Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Department for International Development
1. What funds has DFID allocated for humanitarian
relief? From which budget will resources for humanitarian relief
come? What will be the impact on DFID's aid disbursements to other
emergencies and to its overall aid budget?
The Government has allocated over £100
million for UK humanitarian relief to Iraq since 1991, and contributed
another £15 million through the EC. DFID's ongoing humanitarian
relief programme expects to spend £8 million this financial
year, which comes from the Iraq aid framework line. We are also
providing £3.5 million of additional funding for humanitarian
contingency planning and prepositioning of basic supplies by UN
agencies to supplement our global funding to those agencies. DFID
does not allocate financial resources for response to specific
humanitarian emergencies before they happen. We have a modest
budget for responding to rapid onset emergencies in poor countries
as well as a contingency reserve, both of which we would draw
on for any Iraq emergency to supplement funds available from the
Iraq aid framework. It would be wrong to take DFID resources already
allocated to other countries around the world also in need of
urgent assistance and reallocate them to Iraq. Use of the contingency
reserve for Iraq would not affect the overall aid budget, but
could reduce DFID's capacity to respond to other emergencies which
have not yet occurred or supplement existing funding to ongoing
emergencies.
2. Is DFID and the international community
prepared for the scale of aid likely to be required given that
the Oil For Food programme costs $1 billion a month and DFID's
contingency fund is only £100 million?
Some analysis has been done of the potential
humanitarian costs of conflict. There is a large range of possibilities
depending on the nature and duration of the conflict. The upper
estimates, which presume collapse of the OFF and significant damage
caused by conflict, would create needs well beyond the financial
scope of the international community's current humanitarian budgets.
This emphasises the need to refine the military options to reduce
these risks—including minimising disruption to the Iraqi
oil revenues which pay for OFF. It will also be important to share
the costs of humanitarian assistance across as wide a group of
countries and multilateral agencies as possible, which will be
made much easier by an appropriate UN mandate.
3. What assessment has DFID made of the effectiveness
of the UN Disaster Group and the Disaster Management Teams?
We have confidence in the UN's Disaster Assessment
and Coordination (UNDAC) team, which works under the auspices
of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(UN OCHA). DFID is supporting OCHA through a three-year partnership
to help improve the impact of their core functions including the
coordination of humanitarian emergency response. The partnership
agreement includes support in the form of funding for specific
crises, regular funding for strengthening OCHA's institutional
capacity and in-kind support such as experts on loan (including
UNDAC members) or specialist equipment to supplement field activities.
DFID is an active participant in UNDAC teams, a UN instrument
established in 1993 to assist in meeting international needs for
information in humanitarian crises and, where necessary, to help
co-ordinate international relief efforts.
DFID took part in an assessment of UNDAC between
September 2000 and March 2001. The review team, led by the UK,
included representatives from Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, the
UN and an independent consultant. The review team found that UNDAC
offers valuable expertise and has been deployed to good effect.
It said that the challenges of the greater diversity and complexity
of tasks faced required greater sophistication and breadth on
the part of its management and team members and that UNDAC needed
its potential benefits to be more fully developed and exploited.
OCHA, with DFID's continuing support, is working to implement
these recommendations.
The UN Steering Group on Iraq, endorsed by the
Secretary-General, has appointed Mr. Ramiro Lopez da Silva as
the UN's new Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq with effect from
1 February 2003. This post reports to the Head of the Office for
Iraq Programme (OIP). Mr Lopez da Silva is highly respected, has
very relevant experience from Afghanistan and Angola, and we welcome
his appointment. He is assisted by two Deputy Humanitarian Coordinators:
Mr Tesfaye Maru (for OIP-related matters) and Mr. Kevin Kennedy
(for non-OIP matters, including regional coordination and liaison
with the military).
4. What assessment has been made of the possible
impact of war on the food supply chain (Oil For Food) and how
quickly it could be reactivated after a war?
The OFF food supply chain is complex, involving
the importation, transportation and distribution of about 500,000
tonnes of food a month. It is dependent for its financing on the
continuing flow of oil revenues, and for its continuing functioning
on a network of 40-50,000 local Iraqi distribution points. There
is a risk that any of these elements could be disrupted during
any conflict for a variety of reasons. Military planning aims
to minimise the impact of any conflict on civilian infrastructure
critical for the delivery of humanitarian assistance. In the event
of such disruption, getting OFF running again as quickly as possible
would be a high priority. The extent of delay in doing so would
depend on the nature of the disruption. There are informal discussions
in New York about the legal mandate needed to keep OFF going under
different circumstances.
Department for International Development
February 2003
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