80. See, e.g., Iraqi Kurds Bargain Hard as Allies Leave, Christian Science Monitor, July 15, 1991, at 2, col. 1.

81. See G.A. Res. 45/100, adopted on Dec. 14, 1990.

82. See, e.g., Moffett III, US Congressmen Pressure UN to Outlaw Denial of Food, Christian Science Monitor, July 5, 1991, at 6, col. 1.

83. [1986] I.C.J. 14, 124.

ANDREW S. NATSIOS

DIRECTOR

OFFICE OF US FOREIGN DISASTER ASSISTANCE

JULY 30, 1991

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SELECT COMMITTEE ON HUNGER

"UNITED NATIONS REFORM"

Mr. Chairman and members of the Select Committee, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to you this morning about the UN and its ability to respond effectively to disasters. As the Director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, I am deeply interest in this topic. Mr. Bolton has described the reform proposals now under discussion to improve the response capabilities of the UN system.

The failure of the UN system to perform in the Kurdish emergency earlier this year only underscored what most of us in emergency management have long known: the UN can not as currently configured respond quickly and effectively to large scale, complex disasters. This now widely perceived weakness has led to a rash of recommendations suggesting changes in the architecture of the international humanitarian relief system.

In my testimony this morning I would like to first suggest some limitations on any proposals to reform the system and then describe the reasons the UN system proved dysfunctional during the Kurdish emergency.

Any

First, some limitations on any proposed changes. reform must be politically realistic given the political and bureaucratic alliances in the UN system or the reforms will forever remain proposals, like many other proposals over the years which ignored the powerful interests within the UN bureaucracy and the General Assembly.

No amount of structural reform can ensure political will. No matter how elegant the new architectural structure we create, it must still be led by men and women. If they are weak the structure will fail, if they are strong a reformed system could immeasurably strengthen the emerging new world order and save thousands of lives. A new structure can facilitate strong leaders' performance but it can not guarantee effective action.

Since we can not always guarantee strong leadership in any humanitarian relief system, we should not put all our relief eggs in one international basket. The proposed reforms should not hamper the existing capabilities of donor nations to provide humanitarian relief bilaterally in emergencies. If we rely exclusively on the UN system and it fails in the future, thousands of people could die.

Some of the proposals for reform would grant the UN virtually complete control over donor work in disasters, allowing UN officials to determine which donor nations would respond to which disasters, when and how. While a genuine international spirit may infuse much of the activity of the UN system, some of its business is influenced by the national interests of member

states. We should not vest the UN with so much authority in a reformed system that those national interests could preclude donor nations providing assistance bilaterally to suffering people in an emergency because some member states find intervention politically unpalatable.

An improved UN structure can speed response to disasters only if three conditions are present: competent staff immediately available in sufficient number, adequate funding, and the political will and authority to force turf-conscious UN agencies to cooperate.

The Kurdish and Sudanese emergencies are instructive case studies in the weaknesses and strengths of the existing UN structure. From the beginning of the Kurdish crisis there were questions as to which UN agency should assume leadership of the response. UNDP has the mandate to care for internally displaced persons in conflict situations, and yet it has frequently done an inadequate job in fulfilling their mandate. UNDRO has the responsibility to coordinate donor response in disasters, a role it did perform quite well in Jordan last fall when guest workers streamed out of Iraq. UNDRO did not take a leadership role in the Kurdish response. While UNHCR ultimately took responsibility for the Kurds it was because donor governments put pressure on it to act. Were the Kurds refugees, or were they internally displaced? In an emergency, political authority for the response must be absolutely and instantly clear for the response to proceed quickly. Perhaps the most important element of any humanitarian emergency is speed. Each hour, each day of delay places more lives at risk. The political authority to act in the UN must be absolutely clear before an emergency begins, so that turf battles do not take place while people are dying.

By comparison, in OLS or Operation Lifeline Sudan, the Secretary General vested overall responsibility for the relief operation in UNICEF. Individual agencies including the World Food Program and UNDP, worked with UNICEF to move humanitarian assistance to the vulnerable populations throughout southern Sudan. UN agencies and donor government knew which agency was in charge. Relief moved quickly and effectively to those in need.

Even if political authority to act were clear, the UN response to the Kurdish crisis would still have been slow, because its personnel and contracting systems are not designed for quick action. The Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance is unique among federal agencies in that it is exempt from the procedural requirements that make speedy action in this city nearly impossible. The procedural requirements used by most federal agencies have developed over a period of years to ensure that proper coordination takes place with other agencies, that the public and news media know what is going on, that abuse is restrained and good management practices used. These same sorts of considerations were, no doubt, why a similar system of procedures for contracting was built into the UN system. UN procedures are

3

equally as time consuming. Good management demands deliberation and that proper procedures be followed in most circumstances whether in the U.S. government or the UN system. During an emergency these deliberative procedures are disastrous. agencies need to be exempt from these regular administrative procedures during emergencies.

UN

The personnel requirements during an emergency response are of central importance. People make things happen. The UN system does have in each of its agencies. competent personnel with extensive field experience of the kind needed to deal with populations in crisis. These experts are spread across a half dozen agencies: UNDP, UNICEF, WHO, WFP, UNDRO, and UNHCR. The difficulty is that they are frequently not the personnel sent to disasters. There is no central administrative authority which has identified these experts and put them on notice that they might be detailed to provide emergency services during a disaster. No one official has the authority to order an uncooperative agency to detail needed expert out of their regular job into an emergency. These experts are needed at the disaster site instantly, to conduct field assessments of conditions, make recommendations on courses of action to alleviate the crisis, recruit PVO's and NGO's to join the response, order relief commodities, call forward food and trucks, hire contract staff and coordinate donor responses.

While the UN does sometimes provide unified appeals during a disaster, more frequently each agency with emergency responsibilities will issue a separate appeal. A unified appeal system for all agencies planning to act during an emergency would reduce confusion among the donors and increase the speed with which donors can make commitments.

Even with a unified appeal system, UN agencies should be required to reserve a larger portion of their operating budgets each year for use during the early stages of a disaster before an appeal is made for funds received from donors, so they may act immediately to provide emergency services. Without funds available quickly, the response will experience life-threatening delays.

Perhaps the most serious of the problems faced by the UN and principal stumbling block to fast action in disasters is the sovereignty issue, a major source of delay during the Kurdish crisis and a stumbling block initially in Operation Lifeline Sudan. The UN charter places restrictions on the UN agencies entering countries without the approval of the central government. This is a reasonable constraint in peace time, but in the middle of a civil war where a disaster has also struck, this constraint allows the central government to veto food and medicine for populations affected by disasters behind rebel lines. This is no small problem in the six African famines, most of which include the complication of civil conflict. Now only UNICEF exercises a broad mandate which enables it to react faster than other UN agencies to meet the needs