UN forced to close provincial field offices

The United Nations Relief and Recovery Unit (RRU) in Zimbabwe has been forced to close its provincial field offices, which coordinate and monitor the use of donor-funded humanitarian aid. In the latest Zimbabwe Humanitarian Situation Report released this week, the RRU said the government had requested that its "field offices be closed from mid-August". "The government of Zimbabwe's position is that not all procedures for the establishment of this field presence had been properly followed. All RRU field staff have been recalled to Harare while negotiations proceed," the situation report said. It noted that "the provincial field units are mandated to provide support to provincial and district-level coordination structures in the humanitarian fields. They are also supposed to monitor, from an independent perspective, assistance provided with donor resources". A UN official told IRIN that while the situation was not ideal, "field staff are being allowed to go out into the field from Harare". "Two teams left yesterday [Monday], one to Matabeland South and the other to Midlands province. So, although it would be better to have the staff based in the provinces, and that is still the desire of the UN [Humanitarian] Coordinator, their work will still be going on as planned," the official added. Zimbabwe will have about 5.5 million people in need of food aid by January 2004. Last month the government released a new policy directive that withdrew responsibility from the World Food Programme (WFP) for the selection of beneficiaries and the distribution of food aid, and replaced the agency with local government structures and village authorities. NGOs would perform only a monitoring role. Although the government later gave an assurance to WFP country representative Kevin Farrell and UN Humanitarain Coordinator Victor Angelo that WFP would remain in control of food distributions, the directive has not been withdrawn. Critics have protested that it opens the door to the potential politicisation of food aid. In the case of the RRU, which falls under the office of the humanitarian coordinator, the situation report noted that "at all stages the RRU and its field officers have worked in collaboration with the appropriate government of Zimbabwe authorities at field level". "The governors' and provincial administrators' offices have been kept informed of all activities, and have also invited RRU to participate in some of their activities and programmes where appropriate." It was therefore hoped that the closures "are only a temporary measure while the protocols and procedures needed to carry out field activities are regularised," the RRU said.