PRESS CONFERENCE BY UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS

PRESS CONFERENCE BY UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS

“I am a humanitarian worker, and it is my job to coordinate relief operations for vulnerable peoples around the world.  It is, therefore, with regret that I confirm today that I cannot, as I have hoped, launch an agreed appeal for the people evicted in Zimbabwe in the months of May, June and July”, Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

Providing an update on the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe, he said that his Office had not reached agreement with the Government of that country on the text of an assistance programme agreement, the number of people affected, the role of non-governmental organizations and other operational aspects.  The dialogue with the Government would continue in the hope of reaching agreement, which would give the Organization more access and more effective means of providing assistance.

However, a big humanitarian programme was already being undertaken in Zimbabwe, based on the initial donor appeal that had been issued in the beginning of July.  Assistance was being provided to between 100,000 and 200,000 people on a regular basis.  All together, 650,000 to 700,000 people had been directly affected by the eviction campaign, and many more had been affected indirectly.  Those were figures that the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had used, based on the information provided by the Government, which had stated that 92,460 housing structures had been demolished.  Some 133,000 households had been directly affected, according to the Government.

Since the demolitions, most of the people affected had returned to the countryside, where they could stay with relatives.  Others had moved to other areas of urban slums, or were “living outside in the open or drifting around”, with no place to stay.  Some people had found themselves in urban shelters, where they lived in extremely crowded conditions, which were much worse than what they had had before the evictions.  OCHA was providing regular assistance, including food, water, sanitation, tents, blankets and other necessities, to some 100,000 of those people.

The evictions had taken place against a dramatic backdrop in Zimbabwe, he said.  Life expectancy had plummeted from around 63 years in the early 1990s to 33.9 years in 2004.  One of the most important reasons for that “meltdown” was the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, which now affected about a quarter of the population.  About 3,000 died of the disease every week, and some 1.3 million children were orphaned.  Food insecurity was also very severe and growing.  In Zimbabwe, the United Nations, through the World Food Programme, was already feeding more than 1 million people, and preparations were under way to feed 2.9 million people before the end of the year.  The Organization’s team on the ground was working hard to reach agreement with the Government to increase access to the population in need and get donor funding.

In conclusion, he also addressed the situation in several other countries, saying that big progress had been achieved in Niger.  About half of the $80.5 million that OCHA had appealed for this year had been pledged.  To date, the WFP had dispatched nearly 6,000 metric tons of food, which was enough to feed about 350,000 people.  The Government had also dispatched more than 6,000 tons.  UNICEF was supporting 10 non-governmental organizations that would operate 156 nutritional centres. “I wish we would have had this programme before”, he said.  However, great strides had been made, and the Secretary-General’s visit had helped to focus international attention on the need for long-term assistance for food security in Niger.

More attention had to be given to end the conflict in northern Uganda, and more funding was needed to make conditions better in the camps there -- “a totally forgotten emergency”, he continued.  Crude mortality rate in the northern part of that country now stood at 1 per 10,000 per day.  That was above Darfur.  There were 1,000 excess deaths per week in northern Uganda.

OCHA was now trying to sound early warnings on the situation in Malawi -- part of the overall food insecurity in the southern African region, he added.  A staggering 4.2 to 4.6 million people would require food assistance there before the end of the year.  About 45 per cent of children under five were stunted, due to chronic malnutrition and other diseases there.

Responding to numerous questions about the reaction of the Government of Zimbabwe to United Nations efforts to help the evicted people, Mr. Egeland said:  “We see access problems, as we try to help the victims of the eviction campaign, but those are particularly severe for some of our NGO partners.  We also have particular problems reaching those who are in places being evicted.  We have not gotten permission from either local or central authorities.”  Overall, however, many of the agencies, as well as the Special Envoy, could move freely around in Zimbabwe, and he hoped that through the WFP, it would be possible to feed 3 million people by the end of the year, many of them also victims of the evictions.

The situation in the country was highly charged politically, he said.  The Secretary-General had been in contact with the President of Zimbabwe and was following the situation very closely.  So did Ibrahim Gambari, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs.  The Organization was relying on Member States from Africa and elsewhere to help it convince the Government “to help us help them to help the people”.  So far, the United Nations has not been able to help the Government help those people as effectively as it could.

As an aid worker, Mr. Egeland said he felt frustrated, because he did not like seeing his people spend so much time “arguing over words”, and so little time out in the field, helping people.  While the United Nations enjoyed a good dialogue with the Government in such areas as food distribution, in the end poor people were suffering, because of the “bad dialogue” between donors and the Government, and between the Government and the non-governmental organizations and even some aid agencies in some other areas.  “We are not informed beforehand when evictions take place”, he said, and, in some cases, there were access restrictions.

He was also concerned that even as late as the last couple of days, there were reports about ongoing evictions, he said.  For example, evictions had been implemented at Epworth Farm, which the Government said was illegally occupied during the fast-track land reform.  Field representatives had raised concerns about the situation with the Government.

Asked if food shortages were the result of the drought or the bad policies of President Mugabe, he said that it was a vicious circle -- a combination of the drought, the farm workers being sick with AIDS, the Government’s agricultural policies and international market problems.

To questions regarding the flash appeal, he said that OCHA was proud to be able to put such appeals before the international community in a very short period of time -- sometimes 72 hours.  The hope had been to spend a week in preparing a flash appeal in Zimbabwe.  Through it, he hoped to provide assistance to some 300,000 people, continuing programmes initiated following an appeal in July.  The evictions and their consequences had been amply documented, in particular by the Special Envoy.

Among the difficulties encountered in the provision of aid was the fact that it was unknown where many of the 650,000 to 700,000 people affected by the evictions were.  At the same time, the problem in launching the flash appeal boiled down to “who to help, what to call them, how to describe their circumstances and how to describe what had happened”.  It was surprising that there was disagreement on the number of people affected by evictions, which had been extrapolated from the figures provided by the Government itself.  OCHA had to deal with many ministries, and various officials were saying different things.

Regarding the provision of food assistance to over 1 million people in Zimbabwe, he said that the United Nations was not encountering the kind of blockages that it saw in Darfur and other places.  Programmes were under way, but there was little headway to reach new groups, especially “the very controversial group” of people being evicted.  Among other things, there were obstacles in the issuance of permits to non-governmental organizations, and cooperation was needed to avoid overlapping with Government-sponsored shelter programmes.  “We don’t have a partnership, really”, he said.

With the combination of drought, AIDS and other factors, what is your assessment of the chances of some African countries achieving the Millennium Development Goals? a correspondent asked.

Mr. Egeland replied that food insecurity, AIDS and the staggering mortality rates showed that those goals would not be reached, unless there was “a complete turnaround”.  Much more investment from the international community and national authorities was needed, as well as better partnerships and increased attention to the enormous threats.  The United Nations was there to help the governments help their own people, and it needed more money to do so.

To a question on Malawi, he said that OCHA was working very closely with the Government.  In fact, the Government was in the lead in taking the effort to ensure food security.  However, in view of the number of people affected, his “alarm lights were blinking”, he added.  The country was heading for the worst food crisis since 1994.

Asked about his expectations for the World Summit in September, he said that according to early indications, there would be agreement on a new emergency fund, which would allow the United Nations “to jump-start operations” without waiting for “an unpredictable response from governments”.  For example, in the case of a locust infestation, it would then be possible to deal with the threat before it became “a biblical plague”.

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