Interview: Christian Aid Africa Policy Manager

The general secretary of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, announced last week the launch of a new $500 million emergency fund to help channel money quickly to disaster zones.

|PIC1|The UK has already pledged £70 million towards the UN Central Emergency Response Fund launched in New York by the general secretary last week.

Babatunde Olugboji, Africa policy and advocacy manager at Christian Aid, spoke to Christian Today about the new fund and the road that lies ahead in international emergency response.


CT: The UN has finally set up a $500m emergency response fund. Is it enough?

BO: We welcome the announcement that the United Nations has launched this $500m emergency fund to speed up the distribution of money for humanitarian disasters. But for those who have witnessed first hand the scale of the current situation in East Africa where people are facing severe water shortages, a $1 billion fund would not have been out of place.


CT: Why do you think it has taken the UN and indeed individual governments so long to commit to efficient emergency response?

BO: There has perhaps been a long-held and misguided understanding of whose responsibility it is to lead on a response in the event of an emergency.

For a long time many agencies have pulled back from taking on the leadership role in responding to crises believing that national governments are best placed to coordinate the response.

Agencies have therefore responded in an ad-hoc and piecemeal way – trying to feed into the work of several different and often uncoordinated actors such as governments, the UN and the work of larger NGOs.

|TOP|In some cases the government might be best placed to coordinate, but in many situations governments are not in a strong position to manage the response due to lack of funds and resources.

Yet within the international community there is some resistance to policies that challenge state sovereignty. Arguably the United Nations is best placed to take on the coordinating role in an emergency but this is a powerful role.

The UN’s reluctance to fully engage with the role it can and should play in the event of an emergency may be because it has taken a long time for the UN and member states to recognise that the collective responsibility to respond efficiently and effectively must over-ride any perceived threats to sovereignty.

Famine Early Warning systems have been effective in many cases in identifying the looming onset of disaster, however ringing the alarm bells has once again failed to provoke an adequate and timely response from governments, the UN, NGO’s and donors.

For example only $186 million of the $574 million appealed for by the World Food Programme has been committed to so far. Christian Aid is calling on the UK and Irish governments and the international community to urgently fund the relief efforts to prevent what is already a serious crisis becoming a major catastrophe.


CT: What next steps do you want to see the UN take to ensure emergencies are responded to effectively and immediately?

To ensure that aid is delivered effectively and swiftly the UN need to employ qualified personnel to coordinate responses and under take better assessments of those who require humanitarian support. But, perhaps more importantly, there should be more investment in disaster prevention and ‘early warning signals’ to ensure that everyone is better prepared.


CT: What would you like to see the British government do now with regard responses to humanitarian emergencies like the one we are seeing unfold in East Africa?

BO: The British government and public should dig deep to ensure that the crisis does not turn into a catastrophe. At the moment cattle are dying, next it will be humans.

|AD|One of the things the UK and indeed other rich countries such as the United States government could do is to ensure its existing targets for carbon dioxide emissions of a 20 per cent reduction by 2010 and 60 per cent reduction by 2050 are met through the setting of annual carbon ‘budget’, the size of which is reduced each year by 3 per cent. Since the atmosphere is shared by us all, burning fossil fuels in Britain hurts people in Ethiopia, Kenya and in other places. So action must start in the UK.

Poor people, such as those in the East and Horn of Africa, suffer first and worst from the changing climate as they are already vulnerable and have nothing to fall back on when disaster strikes. But, ironically, they have contributed least to climate change as they are responsible for fewer emissions than people in rich countries. This puts the onus on rich countries such as Britain to act and cut emission of greenhouse gases while supporting poorer countries to adapt to climate change and develop through already available clean technology by switching funding from coal, oil and gas projects to renewable energy.



CT: What role does Christian Aid want to play in the future alongside governments and the UN in responding to humanitarian emergencies?

BO: With reports of people dying from thirst getting water in to affected areas with the help of our partners is our highest priority. But in places like Borana region in southern Ethiopia keeping animals alive is vital too if people are going to recover from the situation. After water will come the distribution of food for both humans and animals. Christian Aid has already dedicated £200,000 to our partners in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia to provide emergency response but the situation is terrible so we are appealing to supporters to support us in raising at least £2 million to provide the food, water and humanitarian aid to that is needed now.

In the longer term people need help to re-establish their livelihoods. In efforts to find ways to cope with meagre harvests many of those affected will have sold off anything they have of value so that they can use the money to buy food. These people need support so they can find new and alternative livelihoods. Christian Aid, through our partners, works with people to help them find permanent solutions to their poverty.

Our immediate role is to support our partners in helping people survive this crisis. Our partners are often best placed to inform their government of the situation in their area. With networks in the remotest regions they can and do play an active role in ensuring government and UN response is co-ordinated and reaches those in need.