HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE BY UN EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR ON THE INTERNATIONAL TASK FORCE FOR DISASTER PREVENTION

Jan Egeland, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed journalists on a meeting of the International Task Force for Disaster Prevention that he was chairing, along with a representative of the United Nations Development Programme, for the next two days in Geneva. The year 2005, “the year of disasters”, had highlighted the need for more effective humanitarian and prevention and preparedness systems, which would be the topic of discussion of the meeting. The loss of life and livelihoods could have been greatly reduced with better preparedness, particularly in the South where 95% of all deaths caused by natural disasters occurred. Mr. Egeland was accompanied by Salvano Briceño, Director of the United Nations Secretariat for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, and Yann Arthus Bertrand, a photographer whose photos were featured in the 2006 Disaster Reduction Calendar being launched later in the day.

Mr. Egeland said that the task before the International Task Force for Disaster Prevention – which included representatives of all the UN agencies, many non-governmental organizations including the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, and Member States – was to revitalize and relaunch the disaster prevention framework. In the last two years, hundreds of thousands of people had died and hundreds of millions of livelihoods had been lost due to natural disasters. With a more effective humanitarian system and better prevention and preparedness systems, these losses could have been reduced significantly.

“These people did not need to lose their lives,” said Mr. Egeland. “If we had had good early warning systems, much fewer would have died in the Indian Ocean tsunami. If we had had earthquake safe schools, hospitals and housing in Northern Pakistan, tens of thousands would not have lost their lives. If we had had better levies in New Orleans, those who lived in the lower lying parts of the city would not have had to see their lives devastated.”

Mr. Egeland added that it was evident that it was primarily in the South that the systems were dysfunctional. Some 95% of all deaths caused by disasters occurred in developing countries even though natural hazards were evenly distributed between North and South and East and West. The losses were 20 times greater in the South than in the North. “This is one of the biggest challenges of our time and age, the need to make vulnerable people living in developing nations more resilient to natural hazards.”

The International Task Force for Disaster Prevention would in particular be focusing on the extreme danger that the tens of millions of people in “mega-cities” in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East lived under. An earthquake could strike at any time, wreaking havoc.

“We need more resources for prevention and that money doesn’t seem to be forthcoming,” said Mr. Egeland. At the World Conference on Natural Disasters, that took place at the beginning of the year in Kobe, Japan, he had advocated that 10% of humanitarian spending be oriented toward prevention and preparedness. He had also asked that all development action had a disaster risk reduction element in it, since poverty was so clearly associated with disaster and vulnerability.

“How much does it cost? It doesn’t cost much. We’ve seen that in Nepal, in the Kathmandu valley, where millions of people live and where a major earthquake may erupt, it takes 10% more to build an earthquake resistant house than to create a death trap.” For every dollar invested in disaster prevention, you reap 10-fold that amount later in reduced disaster intervention costs.

Mr. Egeland said that he was hopeful that 2006 would see a significant increase in prevention and preparedness, which in turn would result in a significant decrease in lives and livelihoods lost in the future. There had never before been a greater understanding of the need for disaster prevention and preparedness. The tsunami, the Caribbean hurricanes and the earthquake in Northern Pakistan had been “a wakeup call like no other”.

A journalist asked about the status of funding for the emergency relief operation, noting that billions of dollars had been pledged for the reconstruction effort at a conference in Islamabad last week. Mr. Egeland said that as of today, USD 150 million had been committed, and an additional USD 25 million had been pledged, representing roughly one-third of what was needed. In addition, Norway, already one of the biggest donors, had pledged an additional USD 40 million, which the Government was seeking from the national parliament. “With that money we will be able to sustain operations until the end of the year but we still need to fund January, February, March and April.”

Mr. Egeland added that “I think some of those who now have made commitments in the hundreds of millions for rebuilding should also make it possible for the people to survive until you rebuild.” With hundreds of thousands of lives in the balance in Northern Pakistan, the donors had to understand that things had to be done in the right order. “We have to save lives first and then get enough money to rebuild.”

Part of the problem, according to Mr. Egeland, was that among many donor nations the funds available for emergency response this year had been depleted. Another factor to take into account was that of the USD 5 to 6 billion that was in the pipeline for reconstruction, half was in the forms of loans that could not be applied to the emergency relief effort.

The Emergency Relief Fund that he had been campaigning for, which would be established early next year, would have helped as it would make it possible to jump-start relief operations and manage them in a more predictable manner than was now the case. The Fund had so far received pledges totalling USD 200 million from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg and Switzerland. In addition, Canada, Nigeria and a number of others had said they would pledge.

Asked about the impact of donor fatigue, Mr. Egeland responded that the number of donors was rising and the state of funding was improving. However, there were too many small donors and a larger number of major donors was needed. Part of the problem was that the system had developed in such a way that it relied too much on 10-15 major donor countries in the North West. “We have basically ten close friends who give us 90% of the money we get.” Many other countries provided generous bilateral assistance but it was important to get them to understand how important it was for them, as United Nations member states, to go through multinational channels. “I am hopeful that we will see more Asian nations with growing economies, and more oil-producing nations with growing surplus economies, come in in a big way and in a predictable way.”

In response to a question about the current situation in Northern Pakistan, Mr. Egeland said that it was believed that 100,000 to 150,000 people were still above the snowline and risked being “snowed in”. This was lower than the 200,000 estimated a few weeks ago for two main reasons: many people had come down and relief workers now had access to more communities. Eight battalions of the Pakistani army were working very closely with the UN system and the International Organization for Migration to open access to new villages every day. “ We are making extraordinary progress in Northern Pakistan, faced with extraordinary challenges.” The excellent cooperation with the military and civil society in Pakistan would be a model for future cooperation elsewhere.

Asked about what was required to upgrade the humanitarian relief system, apart from more predictable funding, Mr. Egeland said that a more predictable response capacity was also needed. For instance, the Pakistan earthquake had shown that there were fewer tents available in stock in the world than there should be. Only half of the nearly 400,000 tents needed had been available. Better leadership and more coordinators on the ground were needed to coordinate massive relief efforts such as the one in Pakistan.