DUBAI,  – A sustained attack by militants on Afghanistan’s parliament and various targets in the diplomatic zone on 15 April temporarily shut down the capital, Kabul, to all movement by UN personnel and raised alarm among aid workers that the Taliban are now able to penetrate even the most secure parts of the city.

It’s the latest in a long list of incidents – though none as spectacular – that have forced aid workers to hole up behind concrete walls and inside bomb shelters.

But even on a “regular day” in Kabul, the costs of security restrictions on aid workers are very high. Here’s a taste of life in the “Kabul bubble”, as one aid worker put it.

UN aid agencies can open offices only within a so-called “ring of steel” or “green zone” that is no more than seven-square kilometers – a heavily guarded district where many embassies and international organizations have set up shop. It was one of the areas targeted in yesterday’s attacks.

UN staff can live in one of only a handful of places in Kabul: heavily-guarded guesthouses run by various UN agencies; the Park Palace Hotel; or the United Nations Office Complex in Afghanistan (UNOCA).

The latter is some 20-minutes outside of town, boxed away by 3-4-meter high walls, topped with barbed wire. Its entrance is framed by a zigzagging set of concrete barriers, with two checkpoints, where security guards check for IDs and for bombs, using dogs and mirrors poked under the chassis of vehicles.

Inside that compound, aid workers eat, sleep and work during missions that can last years. Many complain about unhealthy lifestyles. On Sunday afternoons, for example, there is no cafeteria open in the compound, and many aid workers resort to crackers or cans of tuna for dinner. They have limited facilities for cooking in their pre-fab containers, some as small as 14-square meters – consisting of a single bed, bathroom and desk with two hot burners.

Many go days without ever leaving the compound (for that they must wait for a driver to be available), simply walking from the container where they sleep to the container where they work.

Guests must submit their name, nationality, passport ID and vehicle plate number 12 hours before visiting the compound.

Travel within Kabul is largely limited to government offices, a handful of specific restaurants and hotels or compounds of other aid agencies. Security officers recommend that travel outside the “steel ring” be for limited periods only.

Outside of the perimeter of Kabul city, UN aid workers must travel in two-car convoys of blast-resistant 4x4s with teams of Afghan police as armed escorts in front and behind.

You have a bunch of people who have barely any access to the field. Most of them are very young, inexperienced in the country. They don’t know what they are talking about

Aid workers regularly complain that they cannot meet local people, cannot go to the market, and cannot feel a part of the community in which they work. The psychological challenges of the limitations in movement are compounded by the burden on relationships that Afghanistan can impose. It’s not a family duty station, so staff must resign themselves to Skype conversations on bad internet connections with family and friends, and visits during R&R.

The hardships do not compare with what Afghan civilians face, caught in the middle of this conflict.

The cost of mandatory R&R is one of many financial burdens for UN agencies when working in these environments. Add to the list the rising costs of armoured 4x4s, the private security firms that provide protection inside the compounds, the security guards who perform checks at the gate, the helmets and body armour for staff…The list goes on and on. And with questionable success.

“The way the Taliban attack now, millions [of dollars] will not work,” one aid worker said.

The larger cost, though, is in the impact on aid delivery.

Here’s how Laurent Saillard, a veteran of Afghanistan and head of the European Commission’s humanitarian aid arm, ECHO, in the country, described the situation:

“You have a bunch of people who have barely any access to the field. Most of them are very young, inexperienced in the country. They don’t know what they are talking about. They have never visited the country; never moved around; never physically monitored a project; never spent time with the Afghan population. The only Afghans they know are their cook, their cleaner or their driver. They don’t know anything about this country. They arrive at the airport, step into an armored vehicle, into their compound, and that’s it…

“They are living in the Kabul bubble.”

ha/oa source www.irinnews.org

Photo: Brendan Brady/IRIN

UN security forces are due to pull out at the end of 2012

DILI,  – Following a peaceful presidential poll in March and several years of stability, international peacekeeping forces dispatched in 2006 to prevent the outbreak of civil war in Timor-Leste are preparing to pull out.
 
United Nations police are scheduled to depart at year’s end, barring any major disruptions to the country’s stability or wrongdoing in the upcoming run-off presidential poll on 16 April and parliamentary elections in July.
 
Timor-Leste, located mainly on the eastern half of the island of Timor, achieved independence in 1999 from Indonesia, whose brutal rule over its neighbour was responsible for an estimated 180,000 Timorese. The country was subsequently administered by the UN until a new constitution and domestic government was formed in 2002.

The early years of autonomy were interrupted by national crises that shook the shallow foundations of the young democratic government.
 
In 2006 disgruntled soldiers mutinied in the capital, Dili, leaving dozens dead, causing thousands to flee the city, and risking the possibility of escalation into civil war.
 
More than 150,000 people were displaced during violence between rival groups in the army, the police and the wider population.
 
Underlying the unrest were larger societal problems, such as high unemployment, which still stir tensions today. Various aid agencies estimate joblessness at around 20 percent in urban areas.
 
National turmoil renewed in 2008, when President Jose Ramos-Horta was shot several times during an attempted assassination, which he barely survived. 
 
“The situation in Timor in 2012 is very different from the situation in Timor in 2006,” Finn Reske-Nielsen, deputy head of the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT), a peacekeeping and governance-assistance operation initiated in 2006, told IRIN.
 
The institutional strength of the domestic police force, the Policia Nacional Timor Leste (PNTL), is “much greater than it was”, and the functioning of the country’s parliament and judiciary is “infinitely better,” he noted.
 
In March 2011 the UN mission’s police force, UNPOL, handed over management of national security to the PNTL, and the remaining 1,280 UN police personnel have largely stayed behind the scenes in a supportive capacity.
 
An anticipated spike in crime rates after the security handover did not materialize, 
but observers have concerns about the ability of the PNTL to serve as a dynamic civilian police force handling issues that range from traffic control to mediating domestic violence to investigating civilian murders.

“It hasn’t yet been thought through what these 3,100 men and women [in the PNTL] will do on a day-to-day basis,” said Gordon Peake, a visiting fellow at Australian National University who worked from 2008 to 2011 as a security adviser to Australian peacekeeping forces in Timor-Leste.
 

Photo: Brendan Brady/IRIN

Youth unemployment remains high

Cillian Nolan, a Timor-Leste specialist for the International Crisis Group (ICG), which researches violence and prevention measures, noted that “Many Timorese believe the police response is both partial and ineffective.”
 
The departure of international peacekeepers is likely to be seen as an important symbolic step. Dili resident Anacleto Suares, 43, who served in a clandestine resistance network during Indonesian rule, said full independence would not be realized until the country was managing its security independently.
 
“We have achieved political independence, but not full independence,” he commented. “The UN has helped us with problems related to violence but we need to start to take care of more things ourselves.” Many veterans of Timor-Leste’s liberation struggle would agree with him.
 
Justice deferred
 
Fears of jeopardizing stability have caused sensitive justice matters to be either deferred or ignored altogether in the name of political expediency, said the ICG.
 
“Foremost among the steps that have been deferred has been prosecuting most of the crimes of the 2006 crisis, but this looks very unlikely to change,” said Nolan, who was also the lead author of an ICG report published in February on Timor-Leste’s security situation. 
 
Between 2001 and 2004, the UN-backed Serious Crimes Unit indicted 394 people for crimes committed in 1999, and convicted 84 Timorese. All the Indonesians and many Timorese who were also indicted continue to enjoy sanctuary in Indonesia.
 
“There are few real disincentives for further political violence in Timor-Leste, and this will only change if there are more prosecutions of political violence and fewer pardons,” said Nolan.
 
UNMIT maintains that it has not wavered in promoting accountability. “The UN position is clear: there has to be accountability,” said Finn Reske-Nielsen. “UNMIT has a mandate, but a limited mandate.”
 
Timor-Leste’s leaders point out that the former Portuguese colony, a tiny island nation of 1.1 million, has limited leverage to demand the extradition of war criminals from its much larger neighbour, Indonesia. Moreover, there are few signs that the UN – or influential countries such as the US and Australia – are willing to make these demands on Timor-Leste’s behalf.
 
Withdrawal timing and terms
 
As international peacekeepers are poised to pull out, the PNTL is asking for an infusion of US$11 million in funding over three years to purchase operational necessities such as cars, petrol and radios.
 
Though UNMIT is scheduled to close by year’s end, a new UN mission with a role limited to governance support could be on the horizon.
 
According to Reske-Nielsen, “There seems to be a consensus across the [national and international] political spectrum… not to completely cut the ties with the political side of the UN mission.”
 
bb/ds/he
source www.irinnews.org

Photo: Wendy Stone/IRIN

Poor rains could further undermine food security

NAIROBI,  – Food insecurity in the eastern Horn of Africa is expected to worsen as a result of less rain than previously forecast falling in the key March-to-May season.

The US Agency for International Development’s Famine and Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) warned that rainfall in this period would be 60-85 percent of the long-term average and that there was a 30 percent chance of the lower figure materializing.

“An expansion in the size of the food insecure population and an increase in the severity of food insecurity is likely,” FEWS NET said in an 3 April report.

The report warned of “significant impacts on crop production, pasture regeneration, and the replenishment of water resources” in a region that in 2011 suffered one of its worst drought-related food crises in decades.

March to May is the major rainfall season for pastoral and agricultural areas of northern Kenya and Ethiopia and parts of Somalia, and accounts for 50-60 percent of annual rainfall in the region.

In an effort to prevent future weather shocks translating into new humanitarian crises, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional body, and international development partners, have launched an initiative to strengthen resilience in the region.

“We have mobilized funds [US$340 million] to support resilience programmes, and while the problems cannot be solved overnight, it is important to appreciate the need for long-term investments in such areas as education, water, and the need to identify problems early and deal with them in good time. People need to be helped to recover quickly from disasters,” Kristalina Georgieva, European commissioner for international cooperation, humanitarian aid and crisis response, told IRIN.

Political commitment from IGAD member countries, apart from development partners’ support, will play a crucial role in creating sustainable solutions to help people cope with the effects of the region’s recurrent droughts, according to Sileshi Getahun, Ethiopia’s minister of agriculture, in whose country some 3.2 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Time to “stand up and be counted”

“We [regional governments] can’t talk about the same thing [drought] over and over and yet do nothing to help people. This is the time for regional governments to stand up and be counted,” Sileshi said.

Speaking to IRIN, the UK’s development minister, Stephen O’Brien, said: “Resilience programme support is an important part of humanitarian support and response and provides a more sustainable way to deal with disasters.”

Among things to be prioritized will be the provision of drought-resistant seeds, water, education, investing in weather forecasting technology, and scaling up nutrition programmes.

Solving the various conflicts in the Horn of Africa, which have seen thousands of people displaced and many more killed, will be crucial in improving the ability of people in the region to be resilient in the face of disasters, Mahboub Maalim, executive secretary of IGAD, told IRIN.

“In the face of disasters like drought and famine, people’s livelihoods are disrupted and efforts towards halting the various conflicts we see [in the Horn of Africa] cannot be ignored, because people can’t cope when conflicts persist,” he said.

ko/am/cb
source www.irinnews.org