Examination of Witnesses (Questins 100-119)
MR RAY
HASAN, MS
LINDA DOULL
AND MR
LEO BRYANT
12 JUNE 2007
Q100 Mr Singh: How do NGOs share
information about what they are doing on the ground in order not
to duplicate? Is it possible to have a multilateral meeting inside
Burma of all the agencies working together or are these meetings
bilateral and fairly private so that information is fragmented
rather than coherent?
Ms Doull: Merlin's experience
is the latter. It is very much based on personal relationships
between individual agencies on a relatively informal basis. As
Ray has said, very sensitive information is not usually discussed
in-country. That is something that would be discussed here with
various counterparts.
Q101 Mr Singh: Is there any scope
at all with the kind of constraints that you are working under
to improve information-sharing between agencies and between donors?
Ms Doull: Yes, I imagine there
probably is and I think that goes back to a point Ray made earlier
on about the issue of trust generally. I think if people are clear
why information is being presented and to what aim (because I
do not think that is necessarily clear a lot of the time) then
if there was a clear focus for particular discussions led by a
stronger co-ordinating body, whether that is through OCHA or DFID
or both, then perhaps that might encourage people to say more.
I think it will always be a difficult discussion in-country but
there are ways to facilitate discussion more effectively externally
I would imagine.
Mr Bryant: And it may be that
by making opportunities for NGOs to meet on a regular and routine
basis then that may help to reduce the suspicion of some of the
parties involved and enable talks to be run.
Mr Hasan: There have been a number
of initiatives already developed over the last 12 months bringing
groups working from inside and people working from Thailand together
to discuss approaches. That is still very much in its infancy
but we are very supportive of that mechanism. It is held in Thailand,
it is impossible to do that type of meeting inside the country,
but that does not mean that people cannot come out, especially
international organisations, but again in the private session
I can give some more detail on what we have been doing on that.
Q102 Sir Robert Smith: Just on working
inside the country, in February 2006 the Ministry of National
Planning and Economic Development came out with draft guidelines
for UN agencies, international organisations and NGOs, with conditions
such as state officials should accompany all international staff
on field trips, with tight restrictions on employing various staff.
How in practice do these restrictions on your work operate and
is the environment getting better or worse in terms of those sorts
of restrictions?
Mr Bryant: By employing staff
comprising entirely of Burmese nationals it is possible to get
relatively easy access with fewer procedural requirements to project
sites even if they are in particularly sensitive locations.
Q103 Sir Robert Smith: But how easy
is it to employ Burmese staff?
Mr Bryant: Well, we have got the
advantage of having been in-country for 10 years. I would not
recommend it for the uninitiated but there are organisations that
have that capacity.
Q104 Sir Robert Smith: And is it
getting easier or more difficult to do it in that way?
Mr Bryant: Employing local staff
makes what would otherwise be impossible possible. It also enables
us to find who the most co-operative people to talk to are. Some
may have a personal agenda that is more pragmatic and less official.
Ms Doull: Our experience of employing
national staff has been difficult to begin with but in very long
and frank discussions with the Ministry of Health we made it clear
that we needed a transparent recruitment process, so any hiring
of national staff that Merlin does is done with representatives
of Merlin and representatives of either the local administration
or local Ministry of Health, so it is as transparent as we can
try and make it. That said, most of that has been going on in
Laputta township in Ayeyarwaddy division and how it may work in
Chin State—we have only been in there for just a month so
to date we have not come across any particular problems, but obviously
that might be a slightly more challenging environment given Chin
State's position in-country. In terms of being accompanied by
government officials, that is something that we have experienced
throughout our time in-country and it generally is not problematic.
You can find ways of getting around it; it is the way you engage
with the person.
Mr Hasan: We have a very different
way of working because we support local organisations directly
and therefore we do not have a physical presence. Just to talk
more broadly from our experience, it is very, very difficult as
foreigners to travel freely or even to travel outside of Rangoon
and therefore to undertake detailed monitoring work, so the employment
of local staff is absolutely essential. The discussions that I
have had with a number of the international agencies based inside
is that that, yes, there are mixed feelings, pluses and minuses
attached to it, but on the whole it has been relatively positive
and certainly it has enabled organisations inside to work much
more effectively through local staff as opposed to international
just because any of us three walking down any street in any part
of Burma is noticeable, but for local staff it is not, so it is
absolutely essential. For our partners it ebbs and flows. There
are moments when things are going okay and they are working okay,
the next thing the programme ceases to exist for a little while
and it quietens down, and then things go back to normal, and that
is just the reality of working in-country. It is something that
organisations both national and international inside have adapted
to very well.
Q105 Ann McKechin: I would just like
to ask you, Ray, a few more questions regarding the issue of your
relationship with DFID and TBBC. Before doing so perhaps I can
just put this reflection to you. TBBC have obviously been operating
for a very long time with staff and a director. It started up
when there was considered to be a short-term emergency situation.
They clearly have a good record of being very efficient, with
good cash distribution, and their probity is certainly valued,
and they have also been very good at data gathering, but clearly
this has become a long-term problem, it is not a short-term problem
any more, and the needs of the refugees have become much wider
and deeper, and yet the actual organisation itself I would say
really lacks the capacity to deal with some of these wider issues
in terms of livelihoods training, advocacy work, policy development,
and gender strategy, all of which, to be honest with you, do not
appear to be part of their strong experience. When you actually
look at the recent records of the TBBC and their last annual report,
in terms of funding it clearly admits that it has weaknesses in
its fund-raising mechanism and has never had a formal funding
strategy. It is totally reliant on institutional funders, it has
got a very small board of trustees and it has had financial management
difficulties in the last 12 months. I would put it to you that
rather than having another substantial increase in its funding
(which has been going up 16 per cent per annum over the last five
years) what is really required of everyone—DFID, Christian
Aid and all the other major donors which are involved—is
a strategic reassessment of whether or not this mechanism is now
appropriate to deal with the long-term interests of refugees,
but yet that type of thinking, that type of approach, that type
of call seems to have been really absent from the whole debate
about how you actually tackle refugees. What would your view about
that be?
Mr Hasan: Firstly, on the point
on financial concern as regards the TBBC, there have been no concerns
over their financial integrity as an organisation.
Q106 Ann McKechin: No, but the financial
management.
Mr Hasan: The issue around funding
has been an on-going problem because of the lack of long-term
commitment of donors to fund the refugee situation. That has improved
over the last few years with the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative.
DFID for the first time gave a three-year commitment, which was
fantastic, and that has enabled this to happen, but the reality
on the ground is that prices have increased and exchange rates
are not very good, continued numbers of people are still coming
into the camps, et cetera; the need is still there very much.
With regard to TBBC's role in providing skills training and other
initiatives like that, yes, they are not best placed to do that
and they are not claiming that they want to do that. They are
part of the broader mechanism, CCSDPT[3],
which is the co-ordinating mechanism of all the organisations
working with the displaced in Thailand, that is including MSF
for example, and a number of other organisations, ZOA Refugee
Care, et cetera. This co-ordinating mechanism has recently been
working with UNHCR in developing a Comprehensive Plan for 2007-08
which has just been released and has given much more detail about
how the broader, longer term approach with regards to the refugee
crisis will be dealt with. It has looked at, for example, how
the groups on the border are lobbying the Royal Thai Government
to open up space so that people can leave the camps, secondary
education will be attained, et cetera, so it is an on-going process.
TBBC is not the only organisation playing that role. All of the
organisations that are part of this wider co-ordinating mechanism
are involved in that. TBBC's main mandate with regards to refugees
is to provide food, shelter and non-food stuff such as charcoal
for example.
Q107 Ann McKechin: When we visited the
camp there was a fairly vibrant cash economy in evidence with
quite a lot of shops selling quite a wide range of stuff. I think
the question in providing food aid in this circumstance, which
has been long-standing, it has been going on now for 20 years,
is whether or not that is now appropriate given the changing circumstances
of the camp and the permanency of the camp and its residents.
It does seems to me that it is like a management by various committees
and we have come up with no clear strategy and a number of smaller
institutions, such as the people who are running TBBC, are expected
to do more and more and they are now for example including livelihood
training—this is actually documented in their reports—they
are actually trying to cover this in their own funding, and it
does appear that Christian Aid and other very large donors are
at second-hand control. "We are part of the management committee
but we are not taking any direct overall control of strategy about
this." Does there need to be a change and would it be better
for funding to be given direct by DFID to TBBC taking Christian
Aid out of the equation so there will be a direct relationship?
Now it is a UK charity would that not be an easier route to follow
and therefore they would develop a better-funded sustainable structure
for this organisation with perhaps other experts brought in to
widen out its capacity?
Mr Hasan: Firstly, I think the
point I would make is that to suggest that there is no strategy
for development is very unfair with the amount of hard work that
goes on there. We are part of the membership which is the highest
form of governance in the TBBC. All policies and strategies are
developed with members' input.
Q108 Ann McKechin: What is the gender
strategy then? Do you have a gender strategy?
Mr Hasan: There is a very clear
gender strategy with regards to the staff at TBBC and also with
regards to the approach—
Q109 Ann McKechin: That is about
your staff; I am talking about a gender strategy in every element
of policy that you implement in that camp; that was clearly absent.
Mr Hasan: It is not as strong
as it should be, agreed. This is a very difficult environment.
To assume that these things can be developed very clearly on paper
is true, they can be, but to implement them especially through
camp committees, to ensure that the camp management is done by
refugees themselves, is an incredibly challenging environment,
and you have to also appreciate that this is being done without
the United Nation's co-ordinating mechanism being in place. The
reality looking at the role of TBBC, DFID and Christian Aid—and
this is an issue that DFID have raised with us on a number of
occasions—from TBBC's perspective they have made it very
clear that by using members to develop co-ordination with the
donors it has enabled them to be detached from that, so as a member
Christian Aid is responsible for reporting directly using DFID's
guideline structures and formats. If you are dealing with 14 or
15 different country donors, as you can imagine, that is an incredibly
arduous task for a very small organisation to take on board, so
the added value from the TBBC's perspective is having that co-ordination
done by members.
Q110 Ann McKechin: It is now getting
direct money from the EU.
Mr Hasan: It gets it directly
through ICCO[4].
The EU money comes through to ICCO.
Q111 Ann McKechin: Which is the second
largest donor, DFID being down at number eight or nine on the
list. So if they are having to deal with ECHO then they will have
to be dealing with an EU audit process, which is pretty arduous.
Mr Hasan: It is arduous. ICCO,
the Dutch agency, channels money from ECHO[5]
and from the Europe Union. They do not send money directly to
the TBBC. No government donor sends it directly. Yes, TBBC are
probably one of the most evaluated organisations. The European
Union and US requirements are very rigid and the lessons learnt
from each evaluation have been implemented. I think it is quite
clear that they are very effective in what they are doing. DFID's
role has always been very clear, they have not had staff resources
on the ground. It has also been quite clear, I think, from your
experiences (and questions have already been asked about DFID's
engagement on the border). We have always been very keen and willing
in negotiating with DFID to play a much stronger role in doing
that and on raising concerns that DFID may have at governance
level, and we have left that open for DFID to come and challenge
us on directly, so that is one of the things that we have been
very much keen to play as well. To be perfectly honest, if DFID
insisted on funding TBBC directly, fine. The key issue is a long-term
commitment to funding the displacement crisis in Burma for both
through refugees and the displaced inside. If it is not done through
Christian Aid, that is okay. Ideally we think we can play a very
key role in the added value to that relationship and we have shared
that with DFID in some detail on a number of occasions. That is
our position. We are very clear that we can play a key role. We
have expertise on this issue, we have been working there for many,
many years.
Q112 Ann McKechin: From your offices
in London.
Mr Hasan: From the offices in
London but also through continued staff travel, through our consultants,
through our accompaniers—
Q113 Ann McKechin: I appreciate that,
Ray, but obviously there has been a breakdown in communications,
that has been quite clear in evidence, and it is a question of
trying to find a way that reaches forward to improve that. I would
say that at the moment simply putting more money into TBBC with
its current structure and given its constraints in capacity is
not really the best solution and that there actually needs to
be much more thinking by the donors and by organisations such
a Christian Aid who are doing the direct funding of TBBC about
what is going to be a sustainable long-term strategy. The other
thing is that DFID is ninth in the list of donors and we have
the EU and particularly the USA as by far the very largest donors,
so again this goes to the point who is going to do the co-ordination,
who is going to lead the strategy? Is it going to be the UN, which
might be most preferable, or is it going to be the EU or the US?
It would seem to me the central direction is coming from one of
those three rather than per se just DFID. DFID has a part to play,
I would take your point, but clearly it has to come from one of
the very largest donors if it is really going to control the situation.
Mr Hasan: As I mentioned, there
is a comprehensive strategy that has been developed and this is
the second year (2007-08) that has been done not by TBBC but by
all of the groups working with refugees in the camps alongside
UNHCR. That strategy is being developed. I can share a copy with
you today. That gives a detailed outline of the future challenges
that are ahead, how do we develop ways that we can reduce the
dependency of refugees on aid delivery, how we can develop relationships
with the Royal Thai Government to open up space so that they can
leave the camps and get involved in employment, so they can be
seen as an asset to Thailand and not a burden to Thailand. These
approaches have been developed for some years. The reality on
the ground is that it is those groups on the border that are doing
that work with UNHCR and not the donor community, so we would
certainly want DFID to get more involved in that because we think
that that would be an interesting role for them to play. We are
a part of that process and we are playing a key role in doing
that and we are feeding that information back continuously to
DFID.
Q114 Ann McKechin: Would it really
be the Foreign Office that needs to play a key role in terms of
negotiations with the Royal Thai Government in terms of this process
of dispersal within Thailand and also resettlement outwith Thailand?
This is obviously the key issue now. These refugees are not in
the short term going to go back to Burma; where are they going
to go, and how can we actually take them out of the refugee camps?
Mr Hasan: I would argue that both
the Foreign Office and DFID need to play a key role within that.
Q115 John Bercow: Can I come back
very briefly to this subject. Obviously one can focus on the intricacies
of the TBBC endlessly, and it is perfectly legitimate and valid
to do so, but in the end the policy question—not dealing
with the minutiae but the broader picture—is whether or
not you believe a) that there needs to be a long-term commitment
to the delivery of cross-border assistance, and it seems to me
pretty clear, although I would welcome a repetition, that you
do, and that b) in your judgment, that commitment needs to be
bigger than it is at the moment for the simple reason that the
need is not static, the need is increasing. Am I wrong?
Mr Hasan: I would like to give
more information on this in a private session. I will try and
give as much of an answer as I can now. Absolutely, but again
not to deflect away from the need to also support initiatives
inside the country as well. This is the key message I want to
give. Either/or is not an option; it has to be both, it has to
be co-ordinated and that is what DFID should be trying to do.
We are very much aware that there is more capacity on both sides
to do this work. My feeling is with regards to supporting groups
in Thailand there is significant capacity that is being unmet.
A lot of work over the last few years has been spent on developing
the expertise of a lot of the ethnic community organisations.
That capacity development has now led to a situation where they
are much more capable of delivering long-term support. The funding
they are currently getting is not sufficient to meet that capacity
and it obviously is not sufficient to meet the needs of the displaced.
There is a very similar argument inside as well where our experience
would be that the capacity is much weaker but the opportunity
is still very much there, and we will support most strongly both
approaches.
Chairman: You might want to expand
a bit more in the private session but what I think that exchange
demonstrates is that everybody says more resources are needed
and they could be absorbed and DFID should do more and yet, for
reasons which are not entirely clear, this is not happening. DFID
is after all not an under-funded donor or one that is normally
reticent and we are trying to really get to the bottom of exactly
why it is that an organisation like DFID (which normally you would
have thought would be a major player) is not.
Q116 Sir Robert Smith: Just quickly
to return to in-country and the experience of Merlin on working
with the Three Diseases Fund as opposed to the Global Fund. I
suppose it is still early stages—
Ms Doull: —very early, just
one and a half months.
Q117 Sir Robert Smith: In that one
and a half months what is your experience of developing a programme
supported by the Fund?
Ms Doull: I cannot say we have
come across any particularly new challenges or different challenges
from implementing previous programmes because at the moment we
are still in the set-up phase. The main issue now is getting access
to Chin State, developing a regional office, getting national
staff in place, recruitment, and for that we have to go through
exactly the same process as we do for access to Laputta. The main
issue is travel permits, and it is taking an average of three
weeks for us to get travel permissions and as yet we have not
had any problems with that. Merlin was in Chin State when we first
went in-country which was in 2004 with an ECHO-funded malaria
control programme in the same region as we are going back to now
and that over time became impossible to work with because of travel
restrictions, but that was back in 2004. Whether that will happen
again is something that we obviously have to negotiate but it
is interesting that the Three Diseases Fund has some criteria
and I think they are saying for those who are already in-country
and actively implementing, they are expecting permits to be issued
within two weeks, so we will just have to see how that goes.
Q118 Sir Robert Smith: In terms of
the Memorandum of Understanding, does that clash with trying to
deliver services to these who most need them?
Ms Doull: No, because the MoU
is relatively broad in its scope, so our interpretation of who
the most vulnerable are is fairly easy. It does not appear to
constrain us on paper or at the moment in actuality, but I think
it is too early, to be honest, to make a comment.
Q119 Sir Robert Smith: In choosing
the most vulnerable do you in your part of the programme get to
steer where you think the most vulnerable are or is it something
that comes up?
Ms Doull: No, there are discussions
that occur. We have been in Chin State before so we have some
previous knowledge of the region and where vulnerability lies,
and there inevitably have been discussions with the Ministry of
Health both at central and at local level and also with WHO and
other players in-country. One of the first things we will do in
our programme is to do baseline surveys, so we will do community-based
household surveys to focus predominantly on health-seeking behaviour,
but within that survey we can ask about individual status as to
whether people are host or displaced or whatever, so that will
give us a baseline to work from our target. The idea then is to
target not only clinics that we know are unsupported right now
but to use mobile outreach services from those clinics to target
other inaccessible areas. That baseline survey is critical for
us to be able to identify where we really need to target.
3 Committee for Co-ordination of Services to Displaced
Persons in Thailand Back
4
Dutch NGO Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation Back
5
European Community Humanitarian Aid Department Back
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