IRIN Interview with Ramiro Lopes Da Silva, OCHA Special Humanitarian Adviser for CAR.

One year after a six-month rebellion in the northwest of the Central African Republic (CAR), the humanitarian situation for about two million of the country’s 3.5 million inhabitants remains worrying. Despite the return of most the war-displaced to their homes, much more aid is required in the health, education, food security, water and sanitation and security sectors. On 29 February, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), sent its Special Humanitarian Adviser on the CAR, Ramiro Lopes Da Silva, on a mission to the country to assess that situation and to mobilise aid funds, especially for the war-ravaged northwest. Da Silva's mission is due to end on Wednesday. We bring you excerpts of an interview he granted IRIN on Sunday in the CAR capital, Bangui. QUESTION: About two-thirds of the Central African Republic’s population was affected by the October 2002 to March 2003 rebellion. Is their humanitarian situation alarming? ANSWER: I cannot say alarming but rather very worrying. It is clear that the situation in the countryside is one of lack of tranquillity. Populations have no access to basic services such as health care, education and safe drinking water. Insecurity prevents people from working in their farms in many areas. This means that these populations may be in a more worrying situation in the near future. Q: How real is the threat of famine in the northwest? A: The term "famine" has a very clear definition. The CAR is not facing a situation of famine. However, it is clear that populations have less access to food. There is also malnutrition, which obviously worsens every day. The aim of our mission is to try and respond to that situation. Q: The northwest is considered the country’s granary. However, peasants have lost two planting seasons for lack of seeds and have not been able to sell their cotton harvests, which could have improved their situation. What would you recommend in that respect? A: That is not part of my current mission, which is finding humanitarian responses. Other solutions aimed at reviving the country’s agriculture and economy should be handled by the government with the support of its development partners and UN agencies in the country. Q: Only two NGOs (Spanish charity Medicos Sin Fronteras and Italian Cooperazione Internazionale)are active on the ground in the northwest, where epidemics such as measles, meningitis, tropical ulcers and polio are reported. Would your mission encourage the coming of more medical charities? A: The CAR humanitarian situation can be characterised in two ways: the epidemiological aspect and malnutrition. For the epidemiological aspect, we are going to mobilise funds for the UN World Health Organization so that it can urgently carry out an epidemiological control drive nationwide. We will emphasise this while talking to donors. Concerning the issue of NGOs, it is true that there is a small group of them. There are two reasons for that: one, the lack of visibility of the humanitarian situation that the country is undergoing and, two, administrative and bureaucratic obstacles. For instance, NGOs are now asked to pay taxes and the drugs they distribute, which are meant to benefit the populations free of charge, are being sold. This is a big obstacle when one wants to mobilise more NGOs. It also makes it more difficult because donors will question the seriousness of authorities’ request for humanitarian assistance. NGOs are needed on the ground to support administrations where they exist and to fill their deficits where they are not. There are entire regions where there is no single administrative service. Q: The situation is reported to be worrying in the eight eastern provinces that were cut off from Bangui, the main supply point, during the rebellion. Do you plan to visit the area? A: For my current mission, I will not go to the east. We have been following the evolution of the situation on the ground for the mobilisation of donors. We will see in the future whether a specific mission is necessary. Q: How does insecurity contribute to the worsening of the humanitarian situation? A: In all the villages and towns we visited, we talked to peasants who no longer go to their fields because of insecurity. In one village, villagers said they had been attacked and their property looted [by armed robbers] three days before our visit to that village. There is no tranquillity in the countryside. We should not hide or minimise security problems in the northwest. The country needs substantial support for the reform of its armed forces, which would favour a quick return to normalcy in the countryside. Otherwise, there would be a much worse humanitarian situation with villagers fleeing their homes for bigger towns, where administrative authorities and the military are based. Q: Two emergency appeals for funds (in April 2003 for $9.1 million and November 2003 for $16.8 million) were launched in 2003 but donors failed to respond. How do you explain that? A: It is the result of the combination of many factors: first, the issue of visibility. The world does not know very well, the country’s difficult situation. Second, the indicators [data] we are using date back two or three years. This means that it is not easy to present a clear image of the situation, especially for those who do not go to the countryside. Third, there is a deficit of credibility on the part of the authorities because of the country’s past. The result of all this is the wait-and-see attitude on the part of donors. The international community awaits the government’s actions before responding in a more vigorous way. The problem is that the poorest and the war-affected people are victims of that situation: on the one hand, the populations have urgent needs with a government which has no resources to assist them and on the other hand, donors want the government to act first before intervening. Our mission is to break that vicious circle. Q: What are the steps to be taken at the end of your mission? A: When I leave Bangui [on 10 March ], I will first go to Geneva to meet the donors and then to New York to meet the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs. With the latter, we will define the plan of action so that we can have more commitments from donors for the CAR.