Annex C: Letter from Lord Bates, Minister of State at the Department for International Development, to Lord Boswell, Chair, Select Committee on the European Union, House of Lords
8 April 2019
Aid delivery conditions in Libya
Dear Lord Boswell,
Thank you for your follow-up question dated 25th March in which you raise the issue of how the UK ensures safe delivery of support to refugee centres in Libya. We continue to be extremely concerned for the wellbeing of refugees and migrants in Libya. Rather than having a set of security criteria per se, my Department applies robust risk management approaches and international humanitarian principles to ensure the safe delivery of support to vulnerable beneficiaries. I have outlined this below in more detail, alongside a clarification of the centres to which our partners are delivering aid.
Refugee centres/camps are places where asylum seekers, refugees and migrants can access accommodation or other essential services. The only facility of this kind in Libya is the UNHCR’s Gathering and Departure Facility in Tripoli, which the UK is supporting via our contributions to the EU Trust Fund (EUTF).
Detention centres in Libya are either official centres run by the Libyan Department for Combatting Illegal Migration (DCIM) to detain migrants, or unofficial centres which exist beyond DCIM’s control. The UK (as well as other international actors) is delivering limited humanitarian aid in official centres (for example phone calls), but we do not fund any operational/maintenance costs of these centres or longer-term assistance to migrants in centres, as we do not support a detention system that does not uphold human rights and is not meeting international humanitarian standards.
The UK understands that any initiative conducted in a conflict affected environment will interact with that conflict either positively or negatively. We therefore adopt a systematic approach to ensuring we understand and minimise the negative effects (risks) and maximise positive effects of our actions (opportunities) on conflict and stability.
For example, in Libya under our £75 million Safety, Support and Solutions Phase II (SSSII) programme, the International Organisation for Migration has conducted four comprehensive local level conflict analysis assessments for Benghazi, Kufra, Qatroun, and Sabha, each with detailed recommendations on conflict sensitivity considerations. Furthermore, we require all our partners to continually report on changes in the risk context in the countries they are working in, including demonstrating how any findings from conflict analysis have informed their individual project design. With this detailed understanding, we would not give any assistance where we consider the potential risk of harm (whether direct or indirect) to be too high, for example, the risk of aid diversion through blankets provided being sold onwards by militia, or refurbishing detention centres or funding their operational costs as effectively condoning a system of illegal detention. We also have regular discussions with our first-tier partners about how they are developing the capacity of downstream partners to deliver conflict-sensitive programming. Futhermore, this year during the Independent Commission for Aid Impact’s (ICAI) second follow-up review of their ‘rapid’ ‘review into HMG’s response to irregular migration in the Mediterranean, they have recognised my Department’s very strong approach to risk management under SSSll, particularly commending our integration of the ‘do no harm’ principle throughout programming.
The UK often cannot intervene in Libyan detention centres because our partners do not have unconditional access to beneficiaries—a core international humanitarian principle. This principle means that we and/or our partners would need to be allowed to enter every room in the detention centres to assess the vulnerability of every detainee and provide assistance as required. In the case of detention centres this is not respected by the Libyan authorities, which is why we are only delivering limited aid.
We also cannot deliver aid unless it is safe for our partners to do so. Libya is a difficult environment to operate in and security is difficult to guarantee. There is no unified security structure or police force, inter-militia fighting is common, and lawlessness is widespread. This is why in Libya under SSSII we were able to access one detention centre to deliver non-food items (for example blankets) only during a pause in fighting in the area during summer last year. We continue to closely monitor the security situation across the whole of Libya through our Embassy in Tripoli and with partners in Tunis, to assess where aid can be delivered.
Sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment is a significant risk in humanitarian emergencies, particularly in situations of protracted crisis .and refugee settings. It is critical that all beneficiaries of our aid programmes are safeguarded, and that all those engaged in poverty reduction and the provision of humanitarian assistance take all reasonable steps to prevent harm (particularly sexua1 exploitation, abuse and harassment) from occurring, listen to those who are affected, respond sensitively but robustly when harm or allegations of harm occur, and learn from every case.
In Libya under SSSII we have ensured safeguarding and other ‘do no harm’ risks are clearly articulated in all partner risk registers and appropriate mitigation measures and contingency actions are firmly in place. These risks are reviewed with partners on at least a quarterly basis. To date, there have been no reports of safeguarding concerns on the programme. We have also conducted enhanced due diligence assessments for all our partners operating in Libya, which ensured compliance with DFID’s robust safeguarding guidelines.
Lord Bates
Published: 27 June 2019