PRESS BRIEFING BY UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND

Almost 50 million women and children were facing extreme danger in various parts of the world today, Nils Katsberg, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Director of Emergency Programmes, told a Headquarters press briefing today, as he presented UNICEF's portion of this year's United Nations Consolidated Appeal. UNICEF is seeking approximately $136 million from donors for emergency assistance for 20 countries.

Mr. Katsberg said the situation of women and children was almost unprecedented. At the end of the century, women and children had become deliberate targets in civil conflicts, whereas at its start only about 5 per cent of those targeted in war were civilians.

Mr. Katsberg told correspondents that children had been targeted in Sierra Leone and they were in the middle of the fighting for Freetown. In Angola, airplanes that were part of the relief effort to fly supplies to provincial towns were shot down. In Afghanistan and elsewhere, United Nations staff had been killed as they tried to reach women and children. However, despite what was happening in Freetown, UNICEF staff were inside Sierra Leone trying to provide assistance. UNICEF people were in Afghanistan and Angola trying to help. In the middle of the worst situation in UNICEF's history, it was still possible to reach people and help them.

He added that UNICEF's Executive Director, Carol Bellamy, had today asked Member States to ensure the Security Council took the situation of women and children seriously and looked at ways to provide them better protection in extreme situations.

Urban Jonsson, UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, said that of the 22 countries covered by his office, over half were either affected by emergencies or likely to be so soon. UNICEF was using two strategies in response. The first was to integrate emergency response efforts into the regular programme of country offices, to train and prepare all staff for emergency work, and to provide a core set of responses to emergencies from UNICEF that could be relied upon. UNICEF's response to emergencies must become predictable to governments, to partners and to other collaborating agencies, said Mr. Jonsson.

The second strategy was called regionalization, he added. It involved being prepared to rapidly move to any crisis point a large number of emergency-prepared professional staff based in the region. That would be combined with better training in humanitarian law, and improvements in UNICEF's analysis of country situations to allow better prediction of crisis. Such changes were probably the greatest change in emergency response strategy in the last decade, he said.

Mr Katsberg explained that the emergency appeal for $136 million was thus accompanied by a major effort to ensure the best possible use of resources. That amount for nearly 50 million people was a small amount per person, but for many it would be lifesaving. He pointed out that UNICEF was using a complementary approach with other United Nations agencies.

In response to a question from a correspondent, Mr. Katsberg explained that the Security Council itself had expressed interest in the issues and had invited relevant officials, including UNICEF officials, to brief it. Very often the Council focused on political and military aspects of a situation. UNICEF believed fundamental respect for humanitarian assistance needed to be recognised.

Asked where the money UNICEF was seeking would be spent, he said that, in preparing the Consolidated Appeal this year, all United Nations agencies had tried to target very precisely what their inputs would be. Among those identified by UNICEF were immunization, support for schools, provision of clean and safe water, and support for cattle for those societies that were cattle-based. In southern Sudan, despite the conflict, UNICEF was currently supporting 1,500 schools through non-governmental organizations, and providing 3,000 sites for clean and safe water. Over half a million children had been recently vaccinated. Those activities did not cost a lot of money, but they saved a lot of lives, he said.

Mr. Jonsson explained, in response to a question, that the new strategies were developed because UNICEF wanted to be better prepared to act fast. In the past, emergencies had not been so frequent and so severe. He described the magnitude of the current crises in Africa as "scary".

In response to another question, Mr. Katsberg explained that UNICEF remained seriously committed to providing assistance in Haiti, but that assistance there was provided by the country office from existing funds.

Asked why there was an increase in combatants targeting women and children, he explained that there was increasing disrespect for the sanctity of hospitals and schools. They were more and more being used as places for staging warfare, rather than places for strictly health or education.

Mr. Jonsson added that conflicts today were within States, rather than between States. The rules of warfare, respected by States to a greater or lesser extent, seem to be respected less by groups within countries.

In response to a question on planning, Mr. Katsberg explained that contingency planning for emergencies was regularly undertaken. Many plans were relatively detailed, but when disaster struck it did not always develop as anticipated. However, there was much better preparedness today than there was, for example, when guest workers flooded out of Iraq and Kuwait in August 1990.

UNICEF Press Briefing - 3 - 19 January 1999

Asked about preventive efforts to protect children in Angola, Mr. Katsberg explained that the United Nations and its agencies had spared no effort to try to create safe spaces for children, but when both parties to a conflict saw fighting as the only solution, it became difficult, if not impossible, to create such spaces.

Asked where the one million displaced persons in Angola were, Mr. Katsberg said that the majority of displaced children had fled to provincial towns. However, UNICEF needed access to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) to reach those displaced people who were in areas under UNITA control.

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