Interview with UNDP head

Roger Guarda is the Officer-in-Charge for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Iraq, but is based in Amman for security reasons. In an interview conducted with IRIN just before his retirement, Guarda assessed the role of the agency in the country and the difficulties faced in implementing its projects from a distance. He also spoke of the priorities for the coming year and focus areas. Having served UNDP since its creation in 1965, Guarda said he was proud of what had been achieved so far, given the current situation. QUESTION: By the end of the year, UNDP will have delivered approximately US $75 million worth of humanitarian aid. What is your overall assessment for the Iraqi operation this year? ANSWER: This has been an extremely difficult year for the UN [in Iraq] in the sense that we had to develop programmes and to identify projects in a situation where we are not in the country. The dialogue with the local authorities is difficult to establish and to maintain because we are not in there. We manage to meet local authorities when they come to Amman in frequent meetings, and also in other places. But it is not the close dialogue we normally have with the government. So, to identify projects, to formulate projects that really work hand in hand has been one major difficulty. Q: What was the most important achievement made by UNDP over the past year? A: What we are really proud of is the Iraqi reconstruction and employment generation programme, which we call IREP. This is a project focused on providing short, quick employment for jobless people making use of the labour there to rebuild more infrastructure, preparing schools, hospitals, streets, roads, etc. We started this project immediately after the war [last spring] and then, when we were evacuated, we had to stop it completely because we weren't there. But we managed to invent new approaches to implement this programme, which has resumed since April 2004. Now, we have been able to spend $800,000 per month with salaries of $3 a day. This doesn't sound that much when you compare it to the millions of dollars that are supposed to go to Iraq, but in terms of employment and job opportunities to people it makes a major difference. We have bigger projects that we implement, especially in the infrastructure sector, but from a creativity point of view this is one I think we are most proud of. Q: How much progress has been made in infrastructure and housing? A: There are tremendous needs for housing, UN Habitat is dealing with that. In infrastructure there has not been much progress [in the] last year. We have been basically preparing for major infrastructure projects, like the repair of key power stations. To repair these is a long-term exercise. And to prepare the specifications is very long-term work. So, this year we spent a lot of time contracting engineers and so on. Actually, the work just started now. In the infrastructure field we will spend about $35 million, but the major expense in power and infrastructure will be next year. Q: What is the current situation with electricity supply? A: In the electricity field we are working on helping the Iraqis to prepare a new master plan for the network: how to rehabilitate it and how to develop it. The central brain of the system was destroyed during the war and we are working to help people repair that and training people on how to manage it. This has been projected in our activities this year. We also rehabilitated some of the major power stations in south, centre and north of Iraq. As previously mentioned, these are large projects, which take a lot of time to prepare. Q: Since the UN is not operating in the country. How does UNDP implement its programmes in Iraq? A: Normally, we work with our experts but since we cannot physically be present [in Iraq] we do this through contractors. We used to do it also with international NGOs, but there are practically none left now, so that has been reduced significantly in the last two months. We do a lot of capacity building abroad, taking people out and organising workshops, Iraq has been living in isolation for the last 30 years, practically. We bring them out to expose them to the rest of the world, explaining what has happened, the evolution of technology; the new ways of doing things. And this we do outside, so there is a combination of working with subcontractors and NGOs, now more with local NGOs, and training activities. Q: How does UNDP-Iraq assess the projects when is not in the country? A: Other contractors monitor the projects. They go and see where the work is actually taking place, they take pictures and then they show us. This is ok for infrastructure projects, because you can see them. The result of capacity building is much more difficult to assess when you are not there. The UN Trust Fund itself will be able to enter into some contracts with international companies. They will also do physical checking in the country for us and see how things have been implemented. So, basically, we do it through other people, which makes it very difficult. Q: What is the impact of insecurity on the implementation of your activities? A: We could do much more if we were in the country identifying and implementing more projects. Even with the arrangements that we have now - working with subcontractors - we have major security impacts: one of our contractors was killed in one of the attacks in Baghdad a few weeks ago. And implementation of this particular project was affected because of that. Q: What will be UNDP's main priority for the next year? A: The big thing for the next year will be the final overall strategy for the UN as a whole. There is a $500 million UN Trust Fund, which was awarded to the UN system [as part of $1 billion raised at last year's Madrid donors' conference]. So, the major focus should be to programme the money so we can start projects. At the same time, it is not that the political situation is clear now. But if there are elections, a legitimate government in place, if there is a parliament, we can start looking at a really long strategy for the UN. UNDP will focus on trying to help to formulate a long-term strategy for the UN in the country. There is a lot of money being placed in the country, so we have to find where we [the UN] can play a significant role. Q: What are the other focus areas for the 2005? A: All the projects in the electricity field have come on line now and we started to spend a lot of money [on this]. In the infrastructure field, we are also starting a project to dredge a channel to the port of Umm Qasr, this is another major activity. We are going to try to develop a programme in local governance, which is one of our priorities really. We will expand the IREP project, which is now only working in the south, to Baghdad as well as in the north. This will be another major expansion. We are now working on mine action too. We will make contracts with international companies to train national organisations and NGOs in mine clearance and education in mine awareness. This year, we found gaps here and there, we filled them as soon as we could, but now we have to think strategically and that would be our focus for the next year. Q: The Iraqi interim government, together with UNDP, is preparing the Iraqi National Human Development report for 2005. What will it be like? A: The government is asked to prepare a report, but it won't be the classical UNDP report that it has in every country. It will be more an issues paper that would focus on issues of democracy and so this would be more an analysis on what progress has been made over the last year in terms of people’s participation in decision-making, institutional development, etc. It will not be a statistical document [due to difficulties in collecting accurate data under the current circumstances].