Emergency Relief Coordinator meets President Museveni in Uganda

(New York: 31 March 2006): United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, today met with Uganda's President Museveni on the second day of a nine day mission to four African nations. Also present at the meeting were Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa and Welile Nhlapo, Director, Africa I Division, United Nations Department of Political Affairs. The meeting centred on the situation in northern Uganda.

During their discussion, they noted the need to improve conditions in the camps for internally displaced persons and to do more to protect civilians, including the possibility of working with military experts with high-level peacekeeping and protection experience attached to them through the United Nations. They discussed the idea of a Special Envoy for Northern Uganda and agreed to continue discussions on that front. They also considered the possibility that a United Nations agency could support the Government's efforts to promote national reconciliation and, in that vein, agreed to consult with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. They also discussed the establishment of a joint health task force to review the health situation in the camps and ways to make health interventions more effective, including through empowering and working with district authorities. Finally, they discussed the demilitarization of the police and justice system.

During a subsequent meeting with representatives of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in northern Uganda, Mr. Egeland paid tribute to the NGOs and civil society for their part in creating the momentum for change in Northern Uganda, assuring them that the situation in Northern Uganda is increasingly a subject of interest for the international community. He informed them that, among positive developments, was the Government's agreement to launch a Joint Country Coordinating and Monitoring Committee (JCCMC), and its commitment to increase national budget funding for northern districts and to strengthen police and justice systems in the north. However, Mr. Egeland noted, the situation for IDPs in the north continues to be intolerable, with inadequate service delivery and unacceptably high mortality rates.

Throughout his mission, Mr. Egeland has stressed the importance of seeing actual results on the ground as indicators of success. "We cannot just create structures. We have to focus on results to prove that we're making progress," he stated, citing decreased mortality and increased numbers of returns as key examples of actual progress.

Yesterday, Mr. Egeland met representatives of the International Federation of the Red Cross/Red Crescent, the UN Country Team, and donor countries. The ERC will also travel to northern Uganda for a firsthand view of the situation of the country's internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the work of those humanitarian agencies working on the ground.

Mr. Egeland will then travel to Juba in southern Sudan, where he will meet with senior Governmental and United Nations representatives and visit an IDP way station, before travelling onwards to Bor, where Dinka IDPs are arriving as part of the ongoing organised return process. The ERC will then travel to West Darfur. From Darfur, the mission will continue to Chad, where Mr. Egeland will visit a Sudanese refugee camp in the east of the country and meet with local authorities and United Nations officials. From Chad, Mr. Egeland will return to Khartoum, Sudan, where he will meet with senior officials of the Sudanese Government, the United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS), and the United Nations country team. On the final day of the mission, Mr. Egeland will travel to Nairobi, Kenya.