Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
40-49)
MR ROB
REES, MR
WILLIAM ANDERSON
AND MR
JUSTIN BYWORTH
26 JANUARY 2010
Q40 John Battle: I think it was Justin
that mentioned that there are over a million orphans and vulnerable
children. In your submission you ask DFID to carry out a Child
Rights Situational Analysis. I want to ask a little bit about
how effective you think that would be. I understand that many
of the orphans go to stay with extended family. What is the support
given to extended families with over one million children pushed
out to relatives to cope with? What is your view on the orphan
situation?
Mr Byworth: We talked about it
a little earlier. It is an enormous situation. Obviously family
coping mechanisms are stretched beyond breaking point in many
cases. World Vision's point on child rights is that in some respects
DFID often uses a human rights framework to look at things and
obviously that was relevant when they put together their strategy
for Zimbabwe. We have certainly found as a child-focused organisation
that using child rights as an entry point is a helpful one. It
is less politicised and there are the wider human rights issues.
Where we hear the voices of children saying things that are right,
whether it is education and schools, as we talked about just now,
or health services, we are able to amplify those voices of children
to get them heard. It is an effective way in. We have talked about
the vulnerability of children as a whole. Whether it is child
rights in a framework that can be looked through or whether there
is a greater understanding of the rights of children, that is
certainly something we would encourage in DFID. The orphan situation
needs continuing investment. It is the point I made earlier: if
DFID could continue and extend either the programme of support
through UNICEF or something else like that, that would be very
much welcomed.
Q41 Chairman: You have all been complimentary
about DFID's basic programme in Zimbabwe but you have criticisms
about some of the bureaucracy. In particular, World Vision have
criticised DFID for "bureaucratic impediments" and we
have heard from others of you that it requires a rather intensive
application of people to monitor and keep up with the system.
What would you want DFID to do? How do you think it would affect
their programmes? Their starting point, presumably, is they are
terribly worried about leakage but you are saying that complying
with their requirements, by implication, is undermining delivery?
Mr Byworth: Firstly, let me say
from World Vision's perspective there is a wider issue about DFID
instruments of aid and using intermediaries like GRM to move transaction
costs out of DFID, the head count and all of those things, into
a third party where the transaction costs are lower.
Q42 Chairman: You are suggesting
it is more to do with that bureaucratic pressure within DFID than
it is to do specifically with the situation in Zimbabwe, or both?
Mr Byworth: I am just saying there
is a wider issue about DFID's aid instruments. I think GRM work
well. We have been happy with them and they work effectively.
The people and the way that they work has been good. The one major
concern we have raised is we are very happy to have the highest
level of compliance and monitoring in terms of standards to demonstrate
impact and to demonstrate outcomes. That is not an issue for us
but where you have multiple advisers on different thematic areas
and you have compliance monitoring and all the frameworks that
come with that, you can get three meetings in the same week from
different people and they are not always very joined-up. In our
case we are working out of Bulawayo and Matabeleland. If those
meetings happen in Harare on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday you
can imagine how much hassle it is?
Q43 Chairman: Would it be better
delivered if DFID appointed one person to deal with each NGO or
each programme rather than dealing with it by sectors?
Mr Byworth: We have good contact
points within GRM on the programme. For good reason, they have
set up an elaborate mechanism to get good technical advice and
support. William mentioned the support they have given to NGOs,
both international NGOs and local ones. That is welcome but they
could do with being a bit more co-ordinated. Their internal systems
tend toward silos. It is more about streamlining what is happening.
Plus I think the point Rob made, a bit more access to DFID perhaps
in terms of policy dimensions of things. If you subcontract a
programme, the relationship should be subcontracted in terms of
partners. If DFID had a bit more of a partnership arrangement
with civil society in terms of dialoguing about bigger picture
issues rather than project management issues, I think a combination
of fewer silos in GRM and better co-ordination and streamlining
with a bit more access and co-ordination more in the sense of
policy would be helpful.
Mr Rees: I have nothing really
to add to what I said before about the specific example that my
colleagues informed me about. They sometimes feel that it is difficult
for them to get access directly to DFID to talk about the policy
issues, to talk about the broader aspects of the programme because
their relationship is constrained to dealing with the managing
agent.
Q44 Chairman: Is that because there
are not enough people and they are too busy or do you think it
is because they have created a mechanism where it just does not
happen?
Mr Rees: They seem to have created
this mechanism but what the real thinking is behind that, whether
it is because of pressure of work and people are too busy or whether
it is just a policy to simplify the management from their point
of view, I am not sure.
Q45 Chairman: We can explore that
obviously but do you have anything to add, William?
Mr Anderson: Just to stress my
earlier point that it would be nice to see greater accountability
of the UN in the same way that NGOs are held to account.
Chairman: We can all shout "hallelujah"
to that. Okay, thank you for that. John Battle?
Q46 John Battle: I think you mentioned,
William, that the World Food Programme perhaps needs more accountability
but perhaps its operations as well. DFID gives them £9 million
and will probably give more. Should we be pursuing other approaches
to the World Food Programme? How could we change it to make it
more effective as well as just tracking the money?
Mr Anderson: That is a very big
question. In a drive for efficiency and effectiveness, the UN
perhaps is not the best mechanism at the moment but it is the
only mechanism we have, so DFID has to put in place some more
accountability measures that hold the UN to account for that.
Mr Byworth: One of the things
that World Vision does where we partner with the World Food Programme
in terms of delivering food to vulnerable populations, we have
established in many of our agencies work on areas of humanitarian
accountability to give the people who receive the food a voice.
In every place where we are doing food distribution we have a
complaints mechanism and a helpdesk. I have sat there and looked
at the logs of people who were meant to be receiving food complaining
if someone in their family was not registered properly or if they
were not happy with the rations or type of food. Building in mechanisms
where the beneficiaries themselves have a voice and that is heard
needs to happen more across the board, both in Zimbabwe and in
many other places, but certainly the UN agencies could benefit
from more of that.
Mr Anderson: Just thinking back
to 2008, the UN set up the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) against the Government's wishes in 2005 after Murambatsvina.
In 2008 the head of OCHA was rather a block to NGOs trying to
ensure that the operational ban did not happen or to respond effectively
to what the needs were on the ground. We complained as NGOs to
the donors, particularly DFID, quite a lot about this and eventually
we wrote a letter to the UN in New York and the head of OCHA was
actually removed. We also complained about the Resident Representative
there and there is now a different Res Rep. It was Augustine Zacharias
and there were certain question marks over him as to how effective
he wanted the UN to be in terms of standing up to ZANU-PF. Again,
perhaps we felt as NGOs that our voices when they were raised
with DFID were heard but we were not quite sure what happened
after that.
Q47 Chairman: Obviously there is
a whole substructure there about the relationship with international
organisations. Just one particular point about the WFP. We did
a report on them 18 months ago at the height of the food price
crisis, as it turned out, but they were keen of course not just
to respond to emergencies but actually to anticipate them, not
just with emergency back-up but with actual planting programmes.
Are they doing any of that kind of work in Zimbabwe or is it just
food relief? Of course in that context DFID maybe is not terribly
interested in supporting that aspect of the WFP and they want
to just see it as a food relief agency.
Mr Anderson: I think it is pretty
much business as usual, it is pretty much food relief. I know
they were talking about possibly distributing some seeds and fertiliser
almost with the FAO[6]
or in co-ordination with them, but, to be honest, I do not know.
Q48 Chairman: That is fair enough.
We can obviously ask about that because I think we are looking
at some of the basic agricultural support programmes that DFID
is supporting and I just wondered whether WFP and DFID are in
competition or at odds with each other on that.
Mr Byworth: I believe they have
done some maize seed distributions but it has not been a massive
change of strategy. Certainly World Vision, together with WFP
inputs and other support, have done quite a lot of agricultural
inputs. I am not sure to what extent they have shifted. As you
said, it is business as usual.
Q49 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. We appreciate the informal evidence you have given us
but it is nice to have a bit of information on record which is
helpful to our inquiry and the production of our report at the
end of the day, so can I thank you all three of you very much
indeed for coming in.
Mr Byworth: Have a very good trip
for those of you who are going.
6 Food and Agriculture Organisation Back
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