Humanitarian Affairs Segment
PANEL DISCUSSION (MORNING SESSION)
“Needs-based humanitarian financing, including the Central Emergency Response Fund”
The discussion panel was chaired by the vice-president of the council Mr. Hjalmar Hanneson and moderated by Mr. Sylvain Maliko, Minister of Planning, Economy and International Cooperation of the Central African Republic.
Mr. John Holmes , the under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief coordinator, first took the floor and gave a presentation on the trends of humanitarian funding. He stated that the pattern of humanitarian funding remained uneven. For instance, the tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake had been largely funded while the humanitarian state of need in countries such as DRC, Cote d’Ivoire and Central Africa were under-funded. The new funding trends resulted from the pooling of financial resources in a dedicated institution instead of the larger multilateral UN system, which was intended to bring about a more coherent financial system. Thus the Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF), the Emergency Response Fund (ERF) and the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) allowed for the creation of stronger partnerships between UN agencies and local NGOs and for improved management of those funds. Mr. Holmes stressed the need to reinforce accountability and to strengthen the control and monitoring of the funds, to move the humanitarian reform to the next level. He reaffirmed that a joint effort by donors and recipients countries and all the intermediaries was highly needed to ensure a better humanitarian response.
Ms. Marika Fahlen, Ambassador and Special Envoy of Sweden, speaking as the chair of the CERF advisory group, gave a statement on the management of its resources. Ms. Fahlen first observed that previous funding mechanisms did not respond to the needs and that the coordination, coherence and transparency of humanitarian funds needed to be improved. Hence, the CERF had been created for that consideration and had received multiyear pledges commitments from a number of donor countries. The advisory group had conducted numerous studies on the CERF, its speed and timeliness, capacities and coherence, whose results were available on its website. Further, the advisory group had held consultations with experts on its effectiveness and ways of improving its activities. The group had also collected statements made by NGOs, such as OXFAM, on how they perceived the work undertaken by the CERF and how they thought it could be improved.
Finally Ms. Fahlen reminded the audience that the CERF purpose was to make funds available quickly in under funded crisis and though it represented a small fraction of the overall global humanitarian funding scheme, it denoted an important relief organism.
Mr. Oluseyi Bajulaye, UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and Officer-in-charge and Deputy Special representative of the Secretary General in Sudan, gave a presentation on the best use of humanitarian funds. Mr. Bajulaye mainly talked about the humanitarian situation in Sudan. He stated that the Sudan Humanitarian financing mechanism had four components, namely bilateral funding, Common Humanitarian Funding (CHF), Emergency Response Fund (ERF) and Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) grant and loan facilities. With the DRC, Sudan was the main beneficiary of the CHF, which provided 20% of all humanitarian funding in 2006 and 50% of all non-food humanitarian funding. He also highlighted that the CHF objectives were to provide early and predictable funding to meet critical humanitarian needs and support coordinated and strategic funding. The ERF objectives was the provision of rapid funds to address gaps in funding and its strength lied in the fast decision making process. The ERF was concerned with small allocations mainly to local NGOs and since last year gave rise to 32 allocations. The CERF allowed the UN to respond to urgent unseen humanitarian needs that the CHF could not support. The coordination among these funding mechanisms was based on the understanding that ERF was implemented as a window of CHF, while CERF was sought when CHF funds could not be provided timely. Finally, with regards of the experience acquired in Sudan, Mr. Bajulaye recommended to establish a strong planning and monitoring framework when implementing a CHF, to analyze the effects of the pooled funds on existing funding patterns, to put in place strong sector structures with well defined leadership and to involve NGOs at all levels of the work plan.
Mr. Daniel Toole, UNICEF deputy Executive Director, a.i., Director of the Office of Emergency programs, then presented on the opportunities and challenges in humanitarian funding. He stated that a clear identification of needs and need-based financing were crucial to strengthen the humanitarian response. He identified four pillars, which pictured the recent effort provided to improve response to humanitarian crisis. There are the work to strengthen the predictability and accountability, the work to strengthen overall coordination, the increasing commitment and inclusive dialogue for strengthened and broader partnerships, and finally the greater predictability of financing. He also highlighted the challenges facing humanitarian response. Here, he identified emergencies and particularly natural disasters, likely to increase both in number and scale in the near future; the instability and insecurity of the environment in which those assisting affected population are working; and the increasing number of internally displaced population. Mr. Toole reaffirmed that need analysis had to be conducted and should be led by national and sub-national governments along with other partners. Although he referred to the existence of needs assessment tools, such as the Needs Assessment Framework, he also recognized the need for more such tools. Finally, he stressed that financing decisions must be closely linked to needs, which is one of the key principles of the Good Humanitarian Donor initiative (GHD), constitutes the basis of the CERF and the other pooled funding mechanisms. However, there is need for improved and sustained efforts to ensure greater equity of funding across countries, and particularly to the routinely under-funded emergencies.
Lastly Mr. Nick Roseveare, Humanitarian Director of OXFAM, made a statement concerning the participation of non-UN organizations. Mr. Roseveare declared that OXFAM had been engaged in the Reform agenda of the humanitarian system. Indeed, being a major NGO player, it had a responsibility to be part of the program and an even greater duty to act and be part of the solution. Concerning the CERF, he understood that the mid-term review was making progress and pointed out flaws that needed to be addressed; the timing, highly critical, and the life-saving criteria. He recognized the need for diversity in funding mechanisms in order to respond to different situations. He further declared that the pooled funds should be considered as an enhancement and an addition to the existing system; and though they cannot replace multilateral sources of funds, they give rise to more coherent and accountable management practices.
After the panelist finished their respective presentations, the moderator opened the floor for general remarks and questions.
Portugal, on behalf of the European Union, made a statement supporting the improvements made by the humanitarian system to respond to emergency funding. The representative particularly expressed appreciation for the response to the emergency humanitarian crisis in Lebanon and Timor Leste. Finally, he wanted to be given clarifications on the projected increase in the staff of the CERF.
The United States stated that they followed with great interest the pilot of the new funding mechanisms in responding to the crisis in DRC and Sudan; and that they looked forward to the results of the present evaluation of the CERF.
Norway stressed the need to think on how humanitarian vulnerability could be measured in need assessment and stated that the analysis of humanitarian work should be based on the expertise on the ground.
The ECOWOS asked about the role of regional organizations within the framework of humanitarian assistance.
Turkey asked the panelists how they expected the UN reform to impact the humanitarian financing scheme.
And the Russian Federation asked whether the humanitarian coordinator had a clear mandate from member States to manage the pooled funds in the localities.
Responding to the various observations and questions, Mr. Holmes said that the increase in the staff of the CERF was to allow the fund to be able to deal with its increasing responsibilities. He also stated that the UN reform would allow for greater capacities and abilities, which would translate in speedier response. And responding to the Russian Federation, he affirmed that the humanitarian coordinator had a clear mandate already defined under their directives. Mr. Toole recognized that vulnerability assessment was an important element; nevertheless he stated that it had to be built overtime though it should be set before emergencies. To ECOWOS, he replied that countries and regions should try to identify partnerships before the emergencies occurred. Concrete measures should be taken on national and regional levels to teach people how to respond in case of emergency.
AFTERNOON SESSION
This session consisted of debate on the themes of cluster approach, the use of military assets and the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), following the Secretary General’s report on “Strengthening the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations”.
Sudan insisted on the importance of the non-politicization of humanitarian affairs.
Israel highlighted the increase in the technical capacity of developing countries, but there still needs to be progress in emergency medicine, especially in response to natural disasters. Israeli development programmes are working in that sense. The Israeli delegate also said that military forces should be used in humanitarian crises but only in collaboration with NGOs and multilateral organizations. Finally, Israel expressed its concern about attacks on humanitarian workers and recommended the creation of a response fund.
El Salvador insisted on risk reduction through sustainable development, as well as on the need for private insurance and a consolidation of emergency funds to respond to the financing problems. They also repeated, like several other countries, that humanitarian aid should be neutral, independent and impartial.
Tanzania expressed its worries about the conflicts arming women and children and the lack of humanitarian aid in East Africa for these kinds of conflicts (Congo, Burundi).
Venezuela recommended that efforts be concentrated on risk management instead of reacting to crises. It also asked for more independence for OCHA and for a report on OCHA’s activities and use of funds.
Korean Republic called for more funding for low profile catastrophes.
Algeria recommended more coordination at the national and regional level as well as with NGOs. It also called for an increase in early warning mechanisms, like the one that exists for tsunamis.
Columbia insisted on the importance of obtaining the approval of the victim-State in humanitarian crises.
Argentina criticized the duplication of UN activities and asked instead for more coordination and an increased leadership role for the UN. They also highlighted the dangers faced by humanitarian workers.
Malawi asked for the setting of standard guidelines for demands to the OCHA fund.
The UNHCR explained the progress achieved in the cluster approach implementation but insisted on the need for humanitarian aid to be based on requests from the victim-countries. The UNHCR thinks that military assets should only be used as a measure of last resort and as a temporary solution due to their high cost. Moreover, when military actors are used, they have to adjust their operations to respect humanitarian principles in order not to jeopardize the neutrality and impartiality of the aid. On CERF, UNHCR invited the national and international NGOs to take a more active part in this development. Finally, the UNHCR reminded the assembly that the humanitarian community remains challenged by limited access, security restrictions and insufficient resources.
The IOM described all the advantages of the cluster approach and the progress achieved in the last year. It also explained the help that the CERF can provide to the IOM to shorten funding gaps in response to serious humanitarian crises. However, access to humanitarian aid is often hindered especially for vulnerable groups.
UNICEF supported the use of military assets if done in accordance with agreed guidelines (the Oslo guidelines that state that military assets should be provided in addition to civilian aid and with strict adherence to these key humanitarian principles such as neutrality and impartiality) and approval by host country. On the cluster approach, UNICEF insisted on the need for a strong, specifically skilled leadership. It also works to enhance the collaboration with NGOs in emergencies. UNICEF reminded the assembly that, even if the funding mechanism became more efficient, inequity between countries remains and many crises remain chronically under-funded. The CERF was though of great help in this context.
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies highlighted the increasing danger of climate change. For this reason the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre in The Hague has been created to analyse the humanitarian consequences of environmental hazards. In that context, an equal stress has to be placed on disaster risk reduction and on disaster response and recovery. The IFRC also thinks their community-based work should be taken as an example. It then introduced its program on International Disaster Response Law, Rules and Principles (IDRL) that will help States willing to improve their domestic legal and institutional framework concerning international disaster relief. IFRC congratulates the UN for the launching of the CERF but also talked about its own system of emergency financing called the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) that is now being expanded given the increased number of demands. It also highlighted that in 80% of emergencies, less than CHF 75,000 were needed but a quick response was vital. Moreover, the DREF focuses on otherwise neglected disasters.
The Sovereign Order of Malta recommended building capacity of existing forces like the local staff. It also asked for easier access for humanitarian staff and criticized the attitude of Sudan concerning the crisis in Darfur. Finally they recalled the problem linked to sexual violence.
John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, concluded the session by asking for a quicker response to crises, better data collection, a reduction of administration costs and strong leadership. He highlighted the problem of security for humanitarian workers. Cluster strategies were applied last year in Indonesia and Ethiopia but more information is still needed to draw conclusions about any progress made. More response to natural catastrophes that jeopardize development is urgently needed. He also recommended that countries share knowledge. He said that it is advisable to develop risk reduction mechanisms, but effective response to disasters should not be forgotten. On funding, he noted the increased pressure of the international community to make more efficient use of available funds and to ensure that they are more impartially applied and to a broader range of actors. Finally, he said that military forces can be of great help in humanitarian aid but that they should respect the Oslo Guidelines.
Humanitarian Affairs Segment CLOSED after the adoption of RES I/2007/L14 and RES I/2007/L15
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