Donor information meeting on UN inter-agency transitional appeal for relief and immediate rehabilitation in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Belize following devastation of Hurricane Mitch

STATEMENT BY MR. ROSS MOUNTAIN, ASSISTANT EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR AND DIRECTOR, OCHA-GENEVA.
Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.

First of all, let me welcome you to this donor information meeting. This is a follow-up, as you know, to the meeting we held on 12 November, in connection with the ravages of Hurricane Mitch on Central America. You may recall that at that meeting we put forward to you the proposition that we might pull together an Inter-Agency Transitional Appeal. On the basis of the positive reaction we had from that meeting, we have proceeded to compile a document, which I trust you all have before you now, which is the United Nations Inter-Agency Transitional Appeal. Through the extraordinary efforts of notably our colleagues in the field in the countries concerned, with support from their Headquarters and my OCHA colleagues, and agency partners here in Geneva, I am pleased to be able to tell you we have this document ready for you, less than three weeks following the agreement that we should proceed.

As we are all too aware, more than 3 million people were directly affected by the ravages of Hurricane Mitch. We know that the disaster resulted in torrential rains, flooding and landslides. Some ten thousand people have lost their lives, half a million people have lost their homes. The international community support, I think it might fairly be said, in conjunction with of course the national authorities, has been extraordinary and very positive. We have recorded, as you will see from the document before you, an amount of over 400 million USD, which excludes contributions in-kind and services not costed and contributions that have not been reported to us, as well as indeed, the major input made by the Governments and the people of the countries concerned.

Perhaps it is also appropriate, as we consider the ravages of Hurricane Mitch, and as the Hurricane season in the Caribbean officially draws to a close - may it be so - to note that this has been an unprecedented year for the Caribbean region in the damage that has been done. Indeed, alas this also applies to other parts of the world, thanks to El Niño! We should thus perhaps also recall the damage that was done barely a month earlier by Hurricane Georges, which hit the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba. It has been a very bad season. Indeed, back in Central America, Honduras has again been struck by additional rain storms last week, provoking further heavy flooding which required the evacuation of 3,800 families in the low-lying areas of Choloma.

In Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, the emergency is not yet over. There is still an urgent need to look after the people, - particularly the poorest - who have no access to clean water and to food, many of whom still are without shelter, and who need emergency health services and whose children need to return to school, as well as those farmers who have lost everything in their fields.

Naturally, major attention must now be given to rehabilitation, the rehabilitation of the extraordinary damage that has been done. One figure that we have, an estimation of the Nicaraguan Central Bank is that for that country alone the damage of Hurricane Mitch was equivalent to some USD 1.5 billion.

Then, why our Transitional Appeal?

First of all, as noted, there are unfortunately still outstanding emergency and humanitarian needs that need to be met. We also need to keep the momentum going and indeed those of us who work in this field are aware that, with the best will in the world for commencing the rehabilitation activities that must be put in place, alas this usually takes many months, until the resources are available and employed on the ground. Thus, this Transitional Appeal has been put forward for a period of six months to keep the momentum going, to meet imminent needs, and to undertake the immediate rehabilitation that will lead in to the longer-term reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts, so that the people of the countries concerned can get back as quickly as possible to normal life.

The appeal that you have before you then, has been put together - and I do want to emphasise this, - under the leadership of the United Nations Resident Coordinator in each of the countries, working in collaboration with all the UN agencies as part of the UN country team. I mentioned earlier the excellent support that has also been received from the Headquarters of the agencies concerned and major efforts taken by my OCHA colleagues here. The total amount of the appeal then for the five countries, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Belize, amounts to nearly 153 million dollars. Just over half is for Honduras, a quarter for Nicaragua and the remainder is spread between El Salvador and Guatemala, with Belize being a relatively small item among the five countries.

The criteria for the relief and rehabilitation activities included in this Appeal, and this was an aspect that was emphasized with the country teams, was that if the funds are provided, these activities must be able to be launched immediately. They are all short-term projects that will not only be launched but will be largely completed in the course of the next six months. They may of course overrun that period but they have been designed with a view to being immediately implemented. They are not long-term projects. They do not pretend either, I would like to add, to cover all unmet requirements in each country. They relate to the capacity of the United Nations system in-country with their partners, including the non-governmental organizations in-country, to deliver assistance rapidly on site. I would again express our particular gratitude to the teams who put this together.

You will find the objectives and budgets for these relief and rehabilitation activities in the main sectors of health, water and sanitation, shelter, food security, agriculture, education, and coordination and management. And for each activity, the implementing agency or agencies are identified. All components of this Appeal will be implemented in-country by UN agencies on the spot in coordination, of course, with the government and partner NGOs. Aspects that the main UN agencies are dealing with are:

UNDP: repair of shelter (IOM is also involved in this), housing, debris clearing and sewage rehabilitation;

WHO/PAHO and UNFPA: repair of health facilities, basic medicines, rehabilitation of water supply systems, epidemiological surveillance, vector control and reproductive health;

WFP will, of course, provide emergency food aid, while FAO will deal with seeds, agricultural tools, fertilizers, repair of irrigation systems, etc.;

UNICEF will focus on water and sanitation, and with UNESCO on educational materials, and repair and refurbishing of primary schools;

Overall coordination will be provided for these activities by the UNDP Resident Representatives /United Nations Resident Coordinators.

I also want to note here the very important role that is being played by national Red Cross societies and the involvement of the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in this process, although they are not directly implicated in the Appeal.

In appealing to donors, we obviously would ask you to be generous and to direct contributions to the concerned United Nations agencies, as indicated in the document. Donors may also contribute through OCHA's emergency fund-raising mechanisms.

In each country, overall monitoring, coordination and reporting on the implementation of the relief and rehabilitation work funded by the Appeal will be vested in the United Nations Resident Coordinators and the UN Disaster Management Teams. This again will be done in coordination and in full cooperation with the appropriate ministries or other national coordinating bodies.

We in Geneva, with our colleagues in the agencies, will be following up on the response to the Appeal and will be feeding back reports to you on progress as it occurs. We therefore would wish to ask all donors to kindly ensure that we are systematically informed of the response of your Governments to this Appeal and, indeed, any other work you may be doing in this connection, in order that we are able to keep track of the international efforts.

If I may spend one minute on reconstruction. You may remember we reported at our last meeting on the joint efforts with UNDP (which has a leading role in this respect) to develop a United Nations collective inter-agency response to the challenge of reconstruction. A high-level meeting was convened in New York on 18 November, co-chaired by the UNDP Administrator, Gus Speth and the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Sergio Vieira de Mello, bringing together most of the agencies of the UN system, including the Banks, to develop a strategy including for mobilizing the necessary resources for reconstruction. That meeting also underlined the value of this Transitional Appeal which we are issuing today. We all now look forward to the meeting that will be held in Washington, under the auspices of the Inter-American Development Bank on 10 and 11 December, to review further the preliminary assessment that has been made and prepared by several United Nations agencies, with the governments of the disaster-affected countries as to what must now be done and how the funds can be effectively mobilized for reconstruction.

I understand there are already plans to hold a further consultative group meeting in Sweden, in Stockholm, in late spring of next year, as part of the ongoing process to coordinate efforts for this tremendous task.

Meanwhile, we are here to deal with the present and the near future, the six months ahead. The needs, as you know from television, your own contacts, as well as what we have been able to provide to you, the needs are dramatic. We have endeavoured to identify strategic interventions that can make a difference to the people of those countries, and feed into the all-important work of reconstruction.

We all know, this was the worst catastrophe in Central America for two hundred years. I certainly would hope that your governments will find it possible to respond generously and strategically to this Appeal.

Thank you.