U.N. - REPORT OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL ON
THE WORK OF THE ORGANIZATION - 1998

III. Meeting humanitarian commitments

122. During the past year, tangible results have been recorded in the humanitarian field despite serious funding constraints. Not only has the United Nations continued to provide humanitarian relief as well and as quickly as it could; it has also been the principal catalyst in finding more sophisticated ways of dealing with the plight of civilians in complex emergencies and in mobilizing the resources of the world community for this purpose as expeditiously as possible.

123. Unfortunately, there has been more evidence this past year of a further erosion in the respect for humanitarian principles in several countries. The right of civilians in need, particularly children and women, to receive humanitarian assistance is enshrined in international humanitarian law. Yet humanitarian organizations have been denied access to people in need and deliberate attacks on civilian populations have continued. Warring parties have terrorized populations into leaving specific areas. Hatred and suspicion between members of different ethnic or religious groups have been incited by media under the control of faction leaders. Increasingly, violence has been perpetrated against aid workers whose help to innocent victims of conflict is seen as threatening the political objectives of armed groups. The toll has been heavy: this year, for the first time, more United Nations civilian personnel have been killed than military personnel. I have asked for a report on what can be done to improve the security of our colleagues in the field, while still enabling them to carry on their vital missions.

124. The year has also been notable for life-threatening ecological disasters. The El Niño phenomenon, the forest fires in Brazil and Indonesia, a new drought in the Sudan, the tsunami in Papua New Guinea and other disasters have devastated thousands of lives. They have reminded the international community of the vulnerability of many parts of the world to both natural and human-created environmental disasters. The humanitarian consequences of such catastrophes are often so great that national Governments, acting on their own, cannot hope to cope with them.

125. In July 1998, the Economic and Social Council for the first time included a special humanitarian segment in its regular session, in which it reaffirmed the importance of respect for international humanitarian law and principles, endorsed the work of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and set out specific goals for future priority areas.

Coordinating humanitarian action

126. The new Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, focuses on three core functions: policy development and coordination; humanitarian advocacy; and coordination of humanitarian action. Operational functions have been transferred from the former Department of Humanitarian Affairs to other parts of the United Nations system. The newly established Executive Committee on Humanitarian Affairs, chaired by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, brings together relevant departments of the Secretariat (the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Departments of Political Affairs and Peacekeeping Operations and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) and representatives of the United Nations humanitarian agencies on a monthly basis to address the humanitarian policy concerns of the United Nations.

127. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee, composed of all the key humanitarian agencies, has further strengthened its role as the primary mechanism for the coordination of humanitarian assistance activities. The Committee has established policy guidelines on issues such as the link between human rights and humanitarian action and the humanitarian consequences of economic sanctions. It also played an active role coordinating the initiatives of United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations in support of internally displaced persons, including the establishment of a global database.

128. Policy development is one of the three core functions of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Humanitarian action can have important political, socio-economic and environmental repercussions. The Office has contributed to ongoing efforts to ensure a more coherent and integrated response to complex crises, for example through the "strategic framework" approach in Afghanistan. It has also elaborated clearly defined principles, based on the Charter, human rights and international humanitarian law, which would be applicable to all United Nations activities in crisis countries.

129. There are many opportunities for cooperation between humanitarian assistance and human rights programmes. For example, the wealth of information at the disposal of both humanitarian and human rights organizations can help to enhance the early-warning capacity of the United Nations, thus ensuring better identification of needs for humanitarian and other assistance and allowing human rights programmes to be more responsive to country developments.

130. There is a widespread desire in the international community to counteract the harm economic sanctions impose on vulnerable segments of the civilian population in targeted countries. In a statement transmitted to the Security Council in February, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee expressed concern about the adverse humanitarian consequences of sanctions on civilian populations and urged that measures be taken to minimize them. The recent embargoes on Sierra Leone, and particularly the regional embargo imposed on Burundi by its neighbours, have curtailed the supply of foodstuffs and other matériel needed to alleviate the humanitarian consequences of those sanctions. Field evaluations of the potential and actual humanitarian impact of sanctions on Sierra Leone and the Sudan were undertaken in response to requests from the Security Council. In a study on more humane and effective sanctions management commissioned by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, specific steps were recommended to address the humanitarian impact of sanctions and to facilitate the processing of humanitarian exemptions. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee has now set up a group of experts to develop the methodology further, and to increase the capacity of the United Nations to conduct impact assessment missions at short notice.

131. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has continued to strengthen and integrate the collection, analysis and dissemination of information. The Humanitarian Early Warning System collects and analyses information from varied sources to identify potential crises, and it prepares briefs and reports on these. The Integrated Regional Information Network, based in the field, provides information and analyses from a regional perspective to a variety of audiences in the international humanitarian community. The ReliefWeb Web site (www.reliefweb.int) consolidates and disseminates humanitarian information from over 170 sources, including United Nations agencies, international organizations, Governments, non-governmental organizations and other public sources. By the end of 1997, an average of 200,000 documents were being retrieved each month from ReliefWeb by users in more than 140 countries.

132. While progress was made in improving the United Nations inter-agency consolidated appeals process, of the total $2.05 billion sought as at mid-July 1998, only $472 million was pledged, received, or carried over from 1997. Between September 1997 and August 1998, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs organized consolidated appeals for 10 complex emergency situations (Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, former Yugoslavia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Tajikistan), as well as an appeal for the Great Lakes region and Central Africa covering Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania.

133. The number and scale of environmental emergencies have grown at an alarming speed. In South-East Asia, six countries were seriously affected by dense haze stemming primarily from large-scale forest fires in Indonesia. Fires also destroyed several thousands of square kilometres of forest in the Roraima State in Brazil, in March 1998. They were deliberately started for the purpose of land clearance, their spread being aggravated by El Niño-induced drought conditions.

134. In coordinating responses to 54 natural disasters and environmental emergencies from September 1997 to August 1998, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued 151 situation reports and launched 26 appeals for international assistance, towards which contributions worth over $129 million in cash, kind and services were provided by the international community. Ten missions were dispatched to disaster sites to assist with needs assessment and relief coordination.

135. New international and national arrangements must be put in place to ensure effective and ongoing coordinated support for disaster-reduction efforts in the next century. An action plan for 1998-1999 has been initiated by the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction secretariat under the auspices of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to evaluate progress in disaster-reduction policies over the past 10 years, identify trends for the twenty-first century and shape future directions for international cooperation in disaster prevention.

Delivering humanitarian services

136. UNICEF has traditionally been dedicated to the provision of health, nutrition and education services to children and women in conflict. In 1998, efforts were stepped up to apply humanitarian principles to the impartial delivery of assistance to all children in need and to protect their basic rights. UNICEF worked with its partners to apply these principles in countries where access to humanitarian assistance is problematic, among them Afghanistan, eastern Congo, southern Sudan and Sierra Leone. UNICEF is also developing a training package in collaboration with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations regarding the responsibilities of peacekeepers towards civilian communities in general and the rights of children and women in particular.

137. Many of the World Food Programme's operations also come under the rubric of humanitarian assistance. The Programme's emergency work in 1997 focused on operations in conflict situations and reached a total of 19.1 million refugees or returnees and internally displaced persons, most of them women and children. WFP delivered food aid assistance both in life-threatening situations and for rehabilitation activities. Food aid assistance was provided to an additional 10 million people suffering the consequences of drought and floods in 1997. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a recipient of food aid during the year, has structural agricultural problems compounded by both floods and drought.

138. Natural disaster operations of a more traditional character were organized in 1997 in more than a dozen countries. Standby arrangements made in previous years with several non-governmental organizations and Governments were put to the test in 1997 in responding to the increased demand created by an abnormal number of natural disasters. Major contingency planning exercises were undertaken in 1997 for the Sahel region and southern Africa to prepare for possible droughts caused by El Niño.

139. Another source of serious concern during the year was the danger to the personal safety of WFP staff members, many of whom served in war-affected situations. Seven staff members lost their lives in the course of duty in 1997; seven more have died in 1998.

140. In addition to its mainstream development activities and resources, UNDP engages in special development activities designed to bridge humanitarian assistance with rehabilitation and recovery. These activities are funded by 5 per cent of UNDP core resources set aside for countries in special development situations. Since September 1997, UNDP has also participated in inter-agency efforts for United Nations mine action reform and policy development and has taken on the responsibility for addressing the socio-economic consequences of mines and unexploded ordnance.

141. In October 1997, I established the Office of the Iraq Programme to consolidate all Secretariat activities relating to the "oil-for-food" programme established pursuant to Security Council resolution 986 (1995). This is a temporary measure to provide for the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people until fulfilment by Iraq of the relevant resolutions imposing sanctions. The Security Council authorized Iraq to export oil and utilize two thirds of the proceeds for the purchase of humanitarian supplies. The programme has made possible the purchase of foodstuffs, medical supplies and essential inputs for agriculture, water and sanitation, electricity and, recently, spare parts for the oil industry. In February 1998, I recommended a significant expansion of the programme and the Security Council subsequently authorized Iraq to increase oil sales up to $5.256 billion over six months, compared to $2 billion in each of the previous three phases. Because of a substantial drop in oil prices and limited export capacity, it is unlikely that sales will generate more than $3 billion during the current phase. There is therefore a need to ensure that food, medicine and spare parts essential to maintaining oil production receive the necessary resources.

Assisting refugees

142. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that the total number of refugees, displaced and other war-affected persons fell by some 300,000 during 1997, to reach 22.3 million at the end of the year. This figure included 12 million refugees, 950,000 asylum-seekers, 3.5 million repatriated refugees in the early stages of their reintegration, and 5.9 million internally displaced persons and others, mostly from war-affected communities. A total of some 900,000 refugees were repatriated during 1997 either through UNHCR programmes or by their own means. Often, however, refugees returned to fragile or unstable situations emerging from conflict or still embroiled in it. In the former Yugoslavia, UNHCR remains preoccupied with the continued displacement of some 1.8 million persons, both within and outside the region. The conflict in Kosovo and the persistent tension in the Danube region of Croatia have necessitated a renewed UNHCR presence in the region to provide assistance to people fleeing those areas.

143. In western Africa, insecurity in Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone prompted outflows of refugees to neighbouring countries; Guinea now hosts one of the largest refugee populations in Africa. Post-conflict peace-building activities are being conducted in the region as Liberia begins the process of rehabilitation; between July 1997 and July 1998 UNHCR assisted almost 53,000 refugees to return to that country. In an effort to address the causes of refugee movements in the Great Lakes region and advance solutions, UNHCR and the Organization of African Unity convened a conference at Kampala in May, which focused on how refugees might be protected while taking into consideration the security concerns of particular Member States. The conference also addressed the complex and difficult relationship between humanitarian assistance and longer-term reconstruction and development.

144. In addressing the reintegration and rehabilitation needs of refugees and returnees, UNHCR faces an enormous task. Yet there is growing concern that its vital operations will have to be scaled down and, in some instances, suspended, because of lack of funding. This is especially so in the case of its operations in Angola, Rwanda and Liberia.

145. Combining both humanitarian and development work, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East continues to provide relief and social services to 3.5 million Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. With a deficit of $62 million in the 1998 budget of $314 million, which follows chronic budget shortfalls since 1993, the Agency's level and standard of service has however continued to decline.

146. The United Nations and its various relief agencies lead the international humanitarian efforts, often in the face of nearly insurmountable political and physical difficulties, as well as severe resource constraints. The key to alleviating the miseries stemming from man-made and natural disasters lies in linking those humanitarian efforts to the efforts being made in the political, economic and development spheres. Effective coordination between United Nations bodies and those outside the United Nations system is at the heart of this effort.

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