Brussels, 18/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is keen to take part in the debate underway, among the multilateral development aid donors, over ways in which to improve the links between emergency humanitarian aid, reconstruction and development in the longer-term of countries in post-conflict situations, which are aid recipients.
A teleconference on this issue took place at the start of this week, at expert level, between the Commissioner (represented by the Directorate General Development and by ECHO), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the US Bureau of Population and Refugees, the World Bank and various UN agencies. By sticking to the studying of a case study - that of Congo Brazzaville where there coexists a classic situation of post-conflict reconstruction and development and the problems linked to the existence of refugee camps from the Great Lakes region - the experts considered ways in which to coordinate the interventions by international donors, by drawing the bast benefit from their respective know-how. This said, they tried to concretise the political will of the institutions concerned to make more efficient the delicate transition of emergency aid to reconstruction then development, and to thus reduce what is commonly referred to in the jargon used as the "transition gap".
This teleconference marked a step in the consultation process launched in 1999 by the World Bank and the UNHCR, under the name of the "Brookings initiative" and re-centred in November 2000. This re-centring of the initiative coincided with the drafting of a Commission Communication - which is expected for the spring - on the link between emergency aid, reconstruction and development.
During his visit to Pristina, on 14 December 2000, the European Commission for Humanitarian Aid and Development, Poul Nielson, took part in a videoconference with Mrs Ogata (then High Commissioner for Refugees), Mr Wolfensohn (President of the World Bank) and Mr Malloch Brown Director of the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), following which the organisation of a follow-up at expert level was decided.