect would be the family of UN organisations, with good co-operation
with the ICRC and IFRC for Iraq, recognising the special role
of a number of these professional, established NGOswhere
there is some division of labour established as to who normally
does whatand that this will be expressed in their consolidated
appeal, managed by OCHA. This is where the UN system, operationally,
has delivered its response. To have that taken up in the Security
Council in any other way than the Security Council recognising
this appeal and recommending UN member states to deliver into
itI would be surprised if anything other than that is the
scenario. The risk of politicisinggiven the story so far
in the Security Council in this conflictwould be dangerous
for the UN in keeping its role as a neutral provider of all of
this. I would therefore think it a mistake if they pushed this
into the politics of the situation, because they have enough friends
out there wanting to help them do their job as normally defined.
That is how I would hope it would end. In fact, that is what I
am banking on in our process here.
Chairman
219. We undertook an inquiry on Afghanistan.
We have done one on humanitarian relief and one on reconstruction
in Afghanistan. A number of us went to Kabul a little while ago,
and one of our main concerns was would there be international
donor fatigue in Afghanistan before the task was done. A lot of
the money from Tokyo was clearly on humanitarian relief rather
than reconstruction. I understand that the monitoring committee
on Afghanistan was meeting in Brussels earlier this week. I wondered
what your impressions were on that. There is a great danger that
the international community forgets these crises and moves on
to the next one, leaving the others languishing somewhere.
(Commissioner Nielson) Yes, that is a very real risk.
The thing to say here is that, for humanitarian aid, our money
is not slow. Our money is as fast as any other donor's money.
Even for Hurricane Mitch reconstruction, this was mixed up with
the humanitarian aid and the big infrastructure work following
afterwards. It is now almost finished, but with a totally different
pace for the two things. It was very annoying that it was mixed
up. So for the humanitarian aspect we are not slow. The totality
of it in Afghanistan covers the whole thing, and it is 55
million this year for humanitarian aid and 73
million last year. That is on top of the 200
million. We have just finalised our decisions for 2003-04, and
this adds up to 400
million. We have pledged 200
million a year and we stick to that exactly. We are also almost
spending it, year by year. Our money might be slow money, but
it is honest money. It does happen. That is a very big difference
from many other donors. There is a high degree of stamina in what
we do. Also, I think that, considering the ongoing discussion
we have had, for very good reasons, about the performance of the
EDF system, this is after all the case. So far as Afghanistan
is concerned, it is generally considered that, in terms of performance
and getting it done, it is a very good case. The big problem is
still security and these, what I call, "centrifugal forces"
with the warlords and the opium production. In Iraq we have Oil
for Food. Unfortunately, it looks as if in Afghanistan we have
opium for food. In this world, unfortunately, some Western societies
are more addicted to oil than to opium.
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