CONTENTS:

1 - AFGHANISTAN: Top five humanitarian needs
2 - GLOBAL: Mixed scorecard for donors
3 - In Brief: Afghan Red Crescent condemns NATO operation at its office
4 - MYANMAR: Cyclone-affected fishermen still need help


1 - AFGHANISTAN: Top five humanitarian needs

KABUL, 10 November (IRIN) - Eight years after the overthrow of the Taliban and
billions of dollars spent on aid, Afghanistan remains mired in poverty and
deeply insecure.

IRIN asked three experts what they considered were the country's top five
humanitarian needs. The following comments are from Reto Stoker, head of
delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross; Laurent Saillard,
director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief; and Raz Mohammad
Dalili, executive director of Sanayee Development Organization, one of the
country's oldest NGOs.

Top five: 1

Reto Stoker: "Human security - to be able to get basic services and to move
from A to B. Both sides are trying to win hearts and minds, and you hear it said
that 80 percent of Afghans are on the fence: the truth is that 80 percent of
people are in the ditch, and are trying to resist both sides pulling and
pushing. As a farmer you have to be either pro- international forces or
pro-Taliban. You may be forced to feed the Taliban at night, while risking being
asked by the international forces why you did that the next morning."

Laurent Saillard: "Access is the biggest challenge - to the population, to
information, to independent funding. We need better routing of financing so
humanitarian agencies can be protected from being associated with the parties to
the conflict. We need needs-based funding without a political agenda; principled
assistance regardless of [which part of the country] the beneficiaries are
living [in]."

Raz Mohammad Dalili: "The Afghan government doesn't have a good strategy to
bring changes to the lives of Afghans. There is corruption, slow delivery of
development, and a perception that some government ministers are working for
their own benefit."

Top five: 2

RS: "We're getting more and more malnourished children. They could be treated
at the local health centre, or helped [at home] through a little education
provided to the mothers. But they come in a very malnourished state, weeks too
late. [Because of the insecurity] taxis will only carry them for a very high
fare. So many wait and wait until it's too late, or nearly too late. The number
of people dying from the indirect humanitarian consequences [of the fighting] is
much higher than those dying as a direct result of the conflict. Security is not
just threatened by a roadside bomb or an air strike, it is a much more
integrated concept."

LS: "Dialogue - we need to talk to all parties to the conflict. Only ICRC and
MSF [Médecins sans Frontières] have started this. Maybe we need to agree to a
code for humanitarian access accepted by all parties to the conflict. An
agreement won't guarantee safety [of humanitarian agencies in the field], but at
least it can provide a moral agreement at the political level."

RMD: "The capacity of ministers: many come from a political, not a development
background, they don't know how to work to bring change. The international
coalition has spent a lot of money; if it had been spent on the people, there
would have been big changes in Afghanistan. One of the big reasons that the
Taliban has followers is because of poverty; as a follower you receive money
from the Taliban and you have the opportunity to loot."

Top five: 3

RS: "Humanitarian access feeds into the problem of services. When people are
displaced you assess the situation, either provide assistance or protection -
for example an intervention with the parties to the conflict so that people can
go back home. Currently there is very little understanding of the problem of
displacement; no one fully understands the mechanisms causing short- long-term
or partial displacement. There is very little information coming out [of the
conflict areas] to understand what's going on. There are no sufficiently clear
ideas of the conditions in their home areas, and you cannot put accurate figures
on the numbers of people that have been forced to move."

LS: "Strengthen coordination and information gathering mechanisms: programmes
are based on assumptions rather than reliable, measurable indicators. The
problem is they can give you a flawed picture and you can end up doing more harm
than good."

RMD: "Community peace building - not political peace building - is needed for
Afghanistan. We need peace shuras (traditional councils) in the community,
solving conflicts within the communities. This kind of project is very necessary
for Afghans who have spent 30 years in war."

Top five: 4

RS: "Everyone needs to admit that there is an intense and widespread conflict
with very significant direct and even more so indirect humanitarian
consequences. The role and work of humanitarian actors, particularly those that
have stuck to fundamental principles, needs to be respected; all parties to the
conflict must be reminded of their obligation under international humanitarian
law and human rights law; and ICRC's specific role as a neutral and independent
humanitarian organization acting as a neutral intermediary needs to be
respected."

LS: "We need a major reconciliation process - a nationwide consultation to
determine Afghan identity. Do we have common elements, can we try and see what
unites people rather than divides them? More and more Afghans are being
identified as Taliban, as terrorists. What impact does that have on living
together, for building rather than destroying? What does it mean to be an Afghan
after 30 years of war?"

RMD: "Invest more money in the basic needs of health and sanitation; we need
good programmes for poverty reduction. For the cost of keeping one foreign
soldier [out of a deployment of over 100,000] in Afghanistan we could [employ]
over 40 Afghans. If $500 came to each family [through a breadwinner] nobody will
join the Taliban."

Top five: 5

RS: "Give young people a job and a salary - something to be proud of."

LS: "Protection is the other big issue: there is no proper distinction being
made between combatants and non-combatants."

RMD: "We need to bring pressure on the government to change their system, to
reduce bureaucracy, to reduce corruption, to select good ministers and the
ministers should be responsible to the people."

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2 - GLOBAL: Mixed scorecard for donors

DAKAR, 10 November (IRIN) - The world's wealthiest donors do not put enough into
helping communities prevent and prepare for disaster, says the non-profit DARA
International, in its third annual rating of donors on quality and efficacy of
humanitarian aid.

Using the principles donors adopted in the 2003 good humanitarian donorship
(GHD) initiative, the Humanitarian Response Index assesses donor performance in
assisting people affected by crises.

Released on 10 November, the 2009 HRI says wealthy countries' support for
prevention remains weak, while disasters - many climate-related - and conflicts
mount.

The good donorship principles stress the need for donors to invest in prevention
and risk reduction to minimize the human costs of disasters, DARA (Development
Assistance Research Associates) says. "Countless lives and livelihoods could be
saved if the international community made a concerted effort to prevent human
suffering" through better preparedness measures.

"A serious shift in donor policy and practice is needed to scale up support for
conflict and disaster prevention and risk reduction efforts at the community
level," the report says. This requires new funding, DARA executive director
Silvia Hidalgo told IRIN.

Many aid experts say preparedness often falls through the funding cracks - not a
top priority in emergency relief operations or in long-term development.

Hidalgo said donors must create more flexible funding pools in order to address
prevention. "[Prevention] is too weak right now and it has to be everyone's
[humanitarian and development actors'] business to engage in it."

Per Byman, head of the humanitarian team at the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), agreed that donors do not support
disaster preparedness to the extent necessary, but said it must be incorporated
into development.

"The main challenge is to make disaster preparedness an integral part of
development, not humanitarian response," Byman told IRIN.

He agreed that disaster risk reduction (DRR) must be integrated into
humanitarian work. "But in order to reduce poverty and reach the Millennium
Development Goals [disaster preparedness/DRR] must be an integral part of
development programmes and integrated into poverty reduction strategies."

DARA notes the continued gap in donor support for the transition from relief to
recovery and development. Humanitarian assistance should include long-term
strategies for both DRR and climate change adaptation, the HRI report says.

Other "serious gaps" in how the international community deals with crises,
according to DARA, are in ensuring access to at-risk populations and boosting
the capacity of local organizations.

Tough environment

DARA looked at 22 donor governments and the European Commission, which together
provided about US$10.4 billion in humanitarian assistance in 2008 to help some
250 million people affected by crises.

This is "far less than required" to meet humanitarian needs, DARA said, noting
that in late October the UN alone reported a $3.6-billion funding gap for
humanitarian programmes covering 43 million people.

DARA said the global economic crisis has led to an "unprecedented shortfall".
The report said donors and humanitarian agencies faced increasingly complex and
difficult working environments, with the scale of disasters rising, security
problems reducing humanitarian space and staff and budget cuts limiting
capacity.

The HRI 2009 ranks donors on five "pillars": responding to needs; prevention,
risk reduction and recovery; working with humanitarian partners; protection and
international law; and learning and accountability.

DARA's Hidalgo noted some progress in coordination. "Donors are engaging more
with each other than they were in the past" and have become more oriented to
accountability drives like Active Learning Network for Accountability and
Performance (ALNAP), she said.

But knowledge among donors of the GHD principles and how to uphold them slipped
over the past year, she said.

Good gauge?

Some donors have been critical of the HRI approach. Sida's Byman told IRIN that
while it is important to look at donors in terms of the GHD principles, the
"naming and shaming" mode is not the best way to go. "We prefer to address GHD
issues in bilateral discussions or through joint action within the GHD
Initiative."

He added: "We have doubts about the methodology [of the HRI] and about whether
the report is an accurate representation of all aspects of humanitarian aid."

aj/np/bp/cb[ENDS]


3 - In Brief: Afghan Red Crescent condemns NATO operation at its office

KABUL, 10 November (IRIN) - The Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) has denounced
a NATO-led military operation at its office in Qalat, capital of the southern
province of Zabul, on 7 November.

In a press statement NATO said its soldiers killed one "enemy militant" and
detained a few "suspected militants" at the compound which, it said, was
"historically used by Taliban commanders".

ARCS said the person killed was the guest of an ARCS staff driver.

"Three ARCS employees who were detained by NATO forces have now been released,"
Saleem Wardak, the organization's spokesman in Kabul, told IRIN, adding that the
office had been damaged.

On 2 September the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan reported a "violent entry"
by US forces into its hospital in Wardak Province, and on 28 August the Health
Ministry reported the destruction of a hospital in Paktika Province as a result
of fighting between insurgents and international forces.

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4 - MYANMAR: Cyclone-affected fishermen still need help

THANDAIT, 10 November (IRIN) - Before the devastation of Cyclone Nargis in May
2008, Cho Tuu, 30, never found it hard to make ends meet, but these days he
struggles to feed his family.

Without any fishing equipment, Cho Tuu is forced to pay the equivalent of US$15
per month to hire a boat, and to hand over three-quarters of his catch to the
owner of the fishing net that he rents.

"Some months, I can barely make enough money to even pay for hiring the boat,"
said the father of two school-age children from his makeshift hut in Thandait
village in the Ayeyarwady Delta, the area worst hit by Nargis.

Though Cho Tuu has been expecting fishing equipment from humanitarian agencies
for more than 17 months, no assistance has come yet.

Like Cho Tuu, officials say thousands of fishermen are still unable to restore
their livelihoods because of a lack of aid following Cyclone Nargis, which left
nearly 140,000 people dead or missing, and 2.4 million affected.

After paddy planting, fishing is the second largest source of income for
households in the Ayeyarwady Delta, a labyrinth of rivers, ponds and waterways.

For 20 percent of Nargis-affected households, full-time fishing is the primary
source of income, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in
Myanmar.

Tesfai Ghermazien, the FAO's senior emergency and rehabilitation coordinator in
Myanmar, said it would take 3-5 years to fully restore the livelihoods of
cyclone-affected fishermen.

"Very few [fishermen], if any, are back to normal," Ghermazien told IRIN.

Although the main sources of livelihood in the Delta are farming, fish and
livestock, these sub-sectors were the least funded in the Cyclone Nargis
response, he said.

According to the FAO, 1,550 marine fishing vessels, 50 percent of small inland
fishing boats (i.e. about 100,000 out of 200,000), and 70 percent of fishing
gear were destroyed by Nargis.

ASEAN review

A review of recovery efforts by the Myanmar government, the UN, and the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) released in July this year (see:
http://unic.un.org/imucms/Dish.aspx?loc=80&pg=384) found that livelihoods remain
insecure in the worst-affected townships of Ayeyarwady and Yangon divisions.

It said that the townships of Bogale, Labutta, Mawlamyinegyun and Pyapon in the
delta's south - where fishing is the predominant income source - had experienced
the highest percentage of losses of fishing gear.

However, on average, only 6 percent of surveyed households in these four
townships reported receiving fishing gear as a relief item. Only 11 percent of
the surveyed households reported receiving boats, although 33 percent of them
said they considered a boat as a pressing need to restore their livelihood
activity, said the review.

A third Post-Nargis Periodic Review is expected at the end of 2009.

Equipment lacking

In an effort to help cyclone-affected fishermen restore their livelihoods, FAO
and its cooperating agencies have distributed about 5,000 boats, and some
130,000 sets of different types of fishing gear, mainly nets and traps.

The Department of Fisheries has also distributed over 10,000 boats with nets
and gear.

Before the end of the year, FAO plans to hand over 200 boats which are expected
to have a longer life than most common boats now being built. It will also
distribute a few thousand boats next year.

In the meantime, though, most cyclone-affected fishermen complain that they
still do not have enough equipment.

"There are 154 fishermen in our fishing village, most of whom lost their
fishing gear in the cyclone," said Aung Myo, the head of Thandait Village. "But,
so far we just got 14 fishing boats and gear."

Besides being forced to hire equipment or take out loans to buy gear, fishermen
have complained of the burden of paying for boats distributed by the government,
said Aung Myo.

He said the cost of the fishing boat and gear - nearly the equivalent of US$360
- had to be paid back in four installments.

Other complaints include those about the equipment distributed. Some say the
nets they received were inappropriate - those who fish in rivers were given nets
for sea fishing, and vice-versa. Some boats distributed have also been found
wanting.

"The fishing boat I received was quite small," said Tint Swe, 42, who received
a fishing boat from the Department of Fisheries on an installation system.

Tint Swe, who lost two motorized boats during Nargis, said he had been forced
to spend additional money to modify the boat to his requirements.

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