Brussels, 10/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - On the eve of his departure for a humanitarian mission to Pakistan and Afghanistan (see EUROPE of 7 September, p.7), Poul Nielson, European Commissioner for Development Policy and Humanitarian Aid, gave the press a positive report of the activities of the Community's Humanitarian Office (ECHO) over the year 2000. His report showed that intervention was taking place at an accelerated rate and that there was effective disbursement of funds earmarked. The publication of the annual ECHO report showed this to be the case. Entitled "humanitarian crises far from the projector", the report "translates the Commission's determination to improve the effectiveness of aid to the poorest populations, and is focused on crises that have been forgotten, except by us", said Poul Nielson, recalling that the taking into account of humanitarian needs alone, independent of political considerations, governs ECHO's actions, "whether the cameras are there or not".
The 2000 report sets out the key events throughout the year which gave rise to Community intervention in favour of populations that were victim to natural disasters, such as in Mozambique, South East Asia and the Horn of Africa, or armed conflicts as in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Colombia and in several regions of Africa. It stresses the progress made by ECHO for speeding up funding in emergency situations and sizes up the challenges still to be faced. Thus, ECHO last year financed humanitarian operations up to EUR 492 million in over 65 countries, to the benefit of 18 million people. The African countries were the main beneficiaries. Nearly 1000 contracts were signed.
The ECHO budget for 2001 amounts to EUR 500 million, of which 450 have already been allocated, and for which 593 have already been signed. We give below the breakdown of the funds allocated on 31 August 2001: ACP countries (African, Caribbean, Pacific): EUR 171.3 million (35%); Western Balkans: EUR 80.1 million (18%); Asia: EUR 63.9 million (14%); Middle East and North Africa: EUR 50.4 million (11%); New Independent States from former Soviet Union: EUR 35.4 million (8%); Latin America: EUR 31.1 million (7%); other expenses (experts, etc.): EUR 18.3 million (4%).
For Poul Nielson, these figures are the proof that "ECHO is working, working and working well. The 2000 results are good in terms of speed of intervention and the spending of funds on an annual basis". To just take a few examples, the Commissioner cited the intervention of ECHO in Tanzania, a country that has received EUR 27 million in 2000 and 32 million in 2001, and which represents the largest ECHO commitment in Africa, to the benefit of a country that hosts over 500 refugees from Burundi and the DRC, "without hitting the headlines". With the payment of EUR 14 million in 2000 and EUR 15 million in 2001 to 160,000 Sahraoui refugees in Algeria, the "Commission is one of the rare donors for one of the most forgotten crises", added the Commissioner. Speaking of ECHO action in Tajikistan (EUR 15 million in 2000 and 12 million in 2001), a country that was victim to famine after drought, he recalled that, in order to "save lives and bring relief to poverty", aid was often for the most modest things: the provision of temporary shelter, cooking utensils, warm clothing, and food supplements.
It is a duty towards beneficiaries and taxpayers to spend the funds allocated, said the Commissioner. He welcomed the progress that brought in the new urgent intervention procedure adopted in June 2001 to allow a response within 48 hours to sudden crises through initial aid operations up to EUR 3 million. This procedure was immediately tested, successfully, during the earthquake in South Peru and at the beginning of the earthquakes in El Salvador and in India. The effort made to improve ECHO's operational capacity and coordination with other donors in the context of the reform of aid services external to the Commission are heading in the right direction, said Poul Nielson. "We have reached a situation where ECHO works as any aid provider should. I am very pleased with this significant improvement in just two years", he said.
All is not perfect, however. The increased risk threatening humanitarian workers and the difficulties for gaining access to victims, the growing number of persistent crises created by Man and the extreme violence of climatic phenomena, which can partly be attributed to human activities, remain, he said, sources of major concern for ECHO, which stresses the need to act on the root causes of the crises for which humanitarian aid alone cannot bring relief.
The problem of the safety of humanitarian workers in Afghanistan will no doubt be tackled
with the Talibans, but is not the object of the mission
Announcing his mission to Afghanistan where he will be on Wednesday (after a visit to Pakistan: see EUROPE of 7 September, p;7), Poul Nielson regretted that the Afghan crisis only stirs up public interest from time to time, for example during the destruction of statues or the arrest of humanitarian personnel by the Talibans, "while the Afghan refugee population is one of the largest in the world after the refugees from the Middle East conflict". To the millions of people displaced must be added populations threatened by famine, and by the drought which has raged for three consecutive years now. ECHO has been active in Afghanistan since the early nineties, and funding increased considerably in 2001 with a pledge of EUR 23 million. This brings humanitarian aid to a total of EUR 426 million (emergency aid, repatriation projects and the reinsertion of Afghan refugees from Iran and Pakistan, as well as aid to displaced persons within Iran), the Commissioner stressed.
The aim of my mission is to visit the humanitarian projects financed by ECHO and implemented by 25 NGOs who are active partners in the field, explained Poul Nielson. He explained he would be assessing the relevancy and effectiveness of the projects, the living conditions of the victims and the working conditions of the humanitarian aid workers, and would also be meeting representatives from the Taliban and the Northern Alliance to insist they respect the principles of international humanitarian law and also to show both parties in the conflict that the Commission is impartial in its granting of humanitarian aid. By humanitarian principles, the Commissioner meant safe, unhindered access by aid workers to populations in distress, he explained.
Responding to a question about whether he was intending to cancel his mission since it might be held up by the verdict in the trial of aid workers arrested by the Taliban, Poul Nielson said that it would be better for him to carry out his mission and get the message across rather than abandon the 25 NGOs financed by the EU. The difficult period (the trial, Ed) was not representative of the NGOs' activity since they work both in the parts of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban and in the rest of the country, but it would be counterproductive, he added, to start banging his fist on the table. When asked whether he would be bringing up the issue with the Taliban, Poul Nielson said it was unavoidable, but that was not the only purpose of his visit to Afghanistan since the three NGOs in question were not EU NGOs so it was important to be prudent and weigh up the risks. That was the objective of the permanent dialogue between the Commission and its partners in the field. He added that it was important to travel to the area to reinforce the credibility of EU aid.