Brussels, 20/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - As we pointed out in yesterday's EUROPE, p.14, the European Commissioner for Development Policy gave a generally positive report of the activity of ECHO, the European Community's Humanitarian Office. In addition to the overall report, the Commissioner answered criticism about specific ECHO operations.
He mainly stated that the EU's humanitarian response to the disaster caused by Hurricane Mitch in October 1998 worked perfectly well in keeping to the intervention timetable and programme: - release of initial aid of EUR 6.8 million four days after the disaster to meet the most urgent needs, the sending of experts to Honduras and to Guatemala one month later, the granting of EUR 9.5 million in December 1998, then EUR 16 million in October 1999. Poul Nielson regretted in this respect that an amalgam was made between this food aid delivered within the time set and the aid concerning the long term rehabilitation programme for which EUR 250 million were planned with other donors. "These rehabilitation activities are only just beginning. It is true that there have been problems at the Commission", he admitted, while speaking of the difficulties encountered for coordination between donors and the fear of corruption in the aid receiver countries (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador), which led to the appointment of a group of 7 persons with exceptional powers to implement the decision. While considering it unacceptable that it had taken one year to carry out these appointments, the Commissioner welcomed this "pilot experience", which inaugurates a delegation of Commission power towards its delegations. With regard to the humanitarian crisis in East Timor (September 1999), for which ECHO disbursed EUR 15 million, the Commissioner stressed the speed of the intervention and the "satisfactory interface between immediate aid and longer term aid".
A great deal has also been written about humanitarian aid in flooded Mozambique. Here too, however, says Poul Nielson, the initial financial aid was ready ten days after the torrential rain and every means necessary were rapidly employed despite the logistic difficulties encountered. "The sending of helicopters in the first days of the crisis allowed thousands of lives to be saved. It is easier to mobilise cameramen than tonnes of drinking water, medicine and teams of nurses. Making public opinion aware of what is going on is fine but it should also be informed of what it is possible to do", observed the Commissioner, who nonetheless acknowledged the importance of visibility in ECHO assistance, without being to the detriment of effectiveness.
Finally, the Commissioner cited the "forgotten conflicts" that ECHO does not forget: Afghanistan, EUR 76 million between 1996 and 1999; Sudan, EUR 52 million between 1996 and 1999; Tajikistan, EUR 100 million between 1994 and 1999. Poul Nielson concluded by expressing the wish for cooperation "which already works well" to be consolidated with the United Nations and the NGO. The improvements to the current financial regulation (legal base of ECHO), which allows the funding of actions solely on the basis of specific projects, constitutes in his eyes a compulsory passage on the road to such consolidated cooperation. Recalling that, in Kosovo, this regulation prevented the financing, by ECHO, of the coordination activities of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Commissioner deplored this obstacle to the effectiveness of ECHO and the work carried out by the international community. He went on to appeal to the Union Council to approve the changes to the regulation currently under examination. Such changes, he believes, would also allow an end to be put to the "accounting war" between the United Nations and ECHO.