Appendix 2: Letter from the UK Representative
of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
It was with great interest that I read the International
Development Select Committee's recent report on the findings of
the inquiry into the Humanitarian Response to Natural Disasters.
I share the Committee's disappointment noted in paragraph
63, that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees did
not submit evidence to this inquiry. I must stress that we did
not ignore the call for submissions based on the notion that our
work was not of relevance to the Committee's inquiry. UNHCR's
core mandate is to people forced to flee due to persecution and
war.
We have assisted in natural disaster-stricken regions,
such as in the South Asia and Bam earthquakes and the tsunami-hit
region when refugees are present, or when our expertise is sought
by the Secretary-General or relevant governments. In his address
to the EU's Humanitarian Aid Committee (HAC) meeting in London
on 20 October 2005, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António
Guterres stressed that Pakistan has a history of caring for refugees
and truly needed the support of the international community, appealing
to donors to combine bilateral aid for Pakistan with multilateral
support, as the UN's appeal for immediate aid in response to the
South Asia earthquake had then received only a very limited response.
Furthermore, a submission would have been an excellent
opportunity to clarify the assertion in para. 63 that UNHCR refused
to extend its mandate to include persons displaced as a result
of the 8 October 2005 earthquake and, furthermore, that a decision
on responsibility for camp management for natural disaster-generated
IDPs was not reached in a timely manner.
UNHCR, with the largest number of staff in northern
Pakistan, where we care for hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees,
was on the ground through the entire earthquake and assistance
phase.
In a UN interagency meeting on 9 October 2005, UNHCR
was assigned lead agency status for camp management. On that same
day, UNHCR held a camp management cluster meeting with Oxfam,
Concern, Focus, Unicef, the American Refugee Committee, Save the
Children and other partner agencies. Within 72 hours of the South
Asia earthquake, as head of camp management, UNHCR had provided
a rough budget for camp management activities to be included in
the UN Flash Appeal.
In addition to dispatching items from our warehouses
in North West Frontier and Baluchistan provinces on 10 October,
which was widely covered in the international media, relief items
were also dispatched from UNHCR's warehouses in Afghanistan. UNHCR
also dispatched convoys of goods from our stockpiles in neighbouring
Iran. We launched an appeal on 13 October for helicopters to reach
remote areas and to help deliver supplies.
UN Refugee Agency staff were reporting on conditions
from inside Mansehera by 14 October and sending out reports from
Muzaffarabad by 15 October. By 14 October, UNHCR had mounted an
airlift of supplies from our stockpile in Denmark. Further items
were airlifted into Pakistan from UNHCR supplies stored in Dubai,
India, Jordan and Turkey. UNHCR staff, working through partner
agencies, immediately began to distribute these items to quake
survivors.
In its role as leader of the camp management cluster,
UNHCR supported the Pakistani government in running the temporary
camps set up for earthquake survivors. With UNHCR's 132 emergency
staff and 55 mobile teams funded by the European Commission for
Humanitarian Affairs (ECHO), the UK's Department for International
Development (DFID), among other donors, the UN Refugee Agency
assisted Pakistani authorities at 26 planned camps and 118 spontaneous
camps caring for more than 140,000 quake survivors. In all, the
UN Refugee Agency distributed more than 21,000 tents, 115,000
plastic tarpaulins, close to 850,000 blankets, 38,000 mattresses
and some 25,000 stoves/heaters.
In Sri Lanka and Indonesia following the tsunami
disaster, as well as following the Bam earthquake in December
2003, UNHCR staff similarly redirected items from refugee assistance
programmes to victims of these disasters. UNHCR relief teams and
expertise in shelter programmes played vital roles in these aid
efforts which affected many refugees and internally displaced
persons of concern.
As you may recall, UNHCR's main function as mandated
by the United Nations remains its core assistance and protection
programmes for victims of persecution and war. Of the more than
20 million people under UNHCR's care worldwide, including refugees,
asylum seekers, stateless persons and recent returnees, UNHCR
also cares for some 6.6 million persons internally displaced in
their own countries due to persecution and war.
Almost entirely funded by voluntary contributions,
UNHCR's 2006 budget is £742 million, less than the cost of
Wembley Stadium. However, by 30 September 2006 we had received
only £508 million, leaving UNHCR unable to fully meet the
needs of its core mandate group, much less new populations of
concern.
We ask the Committee to support full and early funding
of UNHCR's financial needs so that UNHCR may not only give refugees
and other persons of concern the protection and dignity they require,
but whenever possible, respond to natural disasters when they
fall in areas where UNHCR has an existing presence and capacity.
I do hope that this goes some way to addressing the
concerns of the Committee. Please do not hesitate to contact me
if the Committee has any questions on this matter.
Bemma Donkoh
Representative to the United Kingdom
3 November 2006
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