UN HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS OFFICE TO ORGANIZE JUNE MINISTERIAL-LEVEL CONFERENCE TO DEVELOP CRISIS MANAGEMENT POLICIES FOR EUROPE, NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES

Press Release
IHA/700

UN HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS OFFICE TO ORGANIZE JUNE MINISTERIAL-LEVEL CONFERENCE TO DEVELOP CRISIS MANAGEMENT POLICIES FOR EUROPE, NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES

GENEVA, 24 March (OCHA) -- The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is organizing an international ministerial-level conference from 15 to 16 June to develop efficient and concerted crisis management policies for Europe and the Newly Independent States. Ministers from 50 nations are expected to discuss crisis management, the thorny issue of coordination and colliding mandates in the Fribourg Forum.

The conference will be named the Fribourg Forum, after the Swiss city where the gathering is to take place. OCHA has invited 50 European and Newly Independent States nations, the United States, Canada, the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement, the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other regional governmental organizations to send delegations.

Swiss Foreign Minister Joseph Deiss will host this event, which is funded by his Government. Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations Under Secretary- General for Humanitarian Affairs, will lead the discussions.

Twelve of the world’s 75 catastrophes occurred in Europe and the Newly Independent States last year, in addition to many violent conflicts. OCHA has warned in a statement circulated to Member States that unless such policies are put in place, "humanitarian relief mechanisms will deteriorate further, more resources will be wasted, and lives will be needlessly lost." OCHA has stressed the need for "a meeting of the senior policy makers responsible for international humanitarian assistance in the region" to develop remedies.

Natural and technological calamities have affected 500 million people worldwide in 1999, nearly 12 times as many have been displaced or were made refugees due to war, according to United Nations estimates. However, OCHA is expecting even more people to be at risk in the years to come.

The Fribourg Forum will follow the 1998 Interlaken, OCHA/Partnership for Peace Seminar attended by 28 nations and several regional organizations. That colloquy and subsequent consultations between a core group of participating nations have raised doubts as to whether the international community will be able to respond to a major emergency effectively if deficiencies in four areas are not immediately addressed:

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-- Governments should strengthen their consultative mechanisms in crisis management;

-- Bilateral emergency help across the borders of the region should be improved and encouraged;

-- Relief personnel and goods must be dispatched more rapidly to afflicted areas;

-- Civil relief institutions ought to be strengthened.

Potentially dangerous difficulties due to a lack of coordination have marred many relief operations during recent emergencies. Duplications are another frequent plague. Without prior consultation, different organizations sometimes send in teams of specialists with identical tasks, and then they often get in each other's way. Occasionally, rivalries between civil and military relief services have a paralysing effect.

"Colliding mandates", the Interlaken Seminar concluded, is one of the most persistent problems of international disaster relief. It could be mitigated if, for example, the region's governments commit themselves to appointing a central coordinator for humanitarian operations in their respective countries. Setting a process in motion to develop this and other potential solutions will be the objective of the Fribourg Forum.

For further information please contact: Phyllis Lee (New York), 963-4832; or Donato Kiniger-Passigli (Geneva), 9172653.

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