EMBARGOED
UNTIL 00:01 HRS GMT Monday 30th July 2007
Rising to the
humanitarian challenge in Iraq
Armed
violence is the greatest threat facing Iraqis, but the population is also
experiencing another kind of crisis of an alarming scale and severity. Eight
million people are in urgent need of emergency aid; that figure includes over
two million who are displaced within the country, and more than two million
refugees. Many more are living in poverty, without basic services, and
increasingly threatened by disease and malnutrition. Despite the constraints
imposed by violence, the government of Iraq, the United Nations, and
international donors can do more to deliver humanitarian assistance to reduce
unnecessary suffering. If people’s basic needs are left unattended, this will
only serve to further destabilise the country.
The NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI) is a network of about 80
international NGOs and 200 Iraqi NGOs, set up in Baghdad immediately after the
war in 2003 to help NGOs to assess and meet the needs of the Iraqi population.
NCCI provides impartial information for NGOs operating in Iraq and facilitates
coordination of activity between them. NCCI members all comply with the Code of
Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in
Disaster Relief.
105
Oxfam supports partner organisations in Iraq
from a base in Amman, Jordan. The programmes supported include the provision of
emergency assistance to internally displaced people (IDPs) in central and
southern Iraq, the delivery of emergency medical supplies to hospitals and
clinics in conflict areas, and conflict resolution between the Palestinian
refugees and the Iraqi community. In addition, Oxfam works in partnership with
another international NGO to build the operational capacity of six Iraqi NGOs
in project management, governance, peace building, and conflict resolution.
Oxfam has not had a staff presence in Iraq since 2003 because of security
risks.
While
horrific violence dominates the lives of millions of ordinary people inside
Iraq, another kind of crisis, also due to the impact of war, has been slowly
unfolding. Up to eight million people are now in need of emergency assistance.
This figure includes:
•
four million people who are ‘food-insecure and in dire need of different types
of humanitarian assistance’
•
more than two million displaced people inside Iraq
•
over two million Iraqis in neighbouring countries, mainly Syria and Jordan,
making this the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world.
This
paper describes the humanitarian situation facing ordinary Iraqis and argues
that, while violence and a failure to protect fundamental human rights pose the
greatest problems, humanitarian needs such as food, shelter, water and
sanitation must be given more attention. Although responding to those needs is
extremely challenging, given the lack of security and of competent national
institutions, Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI) believe
that more could be done. The government of Iraq could extend the distribution
of food parcels, widen the coverage of emergency cash payments, decentralise
decision-making and support civil society groups providing assistance. The
international donors and UN agencies could intensify their efforts to
coordinate, fund and deliver emergency aid. These measures will not transform
the plight of Iraqis but they can help alleviate their suffering. The paper
focuses on needs inside the country, which are less visible, and does not refer
in detail to the refugees in neighbouring countries.
******************
Iraqis
are suffering from a growing lack of food, shelter, water and sanitation,
health care, education, and employment. Of the four million Iraqis who are
dependent on food assistance, only 60 per cent currently have access to rations
through the government-run Public Distribution System (PDS), down from 96 per
cent in 2004.
Forty-three
per cent of Iraqis suffer from ‘absolute poverty’. According to some estimates,
over half the population are now without work. Children are hit the hardest by
the decline in living standards. Child malnutrition rates have risen from 19
per cent before the US-led invasion in 2003 to 28 per cent now.
The
situation is particularly hard for families driven from their homes by
violence. The two million internally displaced people (IDPs) have no incomes to
rely on and are running out of coping mechanisms. In 2006, 32 per cent of IDPs
had no access to PDS food rations, while 51 per cent reported receiving food
rations only sometimes.
The
number of Iraqis without access to adequate water supplies has risen from 50
per cent to 70 per cent since 2003, while 80 per cent lack effective
sanitation. The ‘brain drain’ that Iraq is experiencing is further stretching
already inadequate public services, as thousands of medical staff, teachers,
water engineers, and other professionals are forced to leave the country. At
the end of 2006, perhaps 40 per cent had left already.
The
people of Iraq have a right, enshrined in international law, to material assistance
that meets their humanitarian needs, and to protection, but this right is being
neglected. The government of Iraq, international donors, and the United Nations
(UN) system have been focused on reconstruction, development, and building
political institutions, and have overlooked the harsh daily struggle for
survival now faced by many. All these actors have a moral, political, and in
the case of the government, legal obligation to protect ordinary Iraqis caught
up in the conflict. They also have a responsibility to find ways to secure the
right conditions for the delivery of assistance, both where conflict is intense
and in less insecure parts of the country to which many people have fled.
The
primary duty-bearer for the provision of basic services remains the national
government, which must work to overcome the extensive obstacles that hamper its
operations at central and local level. Oxfam and the NCCI believe that
political will must be found to improve the emergency support system for the
poorest citizens, including the internally displaced. The government should
start with the decentralisation of the delivery of assistance. This would
include giving power to local authorities to quality-check and distribute
emergency supplies within their own governorates, together with a more
extensive system of warehouse storage for supplies throughout Iraq.
Establishing a proper legal framework for civil-society organisations would
greatly assist non-government relief efforts by giving them the legal authority
to operate in Iraq.
The
expansion of the PDS for foodstuffs, including the establishment of a temporary
PDS identity-card system for IDPs, is also priority. As is the extension of the
programme of emergency cash allowances to households headed by widows, which
should be increased from $100 per month so that it is closer to the average
monthly wage of $200, and expanded to include other vulnerable groups. A $200
monthly payment to 1 million households, would cost $2.4bn per year, which is
within the country’s financial capacity. Foreign governments with capacity and
influence in Iraq, including the USA and the UK, must provide advice and
technical assistance to Iraqi government ministries to implement these policies
and supply basic services,
The
main challenges both to the livelihoods of Iraqis and to the delivery of
humanitarian assistance are the ongoing violence and insecurity. Political
solutions to the conflict must be found as soon as possible, but in the
meantime all armed groups, including the Iraqi security forces, the
Multi-National Force in Iraq (MNF-I), local militia, and insurgents, should not
harm civilian life, property, or infrastructure, and should respect the
population’s right to assistance, in accordance with international human rights
and humanitarian law.
Whilst
indiscriminate, and often targeted, violence has greatly reduced the capacity
of Iraqi civil-society organisations and NGOs, international NGOs (INGOs), the
Red Cross/Red Crescent movement, and UN agencies to access the needy civilian
population, this has not prevented many of these organisations from working
with Iraqi communities to find creative ways to adapt to the constraints and
continue to maintain a presence in Iraq.
An NGO (anonymous for security reasons) supported by Oxfam is
providing emergency assistance to hospitals and clinics in conflict areas. It
has carried out distributions of essential medical supplies to 40 health
centres located in six governorates, to sustain the delivery of health services
during conflicts. It also reinforces capacity in potential ‘hot spots’ through
the pre-positioning of emergency supplies. Essential health care has been
provided to over 100,000 patients.
There
are 80 independent INGOs still engaged with Iraq, including NCCI members, and
45 of these have existing or potential emergency response programmes. Some have
national staff running offices inside the country, with management based in a
different country, commonly Jordan. Others fund and advise autonomous local
Iraqi NGOs. These methods of working in highly insecure environments are often
known as ‘remote programming’. By adopting such approaches, NGOs are the main
implementers of UN and other humanitarian programmes inside Iraq.
An NGO (anonymous for security reasons), supported by Oxfam, is
supplying food and water to IDPs fleeing from Qa’im, Haditha, Rawa, Heet,
Ramadi, and Fallujah. It also works in co-operation with the International
Organisation for Migration (IOM) and United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) on IDP monitoring and the provision of emergency supplies. In
addition, it implements an income-generation project for IDPs from Fallujah,
carries out water drilling for IDPs and host communities in Ana and Heet, and
has a school rehabilitation project in Fallujah. This NGO reports that lack of
funding is a limitation that has prevented it from expanding its activities and
reaching a wider range of beneficiaries.
Islamic
and regional organisations are active in humanitarian response. Islamic Relief
and Muslim Aid provide financial and technical support, focusing on
humanitarian aid and orphan-care programmes, while the Qatari Red Crescent
funds Iraqi NGOs and the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS). The Khomeni
Foundation has been providing basic hygiene kits, blankets, and food to IDPs in
the south of the country. Islamic political parties and religious
organisations, including mosques, also respond to the survival needs of their
constituencies.
International
donors have been slow to recognise the scale of humanitarian needs. Development
aid from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
donors increased by 922 per cent between 2003 and 2005 to $20,948m, whereas
funding for humanitarian assistance fell by 47 per cent during the same period
to $453m. Results from a recent Oxfam survey of donors show that 2006 funding
for humanitarian assistance fell alarmingly to $95m despite the evident
increase in need. The total is not complete as only 19 of the 22 Development
Assistance Committee (DAC) donors were willing to provide data for the survey.
However, eight of the top ten donors for humanitarian assistance to Iraq in
2005, including the US and the UK, did respond. Many humanitarian organisations
will not accept money from governments that have troops in Iraq, as this could
jeopardise their own security and independence. So it is particularly important
that donors from countries which do not have troops there, such as Belgium,
Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, agree to increase their
budgets for humanitarian action in Iraq.
Donors
and the UN have also not commonly appreciated the potential that exists to fund
work inside Iraq, especially if there were greater willingness to support
operations that do not involve all the conventional forms of delivery,
monitoring and evaluation, and which may be costlier, yet which offer
reasonable guarantees that money is well spent.
According
to a survey of NGOs/INGOs conducted by Oxfam in April 2007, over 80 per cent
could expand humanitarian work if they had increased access to funds. Both the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the IRCS have recently
launched appeals for their substantial programmes in Iraq, which are yet to be
fully funded.
The
UN, especially the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) and the
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has a vital role to
play in the provision of humanitarian assistance, through co-ordinating
needs-assessment and delivery, advising the government, mobilising resources,
and advocating for enhanced civilian protection. To date, the UN’s performance
has been limited, not least by the tight security it has imposed on its staff
following the loss of 22 employees in the 2003 bombing of the Canal Hotel.
Nevertheless, there are welcome signs that the UN may be becoming more active.
The publication in April 2007 of a ‘strategic framework’ for a co-ordinated
humanitarian response in Iraq is a step in the right direction, as is the
decision of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in July 2007
to ask donors to double its budget for work with Iraqi refugees and the
internally displaced to $123m.
Bringing
an end to war and civil strife in Iraq must be the overriding priority for the
national government and the international community. However, the government,
the countries of the MNF-I, the UN agencies, and international donors can do
more to meet the other survival needs of the Iraqi population, despite the
challenging environment.
The
government of Iraq should take urgent action to address the humanitarian needs
of the Iraqi people. Measures should include:
• Local
authorities should assume greater responsibility for providing assistance,
shelter, and essential services to displaced people, as well as to vulnerable
local populations, and should be given the power and resources by central
government to do so.
• The
Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs should increase the $100 per month
payment to households headed by widows so that it is closer to the average
monthly wage of $200, and expand the range of recipients to include other
vulnerable groups, such as the displaced population.
• The
Ministry of Trade should improve the Public Distribution System (PDS). This
should include the establishment of a temporary PDS identity card system so
that displaced people can receive food rations.
• The
government should create a cross-ministerial team to co-ordinate its
humanitarian response and should release funds at its disposal for delivery of
this response.
•
Explicit orders should be given to the Iraqi security forces that they, like
all armed groups, should not harm civilian life, property, or infrastructure,
and should respect the population’s right to assistance.
• The
government of Iraq should support national NGOs through a legal framework,
including registration procedures that recognise their rights and independence
and secure their legal authority to operate in Iraq.
International
governments with capacity and influence in Iraq should recognise their
responsibilities towards the people of Iraq by:
•
Supporting Iraqi ministries through advice and technical assistance in order to
ensure their capacity to provide basic services, notably improved food
distribution, shelter, and the extension of welfare payments.
The
governments of the Multi-National Force in Iraq (MNF-I) should recognise their
particular responsibilities towards the people of Iraq by:
•
Ensuring that the armed forces respect their moral and legal obligation not to
harm civilians or their property, or essential infrastructure.
Donors
need to increase support to national and international NGOs, the ICRC, the
IRCS, and UN agencies delivering the humanitarian response:
•
Donors should provide increased emergency funding that is readily accessible
and flexible. In particular, donors must build on discussions under way with
NGOs to better understand ‘remote programming’ and mechanisms for monitoring
and verification.
•
Since many humanitarian organisations will not accept money from governments
engaged in the conflict, it is important that donors from other countries, such
as Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, increase their
funding for humanitarian action.
The
UN, especially UNAMI and OCHA, needs to continue to strengthen its humanitarian
role inside Iraq by:
•
Working towards the achievement of a co-ordinated response with the government
of Iraq and NGOs, and between UN agencies.
•
Developing a more nuanced approach to the movement of UN staff that
differentiates between constraints in different areas and which is more
independent of the MNF-I, thereby allowing better needs assessment,
co-ordination, and service delivery.
•
Building on the emergency field co-ordination structure established by the NCCI
to enable rapid response to identified needs.
•
Administering a new pooled fund for rapid response that should be able to
disburse monies to NGOs.
Armed violence is the greatest
threat facing Iraqis. The situation
deteriorated rapidly in April 2004, with fighting in the cities of
Fallujah and Najaf. It took a rapid and more visible turn for the worse in
February 2006 following the bombing of the Al-Askari mosque in Samarra, one of
the holiest sites for Shi’as, which sparked an escalation of sectarian violence
across the country. The violence cannot be put down solely to sectarian
conflict: it is also a result of the struggle for power at all levels of
society.
However, the population is
also experiencing another kind of humanitarian catastrophe of an alarming scale
and severity. Iraq’s civilians are suffering from a denial of fundamental human
rights in the form of chronic poverty, malnutrition, illness, lack of access to
basic services, and destruction of homes, vital facilities, and infrastructure,
as well as injury and death. Basic indicators of humanitarian need in Iraq show
that the slide into poverty and deprivation since the coalition forces entered
the country in 2003 has been dramatic, and a deep trauma for the Iraqi people.
The number of refugees and displaced persons is now massive by any modern
standards.
The government of Iraq, the
United Nations (UN), and international donor governments are not yet adequately
addressing this deteriorating situation. According to United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Peter Kessler, ’There has been an
abject denial of the impact, the humanitarian impact, of the war…’.1
The UN Assistance Mission for
Iraq (UNAMI) and the UN Office for the Co-ordination for Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) estimate that up to eight million Iraqis are in need of immediate
assistance.2 The situation is particularly severe for those in
the central area of the country, while the south remains volatile, and even in
the more stable and developed areas of the north violence is spreading and
communities are struggling to meet both their own needs and those of the
displaced population.
A World Food Programme (WFP)
report issued in May 2006 found that just over four million people in Iraq were
‘food-insecure and in dire need of different kinds of humanitarian assistance’.
3 This was an increase from the estimated 2.6
million who were found to be ‘extremely poor’ in WFP’s 2004 Baseline Survey.4 This
WFP estimate was based on data gathered before the fragmentation of Iraq, in
times of far better access to basic services and the Public Distribution System
(PDS).
According to UNHCR in April
2007, of the four million Iraqis who cannot regularly buy enough to eat, only
60 per cent currently have access to rations supplied by the government-run
PDS. This is due largely to the difficulties of delivery and registration in
the context of violence and insecurity.5 Although not a direct
comparison, 96 per cent of all Iraqi families received PDS supplies in 2004,
according to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) living-conditions
survey.6 This shows a significant deterioration in the
delivery of the PDS over the past four years. The PDS basket includes staples
such as wheat, rice, dried milk, sugar, tea, and soap.
According to Refugees International, with around one million
Iraqis internally displaced before the 2003 war and with the additional
displacement of nearly one million due to factional violence, the PDS is now
more important than ever. Both the effectiveness and efficiency of the PDS,
however, have declined significantly.
Roads throughout Iraq have become treacherous as the result of the
actions of criminal gangs and militias. PDS supply trucks are often unable to
reach their destinations, leaving much of the country cut off. Administrative
corruption has weakened the efficiency of the distribution system. Convoys that
do reach their destination often carry only limited amounts of the PDS basket,
with key items missing.
The violence that has caused so many Iraqis to flee prevents them
from returning home to apply for the transfer of their rations to a new
location. As a result, most of the displaced people in the north manage to
obtain PDS rations only on rare occasions when relatives send them or when they
pay others to collect them. Although some have tried to transfer their PDS
registration cards, none have succeeded.7
Source: Refugees International8
The situation is worse for
displaced communities. Of the displaced people interviewed by the International
Organisation for Migration (IOM) between April and December 2006, 32 per cent
reported that they had no access to PDS rations, 51 per cent reported receiving
food rations only sometimes, while just 17 per cent reported that they always
received them. In addition, many of those who received rations found that they
were incomplete.9
As always, children pay a high
price when livelihoods collapse. According to Caritas, child malnutrition rates
in Iraq have risen from 19 per cent before the 2003 invasion to 28 per cent
four years later.10 More than 11 per cent of newborn babies were born
underweight in 2006, compared with 4 per cent in 2003.11
‘Sometimes we need to divide the only available bread with six
members of my family because we don’t have money to buy more. I had to leave my
school because my father cannot afford notebooks and pencils….You cannot imagine
what it is like to see your six-year-old sister sick and at risk of dying
because your family has no money to buy medicine for her.’ – Hudhar Zein, aged 11
Source: IRIN12
At the beginning of May 2007,
the Central Office for Statistics and Information Technology (COSIT), part of
the Iraqi Ministry of Planning, released a survey highlighting the fact that 43
per cent of Iraqis suffer from ‘absolute poverty’.13 The
poverty of many families is rooted in unemployment, which affects probably more
than 50 per cent of the workforce. Many of those unemployed are young men, who
are consequently vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups.14
Bereavement is also a major
cause of poverty. Most of the people killed in Iraq’s violence – perhaps over
90 per cent – are men.15 Their deaths leave households headed by women who
struggle to survive the loss of the main breadwinner. According to UNAMI’s
Human Rights Office, many projects created to provide jobs for women were
abandoned after the number of INGOs began falling from October 2004 onwards.16 The
Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has started paying the equivalent of
about $100 a month to widows, but this payment cannot adequately support an
entire family. In the short term, the solution is for the government to
increase this payment so that it is nearer to the average monthly wage of $200.
This emergency payment should
also be extended to a wider population, including the four million Iraqis who
are food-insecure and the two million or more who are displaced. The
majority of these people have little or no access to livelihood opportunities,
and are dependent on assistance from others.
An NGO (anonymous for security reasons) supported by Oxfam runs
IDP monitoring and emergency assistance programmes in central and southern
Iraq. These programmes are funded and supported by IOM and UNHCR. Mobile teams
count and assess needs and monitor the displaced population in the 15 governorates
of central and southern Iraq. The aim of the programmes is to ensure a prompt
response to the urgent needs of recently displaced families.
The number of Iraqis without
an adequate water supply has risen from 50 per cent to 70 per cent since 2003.
Eighty per cent of Iraqis lack effective sanitation.17
According to an April 2007 ICRC report, water is often contaminated owing to
the poor repair of sewage and water supply networks and the discharge of
untreated sewage into rivers, which are the main source of drinking water.18 There
are reports of an increase in diarrhoeal diseases throughout the population.19 Both
ICRC and UNICEF have water-trucking projects to try to combat the lack of safe
supply.
There has also been a
deterioration in electricity supplies in the past few months, with most homes
in Baghdad and other cities receiving only two hours of electricity per day.20
While several immunisation
campaigns have been successfully undertaken by the Ministry of Health,21 health
services are generally in a catastrophic situation in the capital, in the main
towns, and across the governorates. IDPs are often not able to receive
treatment outside their home area, where they are registered.
KEMADIA, the state-owned
medical supply company, is unable to provide for the hospitals and primary
health-care centres.22 Of the 180 hospitals countrywide, 90 per cent lack
key resources including basic medical and surgical supplies.23 Like
many government institutions, KEMADIA has been crippled by bureaucratic,
centralised management and a lack of distribution capacity, while accusations
of corruption and sectarian influence have eroded people’s confidence in its
ability to deliver. The restricted supplies of electricity and water further
disrupt medical services.
Médecins Sans Frontières
(MSF), which funds the provision of surgical equipment, materials, and supplies
to hospitals in Iraq, reports that former general hospitals, previously used to
referring all but simple emergency cases, are now performing complex emergency
surgery with only the most basic equipment and drugs. Doctors have had to ask
the relatives of injured patients to search local pharmacies for blood bags,
sutures, and infusions before they can start surgery.24
Health-care facilities are
also overstretched by the increasing number of victims of the ongoing violence
and of the related extreme deprivation. According to one estimate, there have
been around 65,000 violent deaths since the 2003 invasion.25 For
every person killed, about three have been wounded, according to Iraq’s Health
Minister.26 A 2006 study published in The Lancet said
that violence may have led to 655,000 direct and indirect deaths since 2003.27
Yarmouk hospital, which has been assisted since 1998 by an
Oxfam-supported INGO (anonymous for security reasons), has serious security
issues. Policemen, military personnel, and militiamen regularly storm the
emergency rooms seeking treatment for their comrades, firing shots inside the
hospital to intimidate patients, and threatening the medical staff. The Iraqi
Medical Association states that 50 per cent of the 34,000 doctors registered in
2003 have left the country.
*****
‘The Geneva Conventions state that a hospital is and should remain
neutral and accessible to everybody, particularly civilians. Yet, when it’s
occupied by armed groups or official forces, people will not have this free and
humanitarian access.’ – Cedric Turlan, information
officer for NCCI
Source: IRIN28
Iraq’s education system is
also suffering because of the acute insecurity. One survey found that 92 per
cent of children had learning impediments that are largely attributable to the
current climate of fear.29 Schools are regularly closed as teachers and
pupils are too fearful to attend. Over 800,000 children may now be out of school,
according to a recent estimate by Save the Children UK – up from 600,000 in
2004.30 A recent report by the NCCI reveals that schools
are also becoming shelters for IDPs in some communities, forcing the pupils
either to remain at home or study in difficult conditions,31 while
universities, from Basra in the south to Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, have
been infiltrated by militia organisations, and female students are regularly
intimidated for failing to wear the hijab.32
There are now over two million
IDPs inside Iraq as a result of repression under the former regime, recent
military operations, and sectarian violence and intimidation.33
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 70 per cent of IDPs
are women and children.34 UNHCR reports that more than 820,000 people have
been displaced due to sectarian violence since the February 2006 bombing of the
Al-Askari shrine.35 Some central governorates have seen a ten-fold
increase in the numbers of internally displaced people since the beginning of
2006.36 According to the IOM, limited funding means that
the needs of many displaced people will go unmet.37
‘I have been displaced since 23 March 2006, when insurgents came
to my home in the Kadhimiya neighbourhood of Baghdad and gave me and my family
24 hours to vacate our home. I have a wife and four children to look after, but
I have had no job since I was displaced…We are now living in this improvised
camp for displaced families, as we have no money, because we used all our
savings of $1,000 to buy food for my family. Now we are totally dependent on
local NGOs to give us assistance because Iraq’s central government hasn’t done
anything to help us.
Local NGOs help us with clothes, food, and sometimes medicines,
but in the past three months the aid has been drying up. There are about 2,000
living in this camp and we all depend on assistance. Actually, I had five
children until three months ago, when the smallest one died from dehydration.
Hassan, who was only two years old, got very sick from diarrhoea caused by
drinking bad water, and because we couldn’t afford to buy him nutritious food.’
– Hussein Iyad, aged 38
Source: IRIN38
According to UNHCR, the
initial coping mechanisms of IDPs and of host communities have been depleted,
as displacement has taken on a more permanent character.39 Some
provinces within Iraq are feeling overwhelmed and are attempting to close their
boundaries to IDPs from other areas.40 Thousands of displaced people
without family links or money are living in public buildings and schools where
they are at constant risk of eviction, or in hazardous, improvised shelters
without water and electricity, or in camps administered by the IRCS.41
Some 50,000 Palestinian, Syrian, and Iranian refugees living in
Iraq have been targeted by sectarian groups in deliberate attacks. In
particular, the security of around 34,000 Palestinians has deteriorated
drastically, forcing many thousands to move elsewhere inside the country or to
flee to Jordan or Syria, often being stranded for long periods in ‘no man’s
land’ while potential host governments decide whether or when to let them
enter.
An estimated 1,400 Palestinians are living in desperate conditions
in refugee camps along the Iraq–Syria border, unable to cross the frontier into
a country that is already straining to cope with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
and Palestinian refugees.
Source: UNHCR42
As the ICRC points out, the
most effective way of preventing displacement is to respect the rights of the
civilian population in the event of armed conflict or other situations of
violence. No person in need should go unassisted or unprotected.43 This
has not happened in Iraq to date. The government of Iraq, the MNF-I, the Iraqi
security forces, and other non-state actors must all recognise that IDPs are
protected by human-rights law and international humanitarian law, and that
within the general population they often have the greatest need. The Guiding
Principles on Internal Displacement44 presented to the UN in 1998
describe the rights of the internally displaced at all stages of their
displacement, right up to their safe return or resettlement, and also cover the
prevention of displacement. Although not legally binding, the principles of the
guidelines directly reference obligations in international law and provide
valuable practical guidance for governments, authorities, intergovernmental
organisations, and NGOs in their work with IDPs. All parties should adhere to
these guidelines in their dealings with IDPs in Iraq.
More than two million Iraqis
are estimated to have fled to neighbouring countries. Syria has around 1.4
million Iraqi refugees, Jordan 750,000, the Gulf States 200,000, Egypt 80,000
and Lebanon 40,000.45 Approximately 40,000–50,000 Iraqis are leaving
their homes to seek safety inside or outside Iraq on a monthly basis.46 According
to Refugees International, Iraq now represents the fastest-growing refugee
crisis in the world.47
Minorities fleeing persecution
are adding to the growing numbers of refugees and displaced people. Christians
– who comprise between 8 and 12 per cent of the Iraqi population – are
increasingly reported to be experiencing discrimination in accessing the labour
market or basic social services, and are particularly fearful of attacks by
militia.48 Of the 1.5 million Assyrians living in Iraq before
2003, half have left the country and the remaining 750,000 are trying to move
to safer areas.49 Iraqi Yazidis, numbering some 550,000, are also
facing violent assaults and threats, as are Iraq’s Turkmens and Kurds, as these
groups are seen by some as being affiliated to foreign powers.50
Iraq is also losing its
educated public-service workers in massive numbers. Reports indicate that some
universities and hospitals in Baghdad have lost up to 80 per cent of their
professional staff.51 At least 40 per cent of Iraq’s professional class,
including doctors, teachers, and water engineers, have left since 2003.52
Many women have tried to flee
to neighbouring countries to find work, in order to secure an income for their
families back in Iraq. UNHCR has found numerous cases where young women have
been promised jobs in Syria, only to arrive and find themselves being exploited
by sex traffickers.53
Providing shelter for Iraqi
refugees is an international obligation that is legally binding for signatories
of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the status of refugees.54 The
burden should not fall solely on regional governments such as those of Jordan
and Syria. It is imperative that the international community, particularly the
USA and the UK, meet their responsibilities to provide refuge for those fleeing
insecurity and violence in Iraq, and to provide assistance to refugees who
remain in the region.
The government of Iraq,
donors, coalition governments, and the UN system have been focused on
reconstruction, development, and building political institutions, and have been
overlooking the harsh daily struggle for survival now faced by many. All these
actors have a moral, political and, in the case of the governments, legal
obligation to act in defence of ordinary Iraqis caught up in the conflict. In
the view of Oxfam and the NCCI, all players can do more than they are doing at
present, both where violence is intense and in the relatively quieter parts of
the country to which many people have fled.
The resilience of humanitarian
actors in Iraq illustrates that, while there are huge challenges, where there
is determination and creative thinking there are also ways to assist better
those in need. By understanding the obstacles that exist, and the ways in which
these can be tackled, it is possible to improve the humanitarian response in
Iraq, and to prepare for the future.
Car bombs, roadside bombs,
suicide bombs, assassinations, sniper attacks, kidnappings, drive-by shootings,
torture, and sectarian killings have become daily occurrences in many of Iraq’s
cities. Increasingly, militias and criminal gangs have been reported as acting
in collusion with, or have infiltrated, the security forces.55 Some
militia purport to grant local communities protection that cannot be guaranteed
by state law-enforcement agencies,56 and some offer welfare
support, including basic supplies.57
The ability of humanitarian
organisations to respond effectively to emergency needs is severely affected by
the violence and by the denial of civilians’ rights to assistance. Areas where
needs are greatest are invariably the most insecure and the least accessible.
At least 88 aid workers have been killed in Iraq since March 2003,58 with
local NGO staff being by far the most frequent victims. Others have been
kidnapped and released only after harrowing experiences.59
During some military
operations, MNF-I and the Iraqi security forces surround an area and do not
allow anybody to enter or leave. A heavy military presence in areas where NGOs
hope to provide assistance can increase the level of danger that distribution
teams face. Checkpoints, curfews, road closures, and sudden changes in access
to towns and cities for security reasons all pose major constraints on NGOs’
ability to deliver a humanitarian response.
Armed groups, including the
MNF-I, Iraqi security forces, local militia, and insurgents, have a legal
obligation not to harm civilian life, property, or infrastructure.60
Together with the UN, foreign governments, and the government of Iraq, they all
have a responsibility to find ways to secure the right conditions for the
delivery of assistance. In practical terms, the creation of humanitarian space
could be facilitated by ceasefire agreements between the parties in conflict to
allow for the delivery of humanitarian relief, particularly PDS convoys and
deliveries of medical supplies.
The MNF-I operates under a UN
mandate, which commits it to act in accordance with international law, to
participate in the provision of material assistance to the population, and to
facilitate humanitarian assistance.61 However, the MNF-I is widely
resented by Iraqis and is not seen as an impartial actor in the conflict. MNF-I
contributions to the humanitarian effort must only occur as a last resort when
no civilian means are available for meeting urgent needs, in accordance with
international guidelines on the use of military and civil defence assets in
complex emergencies. If and when such efforts occur, they must avoid blurring
the lines between military actors, who may be engaged in providing material
assistance, and aid workers, who provide humanitarian assistance based on
principles of impartiality and independence. International and national NGOs
have already reported that some local communities do not make this distinction,
which puts humanitarian actors at greater risk.62
NGOs and the UN also face
increasing problems of access, which can be dependent on the ethnicity,
religion, or nationality of those bringing humanitarian assistance. Sometimes
only those from the local area are trusted.
Iraq’s leaders have yet to
create national unity and, to date, the national government has been unable to
demonstrate that it has an effective ministerial structure, or the ability to
govern in many areas.63 The Iraqi government operates in a restrictive
security environment where mobility is severely constrained and governorates
and government offices have been cut off from one another. Security concerns
understandably dominate all other priorities. Government officials are
justifiably increasingly preoccupied with the safety of their own families,
given the rising number of assassinations and kidnappings.
A combination of a high
turnover of officials including the loss of staff who are fleeing Iraq and divisions
throughout government is making it hard to achieve consistency on any issue,
including humanitarian response. This is not helped by the fact that the Iraqi
authorities have only recently recognised that there is indeed a humanitarian
crisis.64 In addition, Iraq is in the grip of economic
downturn, stumbling reconstruction, and massive corruption. 65 In
2006, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Iraq in
160th place in the world, making it worse than the DRC
or Sudan.66
Despite these problems, severe
as they are, the government of Iraq remains the principal duty-bearer in
providing its citizens with food and essential services, including housing,
health care, water and sanitation, electricity, and education. It should, therefore,
be taking a leadership role in the impartial provision of basic services to the
population.
With four million Iraqis now
food-insecure, the government must make a renewed effort to improve and expand
the PDS for staple products, on which many Iraqis have depended since the early
1990s and which serves as a basic safety net for poor and vulnerable people. As
recommended by Refugees International, the government should establish a
temporary PDS identity-card system so that displaced people can receive their
basket of goods, without politically sensitive implications for their permanent
residence or voting status.
Another priority, as noted
earlier, is for the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to significantly
increase the $100 per month payment to households headed by widows so that it
is closer to the average monthly wage of $200, and to expand the range of
recipients to include other vulnerable sections of the population, such as the
food-insecure and displaced populations. Using the figures in this report, that
means a $200 monthly payment to approximately one million households, covering
six million people (based on the average family size of six people67),
which would cost $200m per month or
$2.4bn per year.
A means of improving the
provision of basic services could be through decentralisation. The government
should decentralise some of the responsibilities for delivering services to its
people, including the distribution of PDS rations and medical supplies. With
Baghdad at the centre of the violence and insecurity, requirements for approval
and documentation from the capital mean that aid takes much longer to reach
people in need. At present all aid supplies coming into Iraq must first be sent
to Baghdad where they are kept in seven vast warehouses for quality-control
checking before being distributed to the rest of the country. This has created
a huge backlog of food and medical supplies that are not getting out to
vulnerable communities. It also means that if one of the warehouses suffers damage
during the ongoing violence, as with the reported recent burning down of the
warehouse storing medical supplies, there are no back-up supplies elsewhere in
the country.
Power to local authorities to
quality check and distribute emergency supplies within their own governorates,
together with a more extensive system of warehouse storage for supplies
throughout Iraq would help to address this problem. Local governors taking on
board these responsibilities must be given the necessary funds to carry them out.
The ministries with a
particularly key role to play include the Ministry of Trade, which is
responsible for the PDS, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, which is
responsible for social security payments, the Ministry of Displacement, and the
Ministry of Health. These ministries must be allocated the necessary funds to
enable them to deliver. Co-ordination would be assisted by the creation of a
cross-ministerial group to deal with humanitarian needs, which must include the
Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of the Interior.
The Iraqi government cannot do
this without support from international governments with capacity and influence
in Iraq. These governments, including the USA and the UK, must support Iraqi
government ministries through the provision of technical assistance in order to
ensure the government has the capacity to provide basic services for its
people. This could start with assistance to the Iraqi Ministry of Trade to
reform the PDS system.68
The government of Iraq has
money available that it could use to help the delivery of the humanitarian
response. It has access to funds from oil revenues, in addition to those
committed by donors that were never spent on what they were planned for, mainly
because some projects have been cancelled for security reasons. In 2006, it was
estimated that there was an underspend of $26bn, due to the inability to
implement planned projects.69 While reconstruction projects are of vital
importance to the development of Iraq, given the immediacy of the humanitarian
crisis, some of this underspend should be reallocated to meet emergency needs,
including reform of the PDS and the expansion of social security payments for
vulnerable groups.
There are already two funding
mechanisms geared towards the reconstruction of Iraq: the International
Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq (IRFFI) and the International Compact for
Iraq, launched in early May 2007, which should one day replace the IRFFI. There
is no such facility for financing the humanitarian response. At a recent UNHCR
conference on the Iraqi refugee situation, the government of Iraq promised a
$25m programme of support for those of its citizens who have fled abroad. While
this is a welcome start, provided those funds go to the neediest people,
similar commitments are required to meet the needs of the Iraqi people who
remain inside the country.
All NGOs, but specifically
Iraqi NGOs, face a further challenge to their ability to deliver a humanitarian
response because of problems with legislation. Attempts by the Coalition
Provisional Authority and the government of Iraq to establish a law governing
civil-society organisations were considered too restrictive and were rejected
by NGOs and the Iraqi Parliament. UNAMI and United Nations Office for Project
Services (UNOPs) have been working on a series of drafts with the Civil Society
Committee in the Iraqi Parliament. The latest draft, which is broadly accepted
by NGOs, has been submitted but not yet considered by Parliament. Without this
legal framework, the NCCI reports that the ability of NGOs to operate is
restricted in the following ways:
• Most donors and grant-making
organisations require that NGOs are registered before they will agree to enter
into a funding agreement. There are temporary registration rules that exist for
NGOs operating in Iraq but these have no legal framework to support them and
are subject to frequent changes, making it difficult to meet donor
requirements.
• Working within a legal framework is extremely
important for the way in which NGOs are perceived by others. In the Iraqi
context of violence and insecurity, it is vital that NGOs have a clear legal
status that is recognised by others and which separates them from private
contractors or organisations affiliated to coalition governments. In order to
be entirely legitimate, NGOs need to have their rights enshrined in law.
While it is necessary to
provide a mechanism for identifying legitimate NGOs, it is vital to do so in a
way that builds trust between them and the government, and that respects their
independence. Such trust is currently lacking; as the number of murdered aid
workers rises, all NGOs are becoming increasingly worried that NGO databases
compiled by the government could be misused.70 An inclusive legislation
process, such as that currently under way with the UN and the Iraqi Parliament,
should go some way to establishing this trust.
There were few national NGOs
in Iraq before 2003, except in the autonomous Kurdish areas in the north. By
July 2006, there were over 11,000 civil-society organisations,71
according to Ministry of Civil Society estimates. By November 2006, the
Ministry had determined that 2,775 of these were registered and legitimate.72 While
perhaps only a fraction of them have emergency-response potential or
programmes, they are continuing to strive to meet the needs of the people of
Iraq, have critical knowledge of local areas and needs, and possess some degree
of access.
In the aftermath of the US-led invasion in 2003, Iraqi pharmacist
Dr. Rashad Zaydan founded the Knowledge for Iraqi Women Society (K4IWS), in
response to the needs of women working to hold their families and communities
together. She is determined to ‘relieve the suffering of Iraqi women by
providing financial, occupational, medical, and educational resources’. K4IWS
offers basic health services, financial loans, schools for children, and
courses for women to develop literacy and marketable skills. The organisation
currently employs 70 people and has 300 volunteers across Iraq.
Source: CodePink Women for Peace73
The number of independent
INGOs engaged in Iraq has declined to less than a third of its original number
in July 2003.74 However, there are still 80 either working
in-country or supporting local partners, including many NCCI members, and 45 of
these have emergency-response programmes or potential.75 While
INGOs are heavily dependent on national staff to undertake work in central and
southern Iraq, there are a number of expatriate staff based throughout the
country, primarily in NGOs in the Iraqi Kurdish area of the north, who have
experience from 2003 or earlier.
The Red Cross/Red Crescent (ICRC) movement has nearly 400 staff in
Iraq and Jordan.76 Although it no longer has a permanent
expatriate presence in Baghdad, teams continue to visit Baghdad on a regular
basis. ICRC has offices in Dohuk, Suleymaniah, and Najaf with two further
offices to open in Rabea and Trebil. It also runs sub-delegations in Erbil and
Basrah. ICRC continues to run and expand operations to improve the water and
sanitation infrastructure of medical facilities, and to supply them with
medical and surgical supplies, through national staff and volunteers. The Iraqi
Red Crescent Society (IRCS) has over 1,500 staff and 9,000 active volunteers
working inside Iraq, and covers the whole country.
Together the ICRC and the IRCS are providing monthly emergency aid
for 60,000 people, including displaced families and their hosts. Some 83,000
people, including members of displaced families, have had their water supply
ensured through emergency ICRC water and sanitation projects and, in all, over
four million people have benefited from water and sanitation projects.77 The ICRC has said that it is able to expand its operations to
meet the growing needs of the Iraqi population, and in May 2007 asked donors for
an additional $29m to make this possible.
International Islamic
charities based in the West have also been instrumental in providing ongoing
support to Iraq through the years of sanctions and following the 2003 war.
Financial and technical support is provided by well-known organisations such as
Islamic Relief and Muslim Aid, with a focus on humanitarian aid and orphan-care
programmes. Other regional organisations are playing an important role in
responding to the humanitarian crisis. The Qatari Red Crescent continues to
support Iraqi national NGOs and the IRCS. The Iraqi Refugee Aid Council, based
in Tehran, provides assistance to refugees. The Khomeni Foundation, an Islamic
charity, provides basic hygiene kits, blankets, and food to IDPs in the south of
the country.
Large political parties such
as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Islamic Dawa
Party, the Sadr Alliance, the Alliance of Independent Democrats, and the Iraqi
Islamic Party all have strong social networks that are striving to fulfil basic
needs such as food and health care. Smaller parties including the
Constitutional Monarchy Movement and the Iraqi Hashemite Alliance contribute
funds to provide basic services for their constituencies. This aid is often
distributed via religious institutions including mosques that are being
supported by the political parties. A survey released in January 2005 by Women
for Women International revealed a growing trend of citizens becoming reliant
on religious charity.78
In Iraq, some international
and national NGOs have adapted their ways of working to the insecure
environment. These strategies include: using networks of local contacts to map
the security situation; identifying constraints to access and changing plans
accordingly; making sure that staff working in particularly sensitive areas are
from an appropriate religious, cultural, or geographic background and have the
experience to cope with working in an insecure environment; and keeping a low
profile (e.g. operating in unmarked vehicles, varying routines, not using
permanent offices where possible, and restricting the accumulation of assets).
By adopting such approaches, NGOs are the main implementers of UN and other
humanitarian programmes inside Iraq.
Some INGOs that have remained
in Iraq with international staff have relocated their bases away from the areas
with the highest levels of conflict, and only enter such areas for rapid
assessments and delivery of aid. Some have relocated to the relatively stable
north of the country, and undertake operations to deliver services into other
parts of Iraq when emergency needs arise – though it is unclear for how much
longer they will be able to do this, given that violence is now spreading into
previously more secure parts of the country.
Most INGOs, however, either
have Iraqi national staff running their programmes inside the country, with
management and decision-making support based in a different country – commonly
next-door in Jordan – or they fund and advise independent Iraqi NGOs. In the
former case, staff inside Iraq may have considerable autonomy or may be quite
tightly managed. These methods of working in highly insecure environments are
often known as ‘remote programming’. In the words of UNHCR, ‘Remote management
is not ideal, but what is the alternative? It is the best possible solution –
as long as we still have sufficient indicators and we can see the impact of
what we are doing.’79
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) left Iraq in October 2004 because of
targeted attacks on international aid organisations. The agency’s programme now
works out of Amman (Jordan), providing essential supplies to medical
facilities. In just one of the hospitals it supports, 2,882 surgical
interventions were performed in the period October–December 2006, of which
two-thirds were emergencies and over half were violence-related.
Source: Médecins Sans Frontières80
Oxfam opposed the 2003
invasion of Iraq on humanitarian grounds, but during and after the invasion it
continued to work in Baghdad, in southern Iraq, and on the borders of the
country, providing humanitarian relief and rehabilitating water supplies and sanitation
systems damaged in the war and the subsequent unrest. In late 2003, Oxfam
removed its staff because of security concerns, but has continued to fund and
advise Iraqi NGOs and INGOs that have staff in-country, working from a base in
Amman. As with many other agencies, Oxfam’s Jordan office plays an
information-gathering and networking role in Amman, where so many NGOs, donors,
and UN agencies are based.
An NGO partner (not named for security reasons) supported by Oxfam
was able to continue running a water, sanitation, and health-care assistance
project in Fallujah in 2004, despite the intense fighting in the city during
that period. The NGO distributed drugs and medical equipment to 21 public
health-care centres (PHCCs) in and around Fallujah City, and installed water
tanks and pumps in four of these centres.
After the fighting in April 2004, it provided additional water and
sanitation capacity at the health facilities, and spare parts in case of future
need. Flexibility in the project design allowed Habbanyia PHCC to be added to
the original list of 20 centres. This was judged to be essential in view of the
impending conflict in Fallujah in November 2004 and the expected demands on the
centre’s services.
Figures provided by IOM’s monitoring partner in Anbar Governorate,
the Italian Consortium of Solidarity, show that the number of IDPs that arrived
in Habbanyia during the crisis was in the order of 24,000. This took the total
number of people to benefit from the PHCCs served by this programme to over
half a million.
The coalition of governments
that sent forces into Iraq,81 led by the US and the UK, and those that formed
the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, did not adequately take into
account emergency needs that would arise from deteriorating security over time.
The current downward spiral of violence and insecurity was not predicted by the
coalition of governments who had hoped for a peaceful transition to democracy
and stability in Iraq. As a consequence, their emergency preparedness plan was
insufficient to cope with increasing basic needs. Western donor governments,
most of whom were part of the coalition, generally tied their contributions to
the reconstruction effort and development activities (see Table 1 below).
Funding for development and
reconstruction in Iraq from the 22 Development Assistance Committee (DAC)
donors increased by 922 per cent between 2003 and 2005 to $20,948m, whereas
funding for humanitarian assistance declined by 47 per cent during the same
period to $453.43m.82 The results of an Oxfam survey of DAC donors in
May/June 2007 show that funding for humanitarian assistance declined alarmingly
to just $95m in 2006, despite the evident increase in need. The total is not
complete as only 19 of the 22 DAC donors were willing to provide data.83 However, eight of the top ten donors for
humanitarian assistance to Iraq in 2005 are included in the 19 who responded.
Those countries that gave the most were the UK ($9.5m for humanitarian
assistance and $162.9m for development assistance) and the USA ($43.1m and
$17,826m for humanitarian and development purposes respectively).84 A full
list of DAC donors and their funding commitments for emergency humanitarian
assistance in Iraq from 2003–2006 can be found in Table 2 below. The figures in
bold represent the top ten donations in each year.
Table 1: Emergency
humanitarian assistance and official development assistance to Iraq from DAC
donors 2003–2006 ($million)85
|
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
Emergency
humanitarian assistance from DAC donors |
862.48 |
875.09 |
453.43 |
95 |
Assistance for
development only (Official Development Assistance minus humanitarian) |
1,232.50 |
3,518.73 |
20,948.64 |
18,010.1 |
Table 2: Emergency humanitarian assistance
to Iraq from DAC donors, by country, 2003–2006 ($million)86
|
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
Australia87 |
28.56 |
4.39 |
0.01 |
1.68 |
Austria |
3.47 |
1.97 |
0.9 |
0.1 |
Belgium |
4.21 |
2.02 |
0 |
0 |
Canada88 |
28.78 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Denmark |
0 |
0.49 |
4.11 |
2.69 |
Finland |
4.21 |
2.63 |
0.53 |
0 |
France |
9.41 |
0.93 |
2.99 |
0 |
Germany |
27.53 |
1.65 |
1.45 |
0 |
Greece |
3.4 |
2.67 |
1.99 |
Not provided |
Ireland |
5.09 |
1.24 |
0.1 |
1.8 |
Italy |
2.94 |
9.06 |
0.28 |
16.5 |
Japan |
0 |
624.91 |
251.76 |
Not provided |
Luxembourg |
4.18 |
0 |
0 |
0.13 |
Netherlands |
70.87 |
27.34 |
21.81 |
2.3 |
New Zealand |
5.97 |
1.39 |
2.26 |
0 |
Norway |
51.19 |
9.66 |
12.31 |
11.01 |
Portugal |
0.04 |
14.53 |
2.83 |
Not provided |
Spain89 |
12.15 |
9.5 |
3.06 |
4.00 |
Sweden |
11.8 |
5.56 |
2.95 |
1.58 |
Switzerland |
5.18 |
1.45 |
1.11 |
0.57 |
UK |
166.13 |
46.84 |
19.87 |
9.5 |
USA |
417.37 |
107.46 |
123.08 |
43.1 |
Following such a large decline in
humanitarian assistance in 2006, there are signs from 2007 funding allocations
recorded on the UN Financial Tracking Service that donors may now be refocusing
their attention on humanitarian needs. The figure including committed and
pledged funds is currently at $140.6m.90 Pledges must be quickly turned into committed donations, and
must be combined with more flexible approaches to funding.
According to an Oxfam survey of national
and international NGOs conducted in April 2007, over 80 per cent of them would
be able to expand their humanitarian work if they had increased access to
funds. One Oxfam partner, for example, reported in March 2007 that it had
assessed needs for medical supplies in a number of governorates but, due to
limited funds, it was not in a position to expand its distributions. As
security constraints impose a number of safety rules, the costs of such
distributions are high. Both the ICRC and the IRCS have recently extended appeals
for their substantial programmes in Iraq, which are yet to be fully
funded.
Donors and organs of the UN have not
commonly appreciated the potential that exists to fund humanitarian work inside
Iraq, especially if there were greater willingness to support operations that
do not have all the conventional forms of delivery, monitoring and evaluation,
and which may be costlier, yet which offer reasonable guarantees that money is
well spent and which meet minimum requirements. Non-conventional forms of
delivery are described in the section on NGO response above. Monitoring and
evaluation methods in Iraq include NGO staff or locally employed consultants
gathering information on needs directly from local leaders, from informal
surveys of local people and community groups, and from ministry representatives
if they are present in the area. Rapid appraisal methods are also used whereby
a set of indicators is defined by NGOs based on qualitative judgement.91
Some donors are reluctant to fund
programmes that are ‘remotely’ managed, for example, or are not sufficiently
flexible about changes in implementation that may be required by security
considerations. This lack of understanding is surprising, since ‘remote
programming’ has been established practice for humanitarian organisations for
many years, in places such as Angola, South Sudan, Uganda, Chechnya, Darfur,
and Gaza, to name just a few.
According to recent research undertaken by
the Feinstein International Center, staff members from the Red Cross/Red Crescent
movement, UN agencies, the NCCI, and international and national NGOs have
consistently raised the lack of flexible and accessible donor funding as a
threat to current and planned humanitarian programmes. Operational NGOs with
proven track records inside Iraq are feeling the shortfalls most acutely,
causing some to close down, even as needs escalate.92
Despite
the concerns of some donors, NGOs and the IRCS have found ways of undertaking
rapid assessments and monitoring of vulnerable populations, largely through
informal survey methods with local leaders and communities with whom they have
established a relationship in order to maintain a presence in the first place.
There are also successful means of verifying project implementation. One NCCI
member and Oxfam partner organisation has relied on personal contacts in
different project locations (who are hired on three-month contracts) to
monitor, evaluate, and assess the impact of the projects. This has included
surveys of people benefiting from the projects and an examination of a set of
agreed indicators before and after project implementation.
Another issue restricting the availability
of funding to many Iraqi and international NGOs is their policy of not
accepting money from sources that might compromise their independence and
security. In situations of conflict, humanitarian agencies have to be
particularly careful to be seen both by communities and by armed groups as impartial
and neutral, in order not to become targets themselves or to lose access to
people in need. In the case of Iraq, Oxfam does not accept funding from
countries that have troops in the country. If a government has made a
significant change to its policies towards the war that demonstrates their
impartiality, Oxfam will consider accepting funds. The April 2007 Oxfam survey
of NCCI members with programmes in Iraq found that over half of them would be
able to expand their humanitarian work if they had increased access to funds
from non-coalition country sources specifically.
Of the funds committed for
humanitarian assistance by DAC donors in 2005, 94 per cent were from coalition
governments. This puts a particular onus on DAC countries that were not part of
the coalition or withdrew troops (Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France,
Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland),
along with multinational donors such as the European Commission Humanitarian
Aid department (ECHO) and ‘non-traditional’ donors such as the Gulf states, to
help provide more neutral funding.
The ECHO decision not to
commit new humanitarian funds to Iraq in 2005 caused some INGOs either to scale
down or close down their operations, or to switch to a development focus.93 From
the start of the conflict until the end of May 2005, ECHO had committed €100m
to humanitarian-assistance projects in Iraq through UN agencies, the ICRC, and
many INGOs, and was one of the few sources of neutral funding.
In February 2007, ECHO
announced that it was re-engaging in Iraq and committed approximately €4m to
assisting IDPs through the ICRC inside the country, and €6.2m to assisting
Iraqi refugees in the region. While this is welcome, all international donors
must recognise that the humanitarian needs of people inside Iraq are as
important as those of people fleeing the country – and their funding
allocations should reflect this. ECHO remains open-minded about beginning to
fund NGOs once more, saying that this depends on the development of the
humanitarian situation in Iraq and on the input it receives from NGOs.94 There
are indications that other donors may also increase donations for humanitarian
needs, which would be a welcome development, provided that the terms and conditions
are suited to the operating environment on the ground.
Finally, international donors
must also co-ordinate better amongst themselves regarding the allocation and
distribution of funds for Iraq. Effective co-ordination will avoid a
concentration of funding in one area or organisation at the expense of another.
The response of UN agencies
has been severely hampered by security restrictions put in place after the
bombing of the UN’s Baghdad headquarters in 2003. Access to the country for
international staff is still very limited, and while some duties are ably
carried out by the organisation’s Iraqi staff, it still suffers from the
perception that it is not a neutral player, a view that dates back to the UN
sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s.
Until late 2006, the UN system
was geared largely towards development thinking in Iraq, rather than towards
addressing emergency humanitarian needs. Fortunately, this is now changing:
OCHA has re-engaged with Iraq, is establishing a liaison office in Jordan, and
is promising to achieve an inclusive, co-ordinated humanitarian approach. This
is already under way with the publication in April 2007 of a Strategic
Framework for Humanitarian Action in Iraq, prepared by OCHA together with
UNAMI, and based on a consultative process involving the government of Iraq, UN
agencies, NGOs (including NCCI and five member organisations), and the Red
Cross/Red Crescent movement.
The publication of a strategic
framework, although welcome, must be followed up with a considerable effort to
turn it into an effective system. This will include establishing effective
co-ordination between all agencies involved in the provision of a humanitarian
response, and making sure that the agencies that head up the development and
reconstruction cluster groups in Iraq are also aware of what is planned.95 On the
ground in Iraq the NCCI and its members have established an emergency field
co-ordination structure, in the absence of a UN system, to enable rapid
response to identified needs. This system can be built on, and the new
humanitarian co-ordination centre that OCHA is setting up for Iraq, based
initially in Jordan, should prioritise this.
As NGOs are the main
implementers of UN and other humanitarian programmes inside Iraq, delivering a
co-ordinated humanitarian response will also require action to increase
information, education, and awareness about humanitarian principles and the
role of humanitarian agencies with local Iraqi NGOs, if they are to expand
their work with any degree of security. Advocacy with the Iraqi government on
this issue should be stepped up by the UN and by INGOs on behalf of their
national and local partners.
Specific areas where
assistance to NGOs can be improved include:
• Financial: ensuring rapid
availability of appropriate funding. The new OCHA co-ordination office should
administer a new pooled fund for rapid response that disburses monies to NGOs;96
• Political: interfacing
between NGOs and the government of Iraq, MNF-I, and other political
stakeholders;
• Capacity-building: provision
of technical advice and training (including project management, monitoring, and
evaluation);
• Information: collation,
analysis and dissemination, mapping;
• Logistics;
• Security: advice, training, real-time information.
Within the strategic
framework, the UN has made several important observations, by which it must be
guided in its own operations. These include the realisation that the security
situation is not uniform across Iraq and that some areas of the country are
more accessible for humanitarian activities than others. In addition, in some
areas, local communities still have significant capacities and resources that
could be better utilised. The UN should build on this information in order to
develop a more nuanced approach to security and the movement of UN staff
that differentiates between constraints in different areas and which is more
independent of the MNF-I, thereby allowing needs-assessment, co-ordination, and
service delivery.
In Iraq, UNHCR works through 11 partners; it used to be 20, but
this was reduced due to funding constraints. There are fewer than 29 national
members of staff, and 70–80 per cent of their work through partners is done
through NGOs. Through strategic mapping on the ground, UNHCR national staff are
now able to move around more to verify projects. Implementation is monitored by
national staff, and the partners themselves have to report. Sometimes they
undergo independent evaluations by consultants, who demand documentation from
local authorities. UNHCR equips its partners with the necessary tools to
undertake documentation, and is currently thinking of establishing a peer
monitoring programme to further improve monitoring and evaluation.97 The organisation recently appealed to donors to double its budget
for Iraqi refugees and internally displaced to $123m.98
Until international donors and
the UN Security Council fully recognise the humanitarian crisis in Iraq and
make the provision of humanitarian assistance a priority for the UN, the UN
agencies on the ground and the NGOs that deliver their projects will struggle
to deliver a co-ordinated and effective response.
Bringing an end to war and
civil strife in Iraq must be the overriding priority for the national
government and the international community. However, the government, the
countries of the MNF-I, the UN agencies, and international donors can do more
to meet the other survival needs of the Iraqi population.
The
government of Iraq should take urgent action to address the humanitarian needs
of the Iraqi people. Measures should include:
• Local authorities should
assume greater responsibility for providing material assistance, shelter, and
essential services to displaced people arriving in their jurisdiction, as well
as to vulnerable local populations, and should be given the power and resources
by central government to do so.
• The Ministry of Labour and
Social Affairs should significantly increase the $100 per month payment to
households headed by widows so that it is closer to the average monthly wage of
$200, and expand the range of recipients to include other vulnerable sections
of the population, such as food-insecure people and the displaced population.
• The Ministry of Trade should
improve the Public Distribution System. This should include the establishment
of a temporary PDS identity-card system so that displaced people can receive
food rations.
• The government should create
a cross-ministerial team to co-ordinate its humanitarian response and should
release funds at its disposal for the delivery of this response.
• Explicit orders should be
given to the Iraqi security forces that they, like all armed groups, should not
harm civilian life, property, or infrastructure, and should respect the
population’s right to assistance.
• Finally, the government of
Iraq should support national NGOs through a legal framework including
registration procedures that recognise their rights and independence and secure
their legal authority to operate in Iraq.
International
governments with capacity and influence in Iraq should recognise their
responsibilities towards the people of Iraq by:
• Supporting Iraqi government
ministries through advice and technical
assistance in order to ensure the government has the capacity to provide basic
services for its people, notably improved food distribution, shelter, and the
extension of emergency welfare payments.
The
governments of the Multi-National Force in Iraq (MNF-I) should recognise their
particular responsibilities towards the people of Iraq by:
• Ensuring that the armed
forces respect their moral and legal obligation not to harm civilians or their
property, or essential infrastructure.
Donors
need to increase support to national and international NGOs, the ICRC, the
IRCS, and UN agencies delivering the humanitarian response:
• Donors should provide
increased emergency funding that is readily accessible and flexible. In
particular, donors must build on discussions under way with NGOs to better
understand ‘remote programming’ and mechanisms for monitoring and verification.
• Since many humanitarian
organisations will not accept money from governments engaged in the conflict,
it is important that donors from countries that have not sent troops to Iraq,
such as Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, increase
their funding for humanitarian action.
The UN,
especially UNAMI and OCHA, needs to continue to strengthen its humanitarian
role inside Iraq by:
• Working towards the
achievement of a co-ordinated response with the government of Iraq and NGOs,
and between UN agencies.
• Developing a more
nuanced approach to security and the movement of UN staff that differentiates
between constraints in different areas and which is more independent of the
MNF-I, thereby allowing better needs assessment, co-ordination, and service
delivery.
• Building on the emergency
field co-ordination structure established by the NCCI to enable rapid response
to identified needs.
• Administering a new pooled
fund for rapid response that should be able to disburse monies to NGOs.
© Oxfam International
July 2007
This paper was based
on the research of Jane Chana’a and was written by Mary Kirkbride with Michael
Bailey. Oxfam acknowledges the assistance of Kasra Mofarah, Laila Noureldin,
Manal Omar, Simon Springett, Cedric Turlan, Alex Renton and Nick Martlew in its
production. It is part of a series of papers written to inform public debate on
development and humanitarian policy issues.
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