PRESS BRIEFING ON IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION

PRESS BRIEFING ON IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION

“We, at the United Nations, do not engage in a reconstruction plan in any country without the citizens of that country in the driver’s seat”, Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, told correspondents today in a briefing on the humanitarian appeal for Iraq and its reconstruction needs.

Mr. Lopes da Silva, speaking a day after the United Nations Headquarters meeting on technical aspects of Iraq’s reconstruction, said that to have the people of Iraq in the driver’s seat meant that such a representative leadership would be able to interpret the expectations and aspirations of the Iraqi people.  It was not for the United Nations to guess at what those were.  The Organization should be playing a supporting role.

Responding to another question, Mr. Lopes da Silva said a date and place had not yet been fixed for a donor reconstruction conference.  The general consensus of all the participants at yesterday’s meeting, amply represented by both Member States and international organizations, had been that the donor reconstruction conference would “probably take place sometime in mid-Fall, probably around October”, he said.

For the United Nations, having in place that interim Iraqi administration, with which it could engage in working through the reconstruction plan, was a “sine qua non” condition.  In order for that to happen, time should be given to the political process to mature.  And, those organs representing the Iraqi interim administration should be established and be functioning.

He replied, to another question, that the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer, was engaged in trying to accelerate that process.  The intention of the Authority, with respect to the model it was negotiating with Iraqi political leaders, was the creation of both a constitutional conference or convention, which would be looking at aspects of constitutional and judicial reform, and the creation of a political council, which was a smaller body of some 25 to 30 people, which submit candidates for ministers.  Those persons would then be endorsed by the Authority.

Asked about so-call “pretenders to power”, he said that was a natural result of any process that started with the collapse of a dictatorship.  Some of those pretenders, in the case of Iraq, were fairly well known by the international community.  In his own country, Portugal, when fascists were toppled, there were 100 political parties and plenty of “pretenders” by the following morning trying to set up the national agenda.  Over time, that universe of political parties would be consolidating and mainstreaming, and there would be a smaller number of political parties congregating around specific core values.

Replying to a question about why that donor reconstruction meeting had slipped from September to October and why any date needed to be set at all, he said it was essential to set up a timetable, without which it would be very difficult to initiate the process leading to that conference.  For both the United Nations, as well as for very many Member States and international organizations present at yesterday’s meeting, the establishment of a representative Iraqi interim administrative was sine qua non.

Asked how the $259 million requested in the United Nations’ revised humanitarian appeal for Iraq would be distributed, he said that amount would cover 12 sectors, from health, where the greatest funding needs existed at present, to activities such as mine action, for which requirements had tripled since the Flash Appeal in March.  The intention was not to target that distribution to specific cities.  Both the sectoral and geographical needs had been identified.

He added that, as the summer set in in Iraq and because the deep south of the country had been subjected to large neglect, a major portion of those resources, particularly in the areas of health, water and sanitation, and mine action would be targeted to the southern-most governorates, around Basra.  Generally speaking, the $259 million would be spread nationally, with the focus varying from sector to sector.

A correspondent asked if Mr. Lopes da Silva was concerned about the difference between pledges and realities, especially since the pledges for Afghanistan had not all been met and since the United States-led war in Iraq had been so controversial.  He responded that the $5 billion appeal for Afghanistan was not for humanitarian activities, but for the reconstruction of that country.  When dealing with reconstruction, it was important to have the pledges up front, but one had to be realistic about the absorptive capacity of a country.

Unfortunately, he added, Afghanistan still had the problems of warlords and security.  Large swaths of the country were, once again, out of bounds for United Nations staff.  So, while there was a commitment from the donor community, one should be realistic about the capacity on the ground.  As the problems were resolved, that $5 billion would materialize.  Obviously, the Afghan leadership would love those disbursements fast, but one had to be realistic.

The appeal for Iraq now, he continued, was for emergency rehabilitation activities.  It was not yet about the large reconstruction programme for Iraq.  That was the subject of the discussion to be held sometime in the fall, around October.  Obviously, that would be a rather complex discussion, because Iraq was not Afghanistan; it was the country with the second-largest known oil reserves in the world.  That was why the intention of the meeting in October was to focus on the needs for 2004, while indicating the potential needs for reconstruction for the subsequent years.

As the programme in Iraq moved forward, the national oil sector would play an important role, he explained.  Iraq was a potentially rich country, and access to borrowing from international financial institutions would be available to it, whereas that had not been available to Afghanistan.

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