Examination of Witnesses (Questins 80-99)
MR RAY
HASAN, MS
LINDA DOULL
AND MR
LEO BRYANT
12 JUNE 2007
Q80 Chairman: Good morning. Thank
you very much for coming to give evidence to us on our continuing
inquiry into the problems of both internally displaced people
and refugees in and outside Burma. We understand that some of
you may wish to give a little bit of evidence in private, so we
will allow a few minutes at the end of this session. You only
need to make any reference to that if in questioning we ask you
something you would rather put in the private session, if you
would let us know. Other than that, as you will know the Committee
visited the Thai-Burma border and met with quite a number of the
agencies that are involved in supporting refugees and IDPs in-country
and we visited a refugee camp. I do not think we claim that gives
us expertise but perhaps a little bit of insight into the plight
of these people, although finding out what that is is obviously
quite complicated in many cases. I just wondered whether you could
help us at the start, each of you, by giving us a brief description
of how your organisation operates in the context of Burma, whether
it is inside the country, cross-border, amongst the refugees,
on the border or outside Burma, and how you relate to other organisations.
Perhaps, finally, whether you have any particular group you are
targeted towards as opposed to the general plight. It might be
helpful in your own words to give us very briefly a summary of
what you do. The Committee have a number of questions but perhaps
then we will be better informed about where you are coming from.
Mr Hasan: Thank you very much.
Christian Aid has been working in Burma for quite a few decades.
We have three key focuses to our approach with regards to working
and supporting community-based ethnic organisations in Thailand
and also organisations in Yunnan Province in China to give support
to communities inside Burma. We are a member of the Thailand Burma
Border Consortium, which is part of the government structure of
the TBBC, and support a number of other organisations working
on that border. That primarily supports both the displaced inside
Burma and also displaced people in Thailand. In addition to that,
we have a strong HIV focus to our work inside the country, so
we work through civil society organisations inside Burma providing
support around care, stigma and discrimination, et cetera, throughout
a number of different stages, so on much more of a national perspective.
We also support civil society groups working in eastern Burma
as well from within the country and those are, again, to provide
support not just to the displaced, although that is a significant
part of that programme, but also more broadly on a developmental
and relief footing. That is the major focus of how our programme
is structured inside the country. We also are involved in campaigning
and lobbying advocacy work around Burma outside that country and
support a number of regional initiatives that are looking at challenging
the perceptions within South East Asia by regional civil society
organisations, so not just focusing here in the north but very
much in challenging perceptions of how Burma is seen in the south
as well.
Q81 Chairman: As a supplementary
to that, so you are able to reach people in eastern Burma from
in-country?
Mr Hasan: Yes, absolutely.
Q82 Chairman: We have had some evidence
saying that is difficult to do.
Mr Hasan: Obviously there are
constraints with all the different processes of reaching the displaced
but we do support initiatives from Thailand and also from within
the country, that is correct.
Ms Doull: Merlin has been working
in Burma since the end of 2004. Merlin's remit in-country is to
support equitable access to affordable primary healthcare, also
to improve water and sanitation access, and more recently supporting
malaria prevention and control activities. The longest term programme
that we have had has been in the Laputta Township which is in
the Ayeryarwaddy Division down in the southern delta region and
we have just opened a programme in Chin State in Sagaing Division
which is in the north-west part of the country on the border with
India. That programme is focusing predominantly on malaria prevention
and control. We heard just last week that we have further funding
to add an additional primary healthcare component to both of those
divisions and those are both two year—
Q83 Chairman: Funding from whom?
Ms Doull: The malaria control
programme is the Three Diseases Fund and the most recent funding
is coming from Europeaid for primary healthcare. The programme
in the south is funded from the Disaster Emergencies Committee
and also the Three Diseases Fund.
Q84 Chairman: So you are one of the
agencies helping to deliver the Three Diseases Fund?
Ms Doull: Yes, that is right.
The programme focuses on a number of vulnerable groups in relation
to a range of health issues, particularly communicable disease
and maternal health, so there is a strong focus on targeting women
of reproductive age and also children, particularly under-fives,
who are most vulnerable, but inevitably in the areas that we work
we come across a number of internally displaced people as well.
The services that we provide are both for the displaced and the
host population as in both regions they are extremely socio-economically
marginalised.
Mr Bryant: Before I start I should
just apologise that our in-country representative was unable to
attend today due to delays in processing travel documents. I will
do my best to answer the questions but it may be that in certain
cases we will be able to follow up with certain written submissions.
MSI has been working in-country since 1997. We have 13 centres
based in six different regions providing family planning services.
We also provide VCT[1]
services being one of only two NGOs officially permitted to do
HIV testing. While our health centres are located in urban areas,
we support an outreach programme of mobile community-based distribution
services that extend into rural and marginalised areas.
Q85 Chairman: Thank you. You are operating
entirely within-country?
Mr Bryant: Yes.
Q86 Chairman: Are you operating in
co-operation with Burmese authorities or are you operating on
your own in co-operation with other NGOs or donors?
Mr Bryant: In some cases we have
partnered national bodies, such as the Nurses' Association. All
of our operations are done with permission from the authorities
there.
Chairman: I think one or two of
my colleagues might want to explore that further.
Q87 John Battle: Our job as a Committee
is mainly to monitor, stimulate and take an interest in the work
of DFID as well as NGOs obviously and the relationship between
them. If I were a minister in DFID dealing with perhaps 87 countries
in the world and trying to share scarce resources around them,
on this particular issue I am not quite sure what the emphasis
should be. If I could just take as an example, and focus the question
on Christian Aid, in the written evidence from Christian Aid it
says: "Christian Aid believes it to be vital for DFID to
increase its assistance to providing support to meet the needs
of refugees based in the camps in Thailand". We went and
saw the camps in Thailand and can see the need. Then it goes on:
"This should recognise the importance of assistance being
provided from inside Burma as well as those working cross-border."
I just put it to you that DFID has limited resources and does
need to prioritise its funding. Should it be focusing on working
in-country or should it be focusing at this time on working with
displaced people in the camps? What would be your almost crude
response to guide me on that if I am saying as a minister, "I
have only got a limited amount of money, where do you want me
to go first?"
Mr Bryant: The answer is both.
Q88 John Battle: I thought it might
be!
Mr Bryant: There are certainly
needs within-country and many of the needs that you may have seen
will be reflected in-country. Despite a challenging operating
environment it is possible for organisations with experience of
circumnavigating the challenges to provide very effective and
very much needed services from within the country.
Ms Doull: I think it is a bit
of both. There are significant numbers of internally displaced
in-country and for all of us in agencies, both in Burma and other
countries, part of our challenge and part of the reason we exist
is to find ways to work to deliver services perhaps in a slightly
alternative modus operandi that reach people in need. The fact
that it is difficult and challenging and DFID only have a small
budget or limited resources is not a reason in itself not to do
it, it is how you make best use of that money to go to scale and,
therefore, the level that you work at in-country. From Merlin's
experience we have managed to work effectively at community level
whilst still supporting Ministry of Health national strategies
for malaria control and primary healthcare. Doing that at a very
basic community level, strengthening community resilience and
capacity to look after their own health needs, I think can have
significant effect without necessarily falling into some of the
challenges you meet in working too closely with the Ministry of
Health.
Q89 John Battle: Perhaps I will come
back to that later.
Mr Hasan: From our perspective,
first and foremost we would say that the current allocation of
DFID funding is not sufficient bearing in mind the challenges
of working in Burma.
Q90 John Battle: Do you mean in Burma
or—
Mr Hasan: The whole context of
working on the issues affecting Burmese people. £8 million
is really not sufficient given the challenges that we all face
on a day-to-day basis. In saying that, we also believe very strongly
that we need to have a dual approach. You cannot deal with a situation
as complex as Burma with a very one-sided approach, whether it
is from the border, whether it is from inside, irrespective, it
will not be as effective as trying to build those links, trying
to find ways to co-ordinate and co-operate between different international
and national civil society groups, et cetera. We believe very
strongly that by playing a role in providing assistance on a number
of different levels that is the way DFID can add value.
Q91 John Battle: As a Committee it
was not so easy, should I put it in those terms, for us to actually
find out what was going on in Burma because we cannot visit unless
we are taken around, so our immediate experience was in camps,
not in-country. I want to ask you if DFID's support to in-country
assistance was to be increased, to follow up Ray's point, and
that means moving resources from elsewhere in the world, maybe
from African countries, to Burma, but maybe we put the case for
Burma in the whole context, as you said, where should the funding
be directed? I will put it in these terms: if you went with the
Three Diseases Fund, for example, some would say that you are
colluding with the strategies of the Burmese authorities and,
therefore, playing into their hands and that is not delivering
assistance to alleviate poverty in places that need it most. Should
it be through those kinds of multi-donor initiatives or should
it be through NGOs, community groups? If you could give any guidance,
if I can put it in those terms, what would you be guiding us to
say to DFID about in-country assistance?
Ms Doull: Well, I think taking
it back to the national strategy, the national strategy for TB,
malaria, HIV and AIDS is built upon a well-recognised global strategy
for the control of those diseases and that is being employed in
a number of countries. There is a critique of the support of vertical
disease control programmes, not just in Burma but elsewhere in
the world, so what agencies like ourselves do when we receive
funding for those types of activities is learn to piggyback other
services on to that and to integrate those services within primary
healthcare programmes that exist in-country. While it may look
to be a very vertical and single focused way of funding healthcare,
again it is the slightly inventive way in which you implement
that programme because doing health education on disease topic
X also allows you the opportunity to do health education on disease
topic Y or nutrition or whatever. It is looking at how you take
that funded activity and transpose additional activities on to
it. It provides an opportunity. If that is the gateway that it
is acceptable to deliver services through then let us use that
opportunity and build other opportunities on to it.
Mr Hasan: Christian Aid is broadly
very much supportive of DFID's role in playing a leading role
in developing the Three Diseases initiative. One of the challenges
that are faced by that is also the constraints and limitations
attached to that Fund. Yes, we are absolutely supportive, we believe
very much that money can be effective, but if you are looking
at a national strategy for dealing with HIV you cannot exclude
certain parts of the country and certain approaches, so the challenge
for DFID as well as other members of the Three Diseases Fund is
to find ways as the Fund develops to open up opportunities, whether
it is through the support of the Ministry of Health inside the
country, to identify other ways, other opportunities to push those
borders and boundaries that prevent a more holistic approach to
dealing with HIV. You cannot look at an issue like HIV and deal
with it in pockets, it is a regional problem and there needs to
be a regional approach. There are genuine challenges with regard
to DFID there and we would certainly urge them as they get more
experience in implementing this Fund to be looking for other approaches
to support cross-border delivery and particularly we are talking
here about the China-Burma border where HIV is at crisis point.
Q92 Sir Robert Smith: DFID's case
was that with a finite pot said they should be looking at where
they can make most impact and they talked about comparative advantage
and they had a comparative advantage in-country and that other
organisations were involved in dealing with refugees or cross-border
assistance. Is there an argument that rather than spreading across
all these methods of delivery DFID should focus where they think
they can make the most difference?
Mr Hasan: I would firstly argue
very much on the basis of comparative advantage I think what they
claim that means is erroneous. There is certainly a lot of value
to DFID's support to the development of civil society inside the
country, and we would most certainly urge them to continue to
do that and find ways of strengthening that, but, as I mentioned
earlier, there is certainly the need for a much more joined-up
approach to dealing with the crisis in Burma today and that cannot
be done with a one focus strategy, they very much need to be playing
a leading role in bringing different organisations together to
develop joint strategies, and that is not just with regard to
this place but in a number of other key areas. There are genuine
challenges with regards to funding, we acknowledge that, and obviously
we would call for an increase in that funding, but also there
are more strategic ways of finding opportunities to use that.
There are a lot of very, very good national and international
organisations based inside and there are also a lot of very good
organisations based outside. For me, DFID's comparative advantage,
if you want to use that phrase, is to play that role of bringing
different organisations together to develop an environment that
is much more based on co-operation and trust which has been lacking
over the last few decades. It has got better, there is more dialogue
across the border, but for me that is a role that DFID should
be playing and that would definitely be a comparative advantage.
Mr Singh: Ray just used the words,
"joined-up working" and through this discussion it appears
to me that there are finite resources that DFID has, but is not
the real issue donor co-ordination? I would like to know a little
bit more about what other international donors are doing and whether
they could do more or whether DFID could use its leverage to make
them or encourage them to do more.
Chairman: Could I ask John Bercow
to come in here because he has a question that is linked to that.
Q93 John Bercow: I was very interested
in what Ray Hasan just said. Both during the visit and in our
first evidence session last week a number of the interlocutors
highlighted as a problem precisely the absence or paucity of co-operation
to which Ray Hasan has just referred, a lack of co-operation between
those working in-country and those seeking to do so from the border.
Christian Aid in your written evidence highlight this and talk
about the need to develop robust co-ordination mechanisms between
groups working cross-border and those operating inside Burma and
the opportunity for DFID based at the moment, and I emphasise,
Chair, at the moment, in both Thailand and Burma to play a much
more proactive leadership role. I suppose my question is this:
what specific measures could DFID take to improve co-ordination
between those working cross-border and those in-country to deliver
assistance to IDPs? Or is it your view that UN OCHA[2],
which has recently appointed a Humanitarian Coordinator for Burma,
should take that role? Or maybe you have yet another approach,
I do not know. I would be very interested to hear you flesh out
your thinking on that matter.
Mr Hasan: When we are looking
at the role that DFID can play, it is actually a relatively small
role. You talk about donor co-ordination, it is a relatively small
role and, therefore, there are genuine opportunities that bring
people together. It strikes me as incredible that there are such
divides with regard to international community organisations'
approaches to the working in and on Burma. We would certainly
say that the Humanitarian Coordinator in Rangoon has a key role
to play but has been playing that very much in partnership with
DFID. Our argument would be that they are not doing enough. It
is quite clear that in discussions we have had with the UN and
also with DFID there is a genuine problem in gaining the trust
of all groups. There are strong calls for co-ordinated mechanisms
to be developed that both the UN and DFID are using in public
meetings, but then we get a very different feel more often than
not when we are asking for much more information about how we
could work more closely together. We are determined to develop
links. We have done initiatives that I would be more comfortable
sharing with you in a closed session. We have some experience
of trying to bring groups together. Our feeling is that DFID and
the UN and any other co-ordinated mechanism that could be used
would be absolutely ideal. With regards to refugees, for example
UNHCR have been working very closely with the groups responsible
for providing assistance to refugees at the border and for me
potentially that is an opportunity for good practice.
Q94 John Bercow: You express yourself
in diplomatic terms, and I certainly do not seek to put words
in your mouth but rather to extract them. Would it nevertheless
be accurate to say that the scope for a more co-operative attitude
by DFID does exist?
Mr Hasan: Yes, you can put those
words in my mouth.
Q95 John Bercow: I am very grateful.
Very briefly, if I may, when the Committee went on its visit it
was slightly taken aback, and if colleagues disagree doubtless
they will say so, to discover that there was a plan by DFID to
close its Bangkok office by May 2008—this was something
of which we knew nothing and apparently had been pretty well decided—and
also to ratchet up to 10 the staffing level in-country. For my
part, I confess I thought was this by any chance designed to create
new facts on the ground and to rule out the possibility of a significant
increase in funding for cross-border work, but that may just be
my suspicious mind, I do not know. May I ask you whether you think
that the plans to close the Bangkok office by May 2008 and thereby
to restrict the activities to Rangoon will adversely affect precisely
the ability to co-ordinate effectively the cross-border work which
you judge to be necessary?
Mr Hasan: Absolutely. I have just
come back from the region and I met DFID in Bangkok on Monday.
This was one of the issues that I raised with them directly. The
first time that I went to Burma about six years ago I spent five
weeks inside the country and came back absolutely convinced this
was the approach to take. My next trip was to the border where
I spent a month at the border and came back convinced that was
the approach to take. That is the reality, both of those approaches
are absolutely essential. I remain unconvinced that you can really
develop both by being based in one place and it will certainly
curtail DFID's ability to play a co-ordinating role in bringing
different approaches and organisations together. That is my concern
that I raised with them. However many times you come back to Bangkok
from Rangoon for meetings, et cetera, you lose the sense of what
is going on and the ability to travel to the border will be reduced
because of other constraints on their time and it will have a
very detrimental impact for DFID's ability to see responses to
Burma in a much more joined-up way as such and I think it will
become very focused on one approach. That is a genuine concern
that we have raised directly.
Q96 Chairman: Do you think that there
is any sense of confusion between what DFID staff are doing and
what Foreign Office staff are doing in Bangkok? What became apparent
to us was that the visits to the border, to Chiang Mai, to refugee
camps, are mostly being carried out by the Foreign Office officials
rather than DFID officials.
Mr Hasan: There has certainly
been more activity from the Foreign Office than DFID with regard
to visits to the border. I guess their position would be that
would be joined-up government. I am not entirely convinced that
you get the sense they are talking to each other as effectively
as they should be. To be perfectly frank, I have not been convinced
that DFID have been entirely clear what they want to do either.
Different approaches from within Bangkok and Rangoon have been
there. That is not necessarily a negative because that energy,
debate and discussing strategies is important, but we do get a
sense sometimes that they are still looking for ways to work and
are not entirely convinced what their strategy should be. I think
that is probably reflected in the stronger role that the FCO has
been playing on the border.
Q97 Ann McKechin: Mr Hasan, do you
think it is helpful or unhelpful that Christian Aid is based in
London and not in Thailand itself?
Mr Hasan: It is a debate that
we have had internally for some time. My personal view is ideally
we would like to be based in the region but obviously there are
significant cost implications and one of the reasons why DFID
are closing the office in Bangkok are for the same reasons. Given
the fact that we do not have a presence inside the country means
that wherever you are based you are significantly restricted in
your ability to travel anyway with regard to visas, et cetera.
We have worked with a number of other European partners, the Danish
and Norwegians in particular, in sharing resources there based
in the region in developing joint ways to monitor our programmes
inside the country, to develop a presence as well. We do travel.
Last year I travelled six times to the region, which is quite
significant.
Q98 Ann McKechin: Clearly you could
have asked for an increase in funding for cross-border work and
presumably if you had made the application as the source of funding
to DFID then the argument would be for your part as to what priority
Christian Aid is placing on its work in that area and, as you
pointed out, you have criticised DFID for its low priority. Should
Christian Aid not be giving it a higher priority in that case?
Mr Hasan: Our work in Burma has
always been of very high priority actually. The way that we work
is through local partners, we are not operational, therefore the
pressure on us to have a physical presence in-country has never
been paramount and has never reflected the way we prioritise our
work. Our work in Burma is a priority, we are a member of the
TBBC, we have been going to all of the membership meetings, we
monitor extensively along the border and we obviously travel inside
the country on numerous occasions. We have developed contact models
which are local individuals who are placed within organisations
both in Thailand and in-country as well that provide that support
to us, so we would be convinced that the support that we would
give in monitoring and making sure that any part of our programme
inside or outside the country was accountable and transparent
and would be there.
Mr Bryant: If I could just come
in on the point regarding comparative advantage. I think one of
the key advantages of spending in-country is simply that there
is so little money available to spend in-country that this means
any funds that do become available can be put straight into basic
services which are often needed in large parts of the country.
For example, maternal mortality is high throughout the region.
Much of this is due simply to unsafe abortion because large numbers
of women have no access to contraception. With very limited resources
it is possible to apply those in a targeted way enabling women
to use contraceptives. If you have an outreach programme that
works with local communities and builds up a sense of trust there,
organisations with that kind of experience can have a direct impact
on reducing maternal mortality rates. At the moment the fact that
the region is so underserved by donors means that an increase
in spending can be used very effectively.
Q99 Mr Singh: You have been moderately
critical of DFID and its work in and around Burma, but would it
be fair to say that actually it would be insensitive and not practical
for DFID to share all of its information about the work it does
on displaced people inside Burma and that if it did share that
information openly and transparently it might actually damage
the work that it does? Is that a fair point to make?
Mr Hasan: Firstly, just for the
record, we are actually very supportive of much of what DFID is
doing. I think that is important to state. What we are talking
about is different ways that we could strengthen the work, and
our opinions on that would differ. What we are saying is with
the environment in Burma it is impossible to have open debate
about any of these issues. As you know, there is going to be a
small and quick closed session later and that is the reality.
We would certainly not be urging DFID to share sensitive information
in public forums, it is just not practical, it would damage the
partners they are supporting and their ability to function. What
we are saying is that there are many opportunities to develop
meetings and all sorts of different ways of bringing people together
in closed environments. Most of the meetings that I go to on Burma
are closed environments where people are expected not to cite
or to communicate any of the information that has been shared
in that meeting. The three organisations here for example are
very like-minded on that. We are all very aware that there are
sensitivities and limitations on what we can talk about but we
have to find ways in private meetings that we can break down those
barriers if we want to ensure that our work is more effective.
I have not heard anyone dispute that need. My point is that DFID
can play a significant role in doing that because of their position
within the donor community. It is not saying that you have to
be public in what you do. We are not public, there is a lot of
information and detail about our work that we would not want to
share in a public forum, and I would certainly be very surprised
if DFID wanted to, but in private there are many opportunities.
We meet face-to-face on many, many occasions and we are very frank
and very open about what we are doing inside and outside the country.
Our call would be for DFID to be a bit more open in those kinds
of environments.
1 Voluntary counselling and testing Back
2
Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs Back
| 
