Interview with UN Humanitarian Area Coordinator, Rashid Khalikov

Rashid Khalikov is a man with a mission. Tasked with the difficult job of coordinating the various UN agencies on the ground in quake-affected northern Pakistan, he has repeatedly appealed for more funds to help the millions of survivors in dire need of immediate assistance. But that message has yet to be fully understood. In an interview with IRIN on Sunday at the UN compound in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the senior UN official warned that the world body might scale back and phase out unless donors acted now. QUESTION: You’ve been particularly critical of the level of contributions being made by donors to the United Nations Flash Appeal. Can you update us on where we are now? ANSWER: I have not been critical of the contributions made by donors. I was just urging them to give more funds. I don’t know whether there has been any update since Friday, but as of Friday I think it was a little more over US $120 million against the appeal, which was $550 million. We are of the view that this is a very, very difficult situation because we have to provide a lot of assistance in the coming three or four weeks – that’s why we need money in the bank. Q: Why do you feel donors have responded in the way they have? Are there any particular reasons? A: I would think that there might be two or three reasons for that. One, initially the international community did not fully comprehend the magnitude and complexity of the crisis. The international community also didn’t understand the logistical difficulties that we are confronted with. It took some time before understanding was reached that this was a big thing and then we started unfolding all our capacities – UN, Red Cross and NGOs. And I think still this inertia impacts on donor decision-making. From our view, another reason may be that Pakistan traditionally has been a country that was receiving aid through development banks and through bilateral channels. Therefore, that is the way assistance is channelled now. A third reason in my view, is that many countries still believe that it is a classic natural disaster which in most instances has two phases. One is search and rescue, the most intensive first 96 hours after the disaster, then a little bit of relief and then the second phase - reconstruction and rehabilitation. Here because of the disaster and the magnitude of that, we see dramatically increased vulnerability of people, which never happened before as a result of a natural disaster, at least in recent years. Nobody remembers this kind of situation. Q: This earthquake has proven devastating for the inhabitants of this region. How would you describe your current level of capacity in dealing with the sheer magnitude of this disaster? A: I think the United Nations and NGOs, and the International Organization for Migration [IOM] and the [International Committee of the] Red Cross, have built capacity to respond. According to the latest information I have, the United Nations has deployed more than 200 staff to Pakistan and 200 of them are working outside [the capital] Islamabad. Just to show you the sheer magnitude of involvement of the UN agencies. And as you can imagine, they’re not coming here to stay in luxury hotels and enjoy life. Q: Where are we in the relief effort in this operation? Are you reaching the people you need? A: Yes. Assistance has started to reach the populations in need. Various agencies are leading various clusters as we now organise the response. And we have information that a lot of activities are going on, for example in the health sector, supporting the medical institutions here and carrying out immunisations as there is a lot of worry over possible disease outbreaks. UNICEF [the UN Children’s Fund] has handed over tents for schools because, as we know from previous emergencies, the opening of schools is probably the single most powerful illustration of a return to normalcy to the devastating area. UNICEF is also doing a lot of important work in the protection of children in identifying unaccompanied children and they’re trying to take care of them. Earlier there were some cases which gave reason for serious concern. Therefore UNICEF is very active in that area. WFP [the World Food Programme] is shipping food to the population in the affected area and building capacity to deliver – including helicopters and trucks. UNHCR [the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees] is supporting the spontaneous camps and is working on establishing the sites for possible camps in case populations start coming down from the mountains. Q: In terms of logistics how are things shaping up for you and your team? A: I think we will have, starting tomorrow or the day after, helicopters that will be moved here [to Muzaffarabad] together with their crews. The helicopter capacity has been built and I have just learned that tomorrow [Monday], an MI 26 (helicopter) will be used to airlift a huge bulldozer to start cleaning the roads somewhere up in the mountains. And without the MI 26, as you can imagine, it’s just impossible given the sheer weight of this equipment. Q: The UN is planning on being here for the long haul. With regard to relief and reconstruction efforts what is your strategy? A: We launched a flash appeal. The disaster took place on 8 October and already on 11 October we launched a flash appeal, which was revised and launched again at an international conference on Wednesday [26 October]. It contains a very clear plan of action for the next six months in the area of relief. It identified all the main needs and designed all the programmes to address these needs. Within the UN, we’re of the view that in the first six months after the earthquake, it will be predominately relief. Though reconstruction and recovery is all taking place to the extent that’s possible, we are in the life saving phase. That is our top priority at this point. Then I think as we move some time closer to spring, recovery activities will gear up and also reconstruction, which takes a little more in terms of planning than relief activities. Q: How does this disaster compare to the many others the United Nations has responded to in the past? Is it in any way unique? A: There are a lot of things here from which we can learn. Working on this disaster now for three weeks – firstly at the headquarters level right after the quake, then a few days in Islamabad, and then here in Muzaffarabad, I think if anyone wants to deliver a lecture on natural disasters, this quake would be the best example because everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. Any difficulty you can imagine is there. What makes it especially difficult is the dramatic increase in vulnerability of large groups of people living in a huge territory with very difficult access and harsh climatic conditions. Q: There seems to be a problem of getting the message out how bad the situation truly is. Do you think the international community understands how bad things really are? A: I don’t think so. I don’t think the international community truly understands how big it is, though we are trying everything to change that. We launched the appeal, we revised it and launched it again. We are giving interviews and meeting donor groups twice a day from various countries. We are trying to show the capacity that the international community already has on the ground. Maybe part of the difficulty is that the images do not allow you to understand the magnitude. If you see a couple of villages completely destroyed - and you realise that each village may have about 500 to 1,000 people - the human brain probably does not calculate or doesn’t multiply it to see the sheer magnitude of that. I wanted to tell you that I flew over the Neelum Valley. I saw with my own eyes, flying sometimes very low and by stopping. From 90 to 100 percent of housing was destroyed. And in most instances, if not all, 100 percent of the population does not have housing at all. Even if a building is still there, then it is uninhabitable. Q: With the onset of winter, what are primary concerns at this point? A: Funding. Q: What will happen if donors simply don’t respond? Will you scale back your activities in any way? A: Yes. We’ll scale down and phase out. Q: The UN seems to be at a crossroads with donors in getting the message across. What is your message to donors now and has it changed? A: What we have to deal with now is of such scale that everybody must contribute to our joint effort. It may be traditional donors, it may be those countries in recent years that have an accelerated rate of economic growth and may therefore become a little more active in UN activities. It may be oil-rich countries, it may be the private sector. Did you know that the International Volleyball Federation contributed to last year’s tsunami response? Everybody who can is welcome to contribute and a lot can be done by the military from various countries. We’re very grateful for whatever has been done and we really hope that very much more will be done.