Interview with UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland

Following his recent tour of Sudan, Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief coordinator, told IRIN that funding shortfalls had left humanitarian workers battling neglect, famine and epidemics empty-handed. More African Union (AU) forces were required if they were to have any impact on the prevailing insecurity, he said on 23 March. Despite this, Egeland saw the international humanitarian presence in Sudan as a golden opportunity to make progress towards peace, and called upon old and new donors to rise to the challenge and prevent Sudan sliding into chaos again. Below are excerpts from the interview: QUESTION: Following your recent trip to Sudan, you expressed shock at the critical shortfall in funding, which threatens to undermine the southern Sudan peace agreement and the attempts to stabilise Darfur. Can you explain why there is a lack of funding now? Is this due to institutional delays, or donor caution? Or concern that there is not the absorption capacity on the ground yet? ANSWER: There is no predictability in our funding. We can actually perform miracles if we have money, and if we have access and security. These are the three things that we need: funding, access and security. Then we can perform miracles that we could never do before as the humanitarian community. And the world has a golden instrument now - that is half a dozen UN organisations working in harmony with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and hundreds of professional NGOs. The world was yearning for a peace agreement in Sudan for 20 years, and the planning for the implementation of this peace agreement has happened over a number of years. It is unbelievable that the peace agreement is signed, the refugees return home after half a generation in camps in miserable conditions - and nothing happens from the international community. Donors sit on the fence and wonder if they should do anything. I think this shows that we do not have predictability in the funding. As for the humanitarian organisations, as good as we can be when we have funding, we have been weak in organising stand-by capacities both in funding, material and personnel; whereas we should be able to push a button and seize the historic opportunity. Q: What's your view of Hilary Benn's proposal to establish a new humanitarian fund to ensure funds are available early on in crises? A: Yes, the United Kingdom has come up with a number of visionary proposals. There is also a French proposal from President Chirac [for] a humanitarian stand-by capacity, which is also very welcome. The UK proposal has actually been echoed by the [UN] secretary-general in his report to the General Assembly. I hope that we will have a predictable stand-by humanitarian-funding mechanism, so that we don't have to go around hat-in-hand for months before we can start to move. That delayed our operations in Darfur last year, and it has delayed our preparations in south Sudan this year. This is the second year in a row where we are too late in Sudan, which is due to slow funding and slow stand-by capacity. Q: Are these French and UK proposals being discussed at an operational level? A: Very much so. And it's also being studied in the context of the humanitarian response review which I have initiated, where we have first-class experts formulating very concrete proposals of how we can have predictable humanitarian-funding and predictable humanitarian-response capacity. We have to move on both of these this year. Q: Coming back to Sudan, what are your expectations from the international donor trip that ended last week? A: I expect them to come back with money for the work plan that was presented to the international community in October last year. When I was in south Sudan in mid-March, we had received five percent of what we had asked for 2005. Now, thanks to new donors coming forward, we have five sizeable donors for Sudan - the US, the UK, the European Commission, the Netherlands and Norway. These are the only countries that have given more than US $10 million. More has happened in the last two weeks than in the first two months of the year. Now we have 14 percent [of] commitments [required for] the south. But the main problem is, in these times of discussions of Good Humanitarian Donorship [an international initiative launched in 2003], we need[ed] to have commitments in January. In critical circumstances, as in Sudan and the Congo, we cannot have commitments made in April with the funding coming in June. It's too late, for the simple reason that there has been a rainy season every year from May to October for the last 1,000 years in Africa. It should be no surprise to anybody that we need funds early to avoid having inefficient assistance through the middle of the year. I think now we will begin to see the reality of Good Humanitarian Donorship, because we do agree on the principles. We have done the talking and we now need to see the results in action. We also need new donors. There [are] on the list [for Sudan] only two donors that have given more that $1 million from outside of the northwestern corner of the world. These are Saudi Arabia and Japan. This does not reflect the fact that we have a bigger and richer world [than this], and growing economies - with many oil-producing countries - and many Arab and Asian countries. They have to step up to the plate. Q: Assuming that agencies did get the funds to operate properly in Sudan, what are your concerns about deteriorating security? Do you think that the international community is doing enough to improve security? A: No we are not. I look with alarm at the security situation in west Sudan. The world has really only responded to the horrors of Sudan by sending in humanitarians. There are now ten thousand humanitarian employees in Darfur, nine thousand of which are Sudanese, with one thousand internationals. Luckily, no lives were lost when a clearly marked aid convoy of USAID and IRS came under fire yesterday [22 March]. Colleagues from a French organisation, Solidarité, whom I myself visited just two weeks ago and who do phenomenal work in South Darfur, were jailed for three days. So I am not sleeping well at night, wondering how long we can carry on in this situation. And those responsible are not just the security forces; it's also the Janjawid, and the rebels. They are all to blame for this. The rebels have abducted eight vehicles, which they have kept to this day. The African Union force is doing a great job, but they are one-fifth of what they should have been. The deployment has been too slow and the plans I've seen [for further deployments] are also far too slow. And one argument that I really don't hope anybody will be producing is that it is too costly to deploy African Union observers, because that will lead to a worse situation than the one we have today. Q: What's the current status of the African Union plans, and how are they planning to scale-up their presence? A: They have at the moment 2,300 troops. They have committed to deploy 3,600, which is a third of what they should have. They are discussing additional deployments. But in our view, this should have happened yesterday. World leaders agreed one year ago that one of the greatest international priorities was to get a sizeable AU force in place. And yet, one year later, they can't match the number of humanitarians present, which has reached 1,000 new staff [arriving] per month. The world must be able to deploy at least as fast on the security side. Q: Last week you said this was a "make or break year" for Sudan, and that the funding shortfall and insecurity had to be addressed as a priority. Once these two factors are in place, what other elements need to happen for the peace agreement to succeed? A: You also have to have a muscular political process. The political groups need to be pressurised into making sure that they stick to their agreements. It is not only the governments, it is the ethnic leaders and the rebels who have to be brought to account. Attacks against unarmed civilians and our own colleagues cannot continue. It should only take weeks to get a 10,000-strong AU force, and the humanitarians have shown that it is possible to deploy to and operate in Darfur. With respect to funding, we have now received $55 million for the south, which is 14 percent of what we needed. For Darfur we have received $290 million. However, the overwhelming part of this is food from the United States, as 95 percent of the US contribution is food. We need cash. If you take away the food, which we have generously received, we have hardly any money this year for non-food [aid] and water sanitation. All the other sectors are critically under-funded. If the world is sending the humanitarian community to battle against neglect, famine, and epidemics, we have to have ammunition. We are now sent to battle empty-handed with bulk food, that's it. We have to have the rest. And all countries can give us more. The Europeans, the North Americans, the Japanese, not to mention the oil-rich countries in the Gulf countries that are not coming forward as they should. Q: Do you see this as an investment for the future? A: Pay up now or regret it forever. That's how we see it. Sudan may slide into chaos again unless we get resources.