Examination of Witness (Questions 320-334)
MR ED
SCHENKENBERG VAN
MIEROP
18 JULY 2006
Q320 Mr Hunt: Can I confirm that
you think the way we could solve the problem of having more effective
humanitarian response is by having more debate?
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: I
know there is the perception these people can only talk and they
do not come to decisions.
Q321 Mr Hunt: You are fueling that
perception.
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: I
do think debate is important in the sense that there is no `how-to-do'
book in terms of humanitarian assistance. That is exactly why
we have complementarity. Humanitarianism for me to a large degree
is about managing dilemmas, particularly when you are working
with displaced people that are on the move. Where are you going
to assist and protect them? Are you going to try to rebuild their
original homes, and there may be political issues around that,
or are you going to try to protect and assist them on the spot?
There are different ideas how you should do that in terms of humanitarian
response. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for me as humanitarian
coordinator if I had that position to say you need to do this
and that. Agencies will make different decisions. Do you want
to keep people in the camps or do you want to try to rebuild their
original homes, which may stimulate premature returns? That is
why we do need to have that debate around how we interpret, how
we understand humanitarian principles which should underpin our
response. If you look at coordination mechanisms today, there
is very little attention to humanitarian principles and how we
rely on them and how these principles provide our benchmarks.
The third point is very much around leadership. Indeed, at the
end it is very important to recognise that we also need to take
decisions but these decisions have to be collective decisions.
It is not that we all need to do the same, but we need to at least
understand how we relate to each other. That has to be on the
basis of a shared analysis and there has to be a collective decision-making
process. Leadership, in that sense, is of critical importance.
Q322 Mr Hunt: I want to put it to
you that in an humanitarian emergency, those humanitarian coordinators
on the ground who you said are not the ones who you find very
sympathetic and often feel they can be there to give orders, is
that not precisely the time where you want not debate but someone
who takes decisions? If there is going to be debate, is that something
you do outside the context of a humanitarian emergency so when
you have the emergency you have someone who takes decisions?
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: It
is interesting the way you put it because it would seem these
issues are opposite of what I am advocating, that we need now
to fix the system and for that we require decisions. Absolutely
true, but those decisions will only be carried forward if there
is a shared understanding of the problem. For the solution to
be the right solution to that particular problem, we need to have
an understanding of what the problem is first of all. This has
been one of the problems with the cluster approach. Is the cluster
approach the solution to the problem? Maybe, maybe not. We have
not analysed sufficiently what the problem is. The NGOs who are,
to a large degree, expected to take these decisions forward and
to implement them need to have an understanding of what is the
problem. It is a problem at the moment at the field level. There
is huge confusion over what the clusters are and how they should
work. I have seen myself in a number of situations.
Chairman: Mr Hunt will want to come back
to that in a moment but Joan Ruddock has a question on where you
are at the moment.
Q323 Joan Ruddock: I was going to
pick Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop up on something he said earlier
on about the needs assessments. You gave the impression that you
thought it was legitimate that every NGO should be doing its own
needs assessment and the UN would do its own needs assessment.
Is that the case?
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: I
hope it is legitimate that we do our own needs assessment. In
a way that is where the confusion and the problem starts, that
we have a different understanding of what the needs are because
we have a different understanding of what we are going to do in
a situation. Some are there for a very short-term so they will
have a particular focus on particular needs. A number of the NGOs
will be there for the long-haul so they will look at the needs
in a different way. It will be very hard to say for one person
these are the needs. You will look at it with different lenses.
In that sense it is very important that NGOs do their own needs
assessment. What is critical is that we share them and do not
keep them close to our chest and say nobody can touch this because
I am going to present this to a donor, for example DFID. This
is my recipe how I am going to do it and I will not share it with
anyone else. That clearly goes contrary to what we are supposed
to do. It is important that we have our own analysis but that
we share that analysis and we get others to understand how we
see the world.
Q324 Joan Ruddock: I can understand
if you are talking about some slow burn situation which is building
up over a long period of time, but if you are dealing with a natural
disaster which has happened very suddenly and there are huge numbers
of people in very acute conditions, is this the best way to proceed?
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: NGO
A would immediately say these people need a roof on their heads
if their houses have been washed away or an earthquake has destroyed
them, so they need to have a house on the spot. If people could
not stay in the area because the area is devastated, the people
have moved somewhere else, people need to be protected there and
need to have a roof above their head. NGO B would say I am going
to start thinking about how to rebuild those homes. Immediately
you will have a different perspective in terms of the response.
We need to make sure that what NGO A does is not in contradiction
with what NGO B wants to do. To give you a practical example,
there have been a number of situations in which a population has
been forced to move because of a natural disaster where this disaster
has been quite convenient for the government because it always
wanted to do economic development or develop the infrastructure
in the area where the population used to live. This natural disaster,
or whatever happened, was almost "convenient" for carrying
out that initial plan. In those cases it becomes immediately a
political issue of where you are going to rebuild those homes.
The temporary shelter for the population in which they are now
may then become permanent. Then we have to define the right housing.
In that sense it is very important to see the broader context
of the issue from day one: what is the longer term impact of what
we exactly do. Clearly people need to survive.
Joan Ruddock: No-one would dispute looking
at the longer term at the moment that you are also dealing with
an emergency, and other people will question you about that. You
spoke about UN-centric procedures but I think you are talking
about NGO-centric procedures. First of all, if you have an objective
analysis one would expect NGO A and NGO B to come to the same
conclusion, but most importantly where are the people in this.
Where are the recipients of all this largesse? Is it not for them
to say where they want to live?
Q325 Chairman: Is there not a danger
that your NGO A says "That is what I do and so that is what
we are going to do", even if it is not what the people want?
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: I
did not imply that. Clearly I might hope we are at the stage,
although I recognise there are still huge issues around it, that
we do needs assessments that involve the population. I took that
as a given and I am sorry if you misunderstood.
Q326 Joan Ruddock: I did not misunderstand
you. I think you said that NGO A may wish to do this and NGO B
might want to do something else which is different. I am saying
if the people are involved in these needs assessments it seems
rather unlikely that the people will be so divided as to suggest
two contradictory proposals in terms of what they themselves want.
In one community it seems rather unlikely that half the community
is going to say we would like to live here and half the community
would say we would like to live there. This contradiction seems
to come from the NGOs rather than people on the ground.
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: That
is a very interesting point you are making. I would say that in
the immediate aftermath of a disaster, particularly a natural
disaster, the first reaction is we need to make sure people have
a roof over their head and they are protected. Clearly that is
what people want. After that people want to move back to their
original places, so in that sense they are not necessarily contradictory.
However, what I tried to say is there may be government or political
plans interfering with the population moving back. Certainly the
area needs to be economically developed, infrastructure can be
built in certain areas, we can organise the area in a different
way, so very much in that sense not what the people want. The
question is how do the NGOs react to that. In no way do I dispute
that the population would be able to express itself very well
what it wants. I do know of situations where you have parts of
the population that say we can go back and others say we cannot
go back, and there may be political reasons for that. That is
why everyone is not moving back to their original home at the
same time.
Q327 Joan Ruddock: You said "we
the NGO community have to re-organise ourselves". You accepted
that it was not just the UN, that there was a need for NGOs to
organise themselves better in the field. How does that manifest
itself and how willing are your organisations to do that?
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: How
it manifests itself is interesting in that I have seen a number
of situations in recent years where the NGOs have very much a
project-minded approach. What they are concerned about is their
little project, making sure they have money for it, that there
is a donor for it, that they staff on the ground, they have vehicles
to move around and these vehicles keep on working. It is a very
project orientated approach because that is what they are there
to do. The moment you try to engage with them on the bigger picture,
how do they fit in to the broader picture, they very much recognise
there is a need for that. I must say that in a number of situations
what I have seen is that people are so taken by the day-to-day
reality, by the operational response, that they forget that broader
picture. You require them to take a step back; where do they fit
in. It is at that stage that they recognise there are issues to
look at and there is a need for more cohesion and so on. The two
situations that I have seen recently, it is interesting that in
both those situations you had a UN sitting far away in the capital.
Coordination mechanisms were, if they existed, far from what I
would describe as sufficient. Also in that sense you allow the
NGOs to develop the project-type of work without necessarily providing
the structure for them to come together. You would think that
a number of the bigger NGOs would understand they have a broader
responsibility, that they need to see the bigger picture. That
is why in a number of situations you do have quite effective NGO
coordination mechanisms. In other situations they do not exist
and that is why we need to come more to terms in understanding
why. It may be just relating to personalities or it may be other
reasons. I am not sure myself why. It is often, I am afraid, personality
related at this moment in time, but if that is the case then it
is very important that we look at this more from a point of view
that we need a set of principles, that we may need to institutionalise
more rather than having specific personalities. In the UN system
there is a huge difference of personalities, and very much what
I would describe as the old-style UN, very UN-type of approach,
and the newer, younger, modern generation who indeed recognise
that the reality is NGOs are the main implementers.
Q328 Mr Hunt: You said that NGOs
are not sure whether they are able to fit into the cluster system
in a meaningful way or whether they are just implementers, was
the phrase you used. I wanted to know what your feeling is about
the cluster system. Some people say that it is the only way to
get some coordination at ground level when you have a humanitarian
disaster, other people are concerned it introduces an extra layer
of bureaucracy. Again, if I could revert to my earlier question,
if you were designing a system, would you design a system like
the cluster system? How would you improve it if you were trying
to find some ways to make that coordination work better?
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: To
respond to your question immediately, there are a number of issues
relating to the cluster approach which should be part and parcel
of general standard practice. Coordination, whether you call it
clusters, sectors, or anything else, if we are involved in the
process of joint analysis what is the situation, how do we share?
We say in these assessments we do some analysis, we do some collective
stocktaking, to make sure that what we do together has an impact.
Of course, if I have a relationship in that sense, I feel an accountability
towards you in terms of that decision that we take collectively
and in terms of implementing it. If I am just told what to do
by a UN person, I feel less that accountability because legally
NGOs are not accountable to the UN system. These are issues that
should be standard practice of coordination anyway. The problem
particularly with the clusters is that it has created confusion.
In the beginning, as I said, is it coordination or gap filling?
Part of that confusion is why do we have clusters for areas that
traditionally I do not think have been gaps. Healthcare is often
the best funded sector or area of response. There may be problems
in part of health, but certainly health got its own cluster. Is
it more to profile the UN agency or is there a real problem? Why
is education, which is often overlooked in emergency situations,
not a cluster? It is totally unclear. That is an issue. Then the
issue of need of accountability and how that would work, we have
not had the discussion within the context of the Inter-Agency
Standing Committee on actually how that works. Since there is
no legal formal accountability between the UN and NGOs, we need
to understand what it means that we may have an informal accountability
relationship. You could ask me what have you done in terms of
implementing our collective decision. That is important. This
issue of last resort has become now a very famous one. Clearly
that was built in from the very beginning and then a number of
UN agencies said that is not what we meant with last resort. If
you did not mean that, you would step up to the plate if nobody
else did, I do not know what last resort is? Clearly there has
been confusion around that. When you see, in terms of the implementation
at the field level, you get ten clusters in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, you get four in Uganda, you get seven in Somalia,
including an access cluster how to realise access to Somalia,
that does not match the global framework if you like. It has created
a lot of confusion which is unfortunate because, as I tried to
say earlier, there are a number of elements that are very important
issues. Does that answer your question?
Mr Hunt: You have given me a flavour
of your feeling on clusters, thank you.
Q329 John Battle: I want to ask you
a little about funding in the CERF. The question I was originally
going to ask was do you think the NGOs should get their hands
on the CERF money, and I am absolutely confident your answer will
be certainly, tomorrow. In the light of what you have said, you
forced me to reflect a bit on the role of NGOs, their relationships
not only with the UN but with governments and institutions at
the local and national level. It seems to me that although you
suggest it is about coordination and operational capacity on the
ground, I think the tragedy is that very often idealism breaks
down into what ends up as petty struggles for territory and power
at all levels. That is the tragedy. I wonder if you could give
me two arguments for and two arguments against NGOs getting their
hands on CERF money.
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: It
is difficult to answer your question with two arguments for and
two against because UN agencies would say NGOs do have access,
although it is through us as UN agencies, but clearly we will
channel the money to the NGOs. There is that whole debate: how
do the UN agencies ensure that money will be channelled to the
NGOs in what are transparent mechanisms so that NGOs understand
decisions that are taken on allocating money that is part of the
CERF to the agencies. That I think is an important issue. The
other one clearly which is important, is the CERF going to be
the only mechanism in terms of channelling funds. I do not think
so. There is bilateral funding, there will still be the consolidated
appeal process in the UN system, NGOs will get money obviously
from their own constituency, private donations from the general
public, so there will be many different other funding mechanisms
available to NGOs or in general as well.
Q330 John Battle: You do not think
CERF is going to make a critical difference to improving the distribution
of funds within the humanitarian sector?
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: No.
What I do hope is that it will make a critical difference in terms
of forgotten, ignored, neglected crises. In that sense, it is
a mechanism that would help us as the humanitarian community to
ensure that more money is allocated for Katanga in the DRC or
for the Central African Republic. That I would see as a very important
aspect, probably the most important aspect, of the CERF.
Q331 John Battle: It is a wider question
but I am minded that quite often now NGOs campaign very hard,
for example, against the way aid in general is distributed. They
campaign hard against budget support, country to country, money
given to governments rather than to projects. It happens at the
local level in my own neighbourhood. NGOs in inner city Leeds
want to completely bypass the government and the local council:
give us the money and we will do it direct. They only trouble
is they are not quite as accountable to the institutional mechanisms
as are other bodies. I wonder if there is a bias against institutions,
governments, UN institutions, within the NGOs that is debilitating
from the point of view of not saying that institutions should
remain. We want to not only reform but transform institutions.
There used to be a contradiction, organise for anarchy, that misunderstood
anarchy, as if anarchial syndicalism was a good tradition in the
1960s, but it did assume that you did not need any governments
or institutions, that everybody at local level would organise
together and love each and we would not even need the police force.
The reality does not work out like that and we wonder how serious
are NGOs about that whole process of governance reform, working
with the local governments, national governments and international
institutions, or do you think there is a bias against them in
principle.
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: I
think what is important first is to recognise that the CERF, and
similar mechanisms at country level, as you now have a number
of common funding pools, and are not nor should be coordination
mechanisms. There is a tendency to use them as such. I do not
think this idea of what I would call coordination with the wallet
is a very good idea; it will not solve the problem. Coordination
should not be dependent on money, since there are NGOs who have
their own resources, who have called for strong coordination mechanisms,
while there are other NGOs that have received governmental funding
who have shown that they are not inclined to coordinate. The problem
in general in terms of coordination structures is the huge numbers
and briefcase NGOs. They get their funding from other completely
different sources and so on, including certain constituencies
within their own towns or whatever. It is very hard, if not impossible,
to avoid that. You would then go into a system of accreditation
if you want to "regulate" or control these NGOs. I understand
your question more in the sense of a developmental issue in terms
of system reform more than one that relates to humanitarian response.
In relation to my point, I do not think these funding mechanisms
should be coordination tools in the sense of getting control over
the NGOs and what they do. I think for that we have coordination
mechanisms, but what we do want is these funding mechanisms to
make sure there is funding for areas that are left out.
Q332 John Barrett: If I can turn
to the need to get the balance right between spending on immediate
relief work and longer term reconstruction. Where do you see opportunities
to improve coordination between NGOs, donors and those directly
affected by these two strands of work to make sure that they are
not running along in parallel but are working together, both to
do with the immediate problem and the longer term development?
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: That
is a very difficult question and issue because clearly it relates
to how short-term relief relates to longer term development work.
What I would say is that there is a risk in terms of providing
humanitarian assistance in a development framework in the sense
that development has to involve national and local authorities
and so on and they may have certain political priorities, and
these political priorities may run opposite to making sure that
everybody receives assistance. Clearly, in terms of principles,
developmental and humanitarian principles do not always go together
that well and there are tensions and there are also different
methodologies in terms of needs assessment and so on. Clearly,
coordination should try to ensure that the humanitarian and developmental
approaches do not run counter to each other. That is an issue
that I think continues to raise confusion and problems at the
field level, particularly when I think that humanitarian coordination
is provided in that developmental framework because, as I said,
governments may have certain political priorities in mind. At
the same time, and I think it is very important, humanitarian
actors must understand what the longer term impact is of their
work. It is often said that humanitarian assistance in that sense
belongs to conflict. I am personally not so sure of that in terms
of what is the evidence for that. How would you measure that,
whether it prolongs the conflict? It is very much around this
question, which we touched on earlier, why do you build these
homes for people? The interesting point there is what is called
the rights based approach. When we talk about the right to housing,
where indeed are we going to build this house the moment it has
been washed away or devastated by an earthquake? Are we going
to build it in the same spot where people may be vulnerable to
future disasters or even where the government might have an economic
development infrastructure programme, let us say? There are issues
which both the humanitarian and the development community are
still grappling with, particularly in terms of the health and
housing sectors. This is an interesting point in terms of, for
instance, the clusters. Shelter, indeed, is often the problem
much more in the sense of these sorts of questions, if you like,
the strategic, more political questions on, for instance, the
number of tents. It is not necessary to have stockpiles. Yes,
we had it in the Pakistani earthquake but how often does that
happen? It is easy. If all the tent companies produced tents this
year then we would be much better prepared probably for the next
situation if that were to happen. I do not think necessarily the
issue is about stockpiles. The issue is very much for me where
are we going to build those homes? That is a much more difficult
question to answer by both the humanitarian and the development
communities who will have to come together, and is that really
happening?
Q333 John Barrett: A challenge for
the future?
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: Absolutely.
Q334 John Battle: That is the point
I am driving at. I can take you now to West Kupang where there
are 56,000 people living in tents from the conflict between East
Timor and Indonesia that was peacefully solved but in a sense
part of the issue was that people had been there too long and
now do not want to go back; the people have grown up there, but
for the people that are in NGOs in that camp, and they are now
there, there needs to be a conversation with the Government in
West Kupang at the local level, with the Indonesian Government
and with the Timorese Government as well in engaging with the
institutions for their development policies, and I am not confident
that there is that conversation going on, as you say.
Mr Schenkenberg van Mierop: Exactly.
Chairman: Mr Schenkenberg, you have ably
demonstrated to us that your organisation is in the business of
herding cats. Clearly NGOs pop up all over the place and have
their own objectives and you have to try and, I suppose, represent
a disparate range of interests. Thank you for answering the questions
that we have put to you. I am not sure whether this Committee
is in a position to come up with any definitive answers but I
am certainly sure we have demonstrated the range of the problems,
so thank you very much indeed.
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