Quick-impact projects yield results

With “quick-impact” funds provided by the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) water supplies have been restored to Bambina, a village close to the Gash river in southwestern Eritrea. Benefits of the project were seen at first hand by Officer-in-Charge of UNMEE, Deputy Special Representative Ian Martin, when he visited the area last week, journalists were told on 13 July at the regular UNMEE press briefing conducted in parallel in both Asmara and Addis Ababa. The funds, in this case channeled through an Italian NGO, Mani Tese, are part of a new approach to providing support towards meeting humanitarian needs as an integral part of modern UN peacekeeping operations. Modest individual grants are authorised under the scheme and can be used by NGOs, local authorities or UN agencies on both sides of the border to assist communities affected by the conflict between the two countries which ended with the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement in December last year. Since arriving last month to replace the combined Netherlands-Canadian contingent, UNMEE’s Indian battalion has also been working in the Central Sector to provide assistance to the people of the northern Ethiopian town of Adigrat and to surrounding communities. The battalion, which is continuing a long-standing Indian tradition of providing practical help to civilians as part of their peacekeeping philosophy, has organised a series of medical camps to provide treatment to people who do not have access to health facilities. The peacekeepers are also distributing sports equipment to local schools and have made available two 11,000-litre water tanks to a camp of internally displaced persons. UNMEE’s civilian military cooperation unit has similarly arranged the dispatch of two water bladders (flexible tanks) for town of Tokombia to help ensure a reliable supply of water there, journalists were told at the 13 July briefing.