INTER-AGENCY STANDING COMMITTEE WEEKLY MEETING. Summary Notes. 30 March 2006 Geneva

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1 INTER-AGENCY STANDING COMMITTEE WEEKLY MEETING Summary Notes 30 March 2006 Geneva I Somalia - Briefing by members of the UN Country Team on the Overall Humanitarian Crisis - Focusing on the Current Drought Mr. Christian Balslev (UNICEF), Acting Humanitarian Coordinator and UNICEF Representative, UNICEF Somalia; Mr. Graham Farmer (FAO), Officer in Charge, FAO Somalia; Mr. Elballa Hagona (UNDP), UNDP Country Director, Somalia; and Mr. Philippe Lazzarini (OCHA), Head of Office, OCHA Somalia The Country Team members briefed on the overall humanitarian crisis and response in Somalia with particular emphasis on the current drought, the funding situation including the revised CAP for Somalia as well as the implementation of humanitarian reform initiatives including the cluster approach in the country. 1.1 Humanitarian Crisis / Drought Situation Somalia, especially the southern and central parts has since the end of 2005 been affected by the consequences of the worst drought in over ten years. Around 1.7 million people country-wide are in need of critical assistance, not including up to 400,000 IDPs already identified by the aid community at high risk and vulnerability. Some regions in the South are identified at likely risk of risk of a famine. The crisis caused by the drought is amplified by localized conflicts, especially in the south. Cereal production is the lowest in over ten years and cattle death is widespread, undermining the livelihood of many Somalis and severely damaging the important meat export industry. Furthermore the crisis is resulting in significant movements of people toward riverine areas or urban centers, reinforcing the pressure on these already stretched communities. 1.2 Coordination mechanisms (IASC and Clusters) An IASC mechanism for Somalia was established in January 2006 and met for the first time in early February. The group meets on a monthly basis. The IASC membership includes a number of UN agencies, ICRC and NGOs selected by the Somalia NGO Consortium to represent the NGO community. FAO/FSAU and FEWS/NET will act as technical advisors, while a seat has remained vacant to be filled by a Somali representative. On a monthly basis, the Somalia IASC also meets with donors. While coordination is good and manageable, team members stressed the need for increased presence by international humanitarian actors. Seven clusters have been identified together with respective cluster leads and co-leads from UN agencies and NGOs: i) food aid; ii) agriculture and livelihood; iii) water and sanitation; iv) health and Nutrition; v) access; vi) protection; vii) education. Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 1

2 1.3 Funding (CAP, CERF and HRF) The 2006 Somalia CAP (launched on 14 December 2005) targeted almost 1 million people. However, with the onset of the drought the number of people in need of critical humanitarian assistance in 2006 has more than doubled to 2.1 million, requiring a revision of the Appeal. Focusing on the most immediate emergency needs in the country, the majority of which remain in central and southern Somalia, the revised Appeal addresses heightened needs of around 710,000 people in a state of Acute Food and Livelihood Crisis, 915,000 experiencing a Humanitarian Emergency and up to 400,000 internally displaced. The revised 2006 Somalia Appeal requests US$ 326,718,040 in support of 92 projects. Somalia has already received USD 3 million from the CERF and pledges have been made for USD 3.3 million to the Humanitarian Response Fund for Somalia (HRF), administered by OCHA Somalia. 1.4 Next steps and the Future The team members informed participants that they would be meeting with Donors in Geneva to brief them on the revised CAP and that they had already addressed donors at a meeting with the Nordic Countries in Stockholm and in Brussels with the EU-Commission. The need to address some of the root causes of the current drought crisis was emphasized and participants were informed that a Joint Needs Assessment is being carried out in Somalia to identify needs and priorities for a 5-year period. More details of the briefings are available in the PowerPoint presentation shown at the meeting, which is available on the IASC Website-link for this meeting. The discussion following the briefing focussed on the need to address the more long-term socioeconomic and political development issues in Somalia in order to increase the country s ability to withstand future food crisis, primarily through agricultural development and creation of job opportunities. Furthermore the need for peace and reconciliation efforts was underlined and it was stressed that the newly established national government must be assisted in an attempt to end the conflict in the Southern and Central parts of the country. Participants were informed that UNHCR is leading a programme on recovery and return of refugees. II Chad Sudanese Refugees in Eastern Chad Ms. Cathrine Poulton (InterSOS), Community Service Manager, InterSOS in UNHCR Refugee Camps; and Mr. Frederic Maio (InterSOS), Co-ordinator, InterSOS in UNHCR Refugee Camps Following a brief introduction by Mr. Craig Sanders, (UNHCR), Head of Desk covering Chad and Darfur, Ms. Poulton and Mr. Maio briefed on the lessons learned by InterSOS from the over 2 years of co-managing two refugee camps in Eastern Chad in cooperation with UNHCR. InterSOS has been operational in Chad since February 2004, where there was an immediate intervention to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. During this period, in spite of the critical logistic situation and the difficult environment, InterSOS has built and is managing two refugee camps (in Djabal and Goz Amir) in cooperation with UNHCR. Two refugee camps host about 32,000 Sudanese refugees, mainly women and children. Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 2

3 A major concern is that the security situation in Eastern Chad has deteriorated since militias/rebels from Sudan in December 2005 began raiding over the border, causing an official Chadian declaration of war against Sudan. The intensification of violence has led to the abandonment and destruction of many Chadian villages in the border region and an estimate of 15,000-30,000 persons have been internally displaced. Also, UNHCR has registered Chadian refugees in some of their camps in Sudan/Darfur. The lack of response from the international community to the Chadian IDPs was underlined. Two key lessons learned from managing the camps was emphasised: Firstly, that there is a need to involve the camp community/beneficiaries in the daily functions and work in the camp to avoid creating a culture of dependency; and secondly the needs of the local population, particularly in an area with scarce resources, must be taken into consideration from the outset More details of the briefings are available in the PowerPoint presentation shown at the meeting, which is available on the IASC Website-link for this meeting. The discussion following the briefings focused on the deteriorating security situation in both Eastern Chad and Darfur as well as the increasingly difficult premises for humanitarian actors in the region, including restrictions of movement imposed by the Sudanese authorities and some NGOs having had their MoU s cancelled. Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 3

4 Participants Name Organization 1 Mr. Graham Farmer FAO graham.farmer@fao.org 2 Mr. Paul Paredes-Portella FAO pparedes-portella@unog.ch 3 Mr. Jacob Korreborg IASC Secretariat korreborg@un.org 4 Ms. Mirlinda Pasoma IASC Secretariat pasoma@un.org 5 Ms. Yukiko Yoshida IASC Secretariat yoshiday@un.org 6 Ms. Amy Christofferson ICRC achristofferson.gva@icrc.org 7 Ms. Aninia Nadig IDMC / NRC aninia.nadig@nrc.ch 8 Mr. Damaso Feci InterSOS intersos@worldcom.ch 9 Mr. Frederic Maio InterSOS frmaio@yahoo.com 10 Ms. Cathrine Poulton InterSOS catherineleila@yahoo.com 11 Ms. Mersika Grabus Islamic Relief mersika@islamic-relief.ch 12 Mr. Andrei Slavuckij MSF andrei.slavuckij@geneva.msf.org 13 Ms. Thierry Delbreuve OCHA delbreuve@un.org 14 Mr. Philippe Lazzarini OCHA lazzarini@un.org 15 Mr. Kulmiye Mohamed OCHA mohamed36@un.org 16 Ms. Delphine Pastorel OCHA postorel@un.org 17 Ms. Janet Puhalovic OCHA puhalovic@un.org 18 Ms Zero Akyol UNAIDS akyolz@unaids.org 19 Ms Nabina Rajbhandari UNAIDS rajbhandarin@unaids.org 20 Mr. Mohamed Abshir UNDP mohamed.abshir@undp.org 21 Mr. Elballa Hagona UNDP elballa.hagona@undp.org 22 Mr. Golam Abbas UNHCR abbas@unhcr.org 23 Mr. Craig Sanders UNHCR sanders@unhcr.org 24 Mr. Christian Balslev-Olsen UNICEF cbalslev@unicef.org 25 Mr. Luc Chauvin UNICEF lchauvin@unicef.org 26 Mr. Gustavo Laurie UNMAS glaurie@unog.ch Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 4

5 Name Organization 27 Ms. Patricia Kennedy WFP 28 Ms. Chisha Kawandami WHO 29 Mr. Thomas Getman WVI 30 Mr. Masaki Miyoshi WVI 31 Ms. Emily Montgomery WVI Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 5