U.N. Is Faulted as Lacking Coordination of Aid and Security in Haiti

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Women in camps for displaced people in Haiti have reported an increase in sexual violence.

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Published: March 2, 2010

UNITED NATIONS — Humanitarian efforts by the United Nations inHaiti have lacked sufficient coordination with local organizations in delivering aid and establishing security, according to an independent assessment released on Tuesday.

One consequence was a surge in the sexual abuse of women and girls living in camps for the displaced, with some young girls trading sex for shelter, said Emilie Parry, an aid consultant who helped write the evaluation of the United Nations’ effort for Refugees International, a nonprofit organization that advocates on behalf of refugees.

“Women reported to us that there has been a lot of violence and sexual abuse at nighttime,” Ms. Parry said, noting that there is no system of nighttime patrols in the makeshift camps where many displaced people have been living.

“By all accounts, the leadership of the humanitarian country team is ineffectual,” said the report, based on 10 days of evaluations in February. The report, titled “Haiti: From the Ground Up,” also acknowledged that the scale of the disaster made the response a singular challenge.

Closer work with Haitian organizations, as well as better knowledge about conditions, would also enhance the ability of local groups to deal with problems long after the international groups left, Ms. Parry said.

The report suggests a number of ways to improve the delivery of aid, including allowing more participation by Haitian organizations whose leaders are now living among as many as several million displaced earthquake victims.

While the United Nations does not actively discriminate against such groups, it effectively bars them through a lack of advertising and the system of passes that are needed to attend meetings, Ms. Parry said. Appointing liaison officers dedicated to such groups would help, the report suggests.

It also recommended that the United Nations appoint one person responsible for leading the team distributing humanitarian aid in the country, rather than have the responsibility be among many tasks taken on by senior management.

Finally, it suggested that the United Nations’ assessments had not delved adequately into the heart of all the temporary camps, where hundreds of thousands of people still lack shelter and other basic needs. The report recommends that the United States government beef up its budget for disaster assistance and that it, too, should coordinate more with local groups.

“There is too much of a gap, too many people are being left out of the response,” Ms. Parry said.

Human Rights Watch issued a similar report two weeks ago, noting the lack of adequate shelter and saying that it had documented three rapes connected to poor security. Asked about the reports then, Anthony Banbury, a senior United Nations official in Haiti, was criticized for saying that the number of rapes “almost elates me.”

Mr. Banbury issued a statement later saying that he had not meant to minimize the seriousness of the three rapes, but to suggest that efforts to maintain some security were working because the number was relatively low.

The United Nations has given shelter materials to more than 523,000 people, or 40 percent of those in need, said Martin Nesirky, the spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, with 232,000 additional tarpaulins and 22,000 tents en route. The World Food Program and partner organizations have delivered food assistance to 4.3 million people, Mr. Nesirky said.

Catherine Bragg, the deputy humanitarian coordinator, said the scale of the destruction in Haiti, as well as the death of 100 United Nations staff members, including the most senior officials, had initially hampered relief efforts.

“It is the most complex humanitarian response we have ever had to deal with,” said Ms. Bragg, adding that the United Nations had brought some order to utter chaos. “It would be very easy to make negative comments about how things are coordinated.”

John Holmes, the departing United Nations humanitarian coordinator, has said publicly that the organization’s response was uneven. He demanded that United Nations staff members do a better job of coordinating relief efforts.

The United Nations has tried not to discriminate between Haitian and international organizations, with local groups accounting for about 15 percent of the groups participating in the effort in Haiti, said Stephanie Bunker, the spokeswoman for the humanitarian aid office. “We would like to increase the balance,” she said.

U.N. aid chief 'disappointed' with Haiti earthquake relief efforts

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 18, 2010; A08

UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations' top humanitarian relief coordinator has scolded his lieutenants for failing to adequately manage the relief effort in Haiti, saying that an uneven response in the month after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake has undercut confidence in the world body's ability to deliver vital assistance, according to a confidential e-mail.

The e-mail, which provides a rare and highly critical internal assessment of the massive U.N.-led relief effort, portrays an organization that is straining to set up enough shelters, latrines and other vital services for Haiti's displaced population. It also warns that a failure of the U.N. system to improve relief assistance could result in political unrest and mass demonstrations.

The criticism from John Holmes, the head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, focuses on the United Nations' sluggish implementation of its humanitarian "cluster strategy," which assigns key U.N. relief agencies responsibility for coordinating the delivery of basic needs in 12 sectors, including water and shelter.

The cluster strategy has been developed in recent years to head off traditional conflicts between competing aid agencies that provided overlapping services. But it has been showing signs of strain.

A "lack of capacity has meant that several clusters have yet to establish a concise overview of needs and develop coherent response plans, strategies and gap analyses," Holmes, who described himself as "disappointed," wrote in the e-mail. "This is beginning to show and is leading others to doubt our ability to deliver."

U.N. relief officials confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail, but Holmes's office declined to comment on it.

Officials said that the U.N. World Food Program has fed 3.4 million Haitians and that more than 850,000 people get daily five-liter rations of water. More than 66,000 people have been employed under a U.N. cash-for-work program.

Holmes acknowledged that the relief community has "achieved a great deal in Haiti."

Still, Chris de Bono, a spokesman for UNICEF, said the logistics of procuring material have been difficult. "It's now in the pipeline, and it's certainly a priority for us," he added.

Holmes noted that Haiti will face heavy storms in the upcoming hurricane season. "This is a major test for all of us," he wrote, "and we cannot afford to fail."

At UN, Buzz of Holmes Leaving, Tibaijuka's Absence, Accountability on Intranet

UNITED NATIONS, February 12 -- At UN's annual signing of "compacts" on Friday morning, the buzz from one Under Secretary General to another was that top UN Humanitarian John Holmes "is leaving to go back to the UK." Later another senior UN official, not present at the Compact signing ceremony, told Inner City Press this same thing.

Holmes was not present to sign his Compact, being in Haiti. Anna Tibaijuka, removed by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon inexplicably from running the UN's Nairobi office, was equally inexplicably not present, even by video conference. Her Nairobi chief successor Achim Steiner, handpicked by Mr. Ban, was present, with the image of a tree behind him.

Steiner signed two Compacts, as did Cheick Sidi Diarra, still moonlighting between Least Developed Countries, Landlocked and Small Island Developing States and the Special Adviser on Africa position, which some in the General Assembly say has become moribund under Mr. Ban. The Assembly has voted that the post must be filled, but it has yet to happen.

As in February 2009, Inner City Press was the only media organization there. Even for the photo op, only UN Television and UN Photo were there. Nevertheless, Mr. Ban in his prepared remarked said the UN was making these signings "as public as possible."

The documents, and reports on performance, will go only on the UN's intranet, not available to the public, to "we the peoples."

Many of the Under Secretaries General at the ceremony rarely if ever speak to the press. Chief UN lawyer Patricia O'Brien, in her few appearances, has stuck narrowing to issues of the Hariri Tribunal, refusing questions even on the UN's involvement in Cambodia's tribunal.

Inga-Britt Ahlenius, recently in the media for OIOS' alleged policy of not pursuing former UN employees or third party contractors, has not held a press conference in the Compact annual cycle.

New Safety and Security chief Gregory Starr has not spoken with the press, other than a single interview with the correspondent of the Washington Times (which recently closed its UN bureau by means of massive layoffs).

Starr is the only new UN senior office since last year. Now, a needed shakeup may be near.

Last year's group photo by UN, only DSS' Starr is new since then

Mr. Shabaab Shabaan, while affable, has yet to hold a press conference, despite being in the news for a damning UN Dispute Tribunal decision about his management. Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky, who sat in the corner during the signing ceremony, announced only that Ban will appeal the UNDT decision, but refused Inner City Press' question for a statement of the basis of the appeal.

Some absences were more than understandable. Lynn Pascoe, along with Ban's closest advisor Kim Won-soo, was still on his North Korea trip. Mr. Ban told the Press that he spoke with Pascoe, who had not met with Kim Jong-Il to whom Ban sent a leather bound copy of the UN Charter in six languages.

Neither top peacekeepers, Alain Le Roy nor Susana Malcorra, was present. Inner City Press saw both of them less than an hour later going into the Security Council.

In the Council, another USG spoke: Alan Doss, whose six line e-mail urging UNDP to show him "leeway" and give his daughter a job is still being investigated by the UN some eight months later. Why does USGs like Doss sign Compacts, and abide by them? As with everything in this UN, it is a work in process, not necessarily in progress. Watch this site.

REUTERS: U.N. admits "significant" Myanmar exchange rate loss

By Louis Charbonneau and Megan Davies
REUTERS

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations top humanitarian affairs official said on Monday that the world body had incurred "significant" losses in Myanmar due to a distorted official exchange rate while delivering cyclone aid.

Earlier this month the United Nations issued an appeal for over $300 million in additional aid for Myanmar to cope with the effects of a cyclone in May that left around 140,000 people dead or missing.

U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told reporters that the world body has so far lost around $10 million on aid delivered so far, adding up to an average loss of some 15 percent.

"We were arguably a bit slow to recognize ... how serious a problem this has become for us," Holmes told reporters, adding that the loss was "significant." He said the spread between the market and official rate widened suddenly in June.

"It's not acceptable," he added.

Holmes said the reason the United Nations did not include the issue of the exchange rate losses in the appeal documents was that U.N. officials did not realize the severity of the problem.

"Certainly at the time the appeal was made, we were not aware of the extent of the loss," he said.

The issue was first raised by the news blog Inner City Press (www.innercitypress.com), which follows the United Nations.

It reported last week that the military junta had changed the official exchange rate since the cyclone so that the estimated loss had increased from 15 percent to 25 percent.

Inner City Press reported on Monday that an internal U.N. memorandum showed the United Nations was aware of the problem as early as June.

The loss comes from a complicated system whereby the United Nations uses so-called foreign exchange certificates, which have a nominal value of $1 per certificate and are then exchanged for local currency, kyats, at a rate set by the government.

The market rate for kyats is around 1,100 per dollar but the U.N. rate is now around 880, according to Inner City Press. Holmes confirmed the losses had expanded to as much as 25 percent.

The International Monetary Fund raised the issue of what it described as Myanmar's distorted official exchange rate in a report it published in November 2007.

"The use of the highly overvalued official exchange rate for conversion purposes results in understatement of external trade and the foreign component of consumption, government expenditures, and investment," the IMF said in the report.

Holmes said it was unclear where the exchange rate losses were going and who specifically was benefiting.

"It's not clear that it goes straight into the government's pockets, because they don't do the actual exchange," he said. "That's done by currency vendors. I'm not saying that there isn't some benefit to the government in the spread somewhere -- the likelihood is that there is."

Holmes added that in any financial transaction there is an exchange loss. "The question is -- is this a reasonable kind of fee to accept or is it not, and clearly 20 percent is a real problem for us."