PRESS BRIEFING BY UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS

PRESS BRIEFING BY UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS

At his first press briefing as the new Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland told correspondents this afternoon that, while the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) had a better response system today than when it was first created in the wake of the Gulf War in 1991, it was now at a crossroads with problems on several fronts. 

Mr. Egeland, who had served as Norway’s State Secretary, said that one of the problems was that OCHA struggled to preserve a humanitarian presence -- to provide assistance to those most in need, as well as to receive assistance for them.  In Iraq, it was struggling to maintain a presence and would not be deterred.  However, the security conditions were such that OCHA was scaling down its staff there to a fraction of what it had been.  Many of the humanitarian agencies were scaling down to one international staff members, whereas they each had had several dozen before.

In Liberia, OCHA had to leave due to the turmoil, he said.  It also had to leave during the Afghan crisis.  It was a moral outrage that OCHA was forced out of situations where the people were dependent on humanitarian relief.  “Being there”, he noted, meant not only life-saving services but also being witnesses to what was occurring, protecting local staff, and being able to plan future development and reconstruction. 

Maintaining a presence was closely linked to the right of access, he continued.  In many parts of Africa, the Middle East and other parts of the world, OCHA did not have access.  Governments often did not do what should be done to provide access.  Also, turmoil prevented assistance from reaching the affected.  He hoped that issue would receive more attention from Member States and other partners. 

Presence and access were also related to quick response, he said.  The Office could, within 24 hours, send anywhere in the world a team of qualified and experienced experts to do assessments and then organize relief action.  A major problem was that most humanitarian emergencies were forgotten ones and lacked funds.  Many of the forgotten disasters, most of them in Africa, got a fraction of what the more well known crises received.  One of his tasks would be to, with the help of the media, shed light on those forgotten crises.  People were dying today in many areas because OCHA was not able to do its job and did not have the resources. 

Responding to a question on security conditions, Mr. Egeland said that, in the real world, OCHA had to rely on governments to provide the security which humanitarian workers were entitled to and on neighbouring countries to cooperate better in providing access to those in need.  In many cases, the international community, including peacekeepers, had helped to provide a minimum level of security.  While he would like to avoid being protected by arms, in some cases, such as in Iraq, humanitarian personnel were totally dependent on armed protection. 

As to whether Member States had shown any determination to provide more support, he said he had been heartened by the response by many donors.  He hoped that more countries would be added to the “top 10” list of donors.  It was necessary to get new donors in addition to having the old donors maintain their levels of assistance.  Asked if OCHA was facing a deficit, he noted that it was able to maintain its basic coordination function though it represented a fraction of the United Nations budget. 

His greatest concern was when the annual consolidated appeal, which covers about 100 countries, was launched (the next would be on 18 and 19 November).  Usually, only a handful of the countries in need get an adequate response while the vast majority get from one third to half of what was requested.  That meant taking hard decisions on who could be helped. 

He noted that host countries with large refugee populations often complained that they were left alone with the bill.  It was not the rich parts of the world that received most of the refugees but the poor countries, which did not have the adequate resources to take care of those refugees.

Asked if the proposed multinational force would help the situation in Iraq, he said he was worried that most of the options being discussed would not necessarily provide the kind of security needed in Iraq.  The security situation there was “rapidly deteriorating”, and what was needed was a “dramatically improved” security arrangement.

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