Global Policy Forum

By Ruth Gidley

International relief agencies on standby to begin work in Iraq began to set up new operations this week in former government-controlled areas and the semi-autonomous Kurdish zone in the north. Security was still a serious concern and by the middle of this week the only place in central and southern Iraq that relief agencies had military approval to enter was the port of Umm Qasr. "Security is still a major concern. There's fighting in Baghdad and Basra is chaotic," Oxfam press officer Amy Barry told AlertNet.

There are dozens of non-governmental organisations in the region -- many with coordination centres in the Jordanian capital Amman, and emergency teams on standby to cross the border from Kuwait -- waiting to start operations in Iraq.

Most international agencies had little experience of working in Iraq and said they needed to make careful assessments, ensure a secure environment for their staff and build local trust. Under the government of President Saddam Hussein, it was virtually impossible for international agencies to operate in central Iraq and the Kurdish-controlled north.

The map of NGO activity in Iraq was still developing, and more agencies were expected to arrive soon. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is the main coordinating body for relief work in Iraq.

There are coordination groups for each sector of relief work, such as child protection, education, electricity, food, fuel, health, internal displacement, landmines, nutrition, refugees, and water and sanitation.

The organisations that were previously active in central and southern Iraq included Architects for People in Need, Bridge to Baghdad-Italy, CARE, Caritas, Enfants du Monde, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Médecins du Monde-France and Premií¨re Urgence. The Belgian and French sections of Médecins sans Frontií¨res (MSF) established a presence in Baghdad before the start of U.S.-led hostilities. Five big U.S. NGOs that coordinated advanced planning from Amman -- International Medical Corps (IMC), International Rescue Committee (IRC), Mercy Corps, Save the Children USA and World Vision -- were beginning to work inside Iraq.

Nicole Amoroso, Save the Children USA spokewoman speaking from Umm Qasr, told AlertNet that the organisation planned to set up a regional office in Basra in southern Iraq and have a presence in Karbala and Najaf, which lie between Basra and Baghdad.

LIMITED ACCESS

She said that, for security reasons, Umm Qasr was the only area the military would allow them to enter. "It's very frustrating to know there's a humanitarian crisis in the entire country. We knew this before the war started and not having the access is really debilitating," she said. "The longer we're cut off from reaching vulnerable sections of the population -- like women and children -- they are going to go that much longer without water, their food supplies will run out, their access to health care will diminish."

She said water was available in Umm Qasr, but people were unable to obtain it because they were being charged for access. "A lot of people don't have any money." Save the Children hoped to set up fair distribution systems for water and food that would be targeted, equitable and secure, she said. "It's not about parallel or alternative systems. It's a matter of strengthening the process that was in place before the war." Amoroso said there was not yet a food crisis in the city, and that most people could survive for another two months.

The organisation had identified cooking gas as a priority and would be starting to distribute fuel this weekend, she added. "It's not a short-term emergency. This is 12 years of deprivation, violence, poverty and sanctions that has created the current situation here. It's going to take long-term effort to turn that in the other direction." Amoroso said agencies were working well together and coordinating through OCHA. "We're not tripping over each other."

She continued: "We've been in the Middle East for 30 years. A lot of NGOs may not have been in this region, but they're absolutely qualified and it's great to have them here as well." Dan Smith, chair of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, said in London last week that there was a danger of NGOs arriving in Iraq and believing they could apply their knowledge from other places without adapting it.

Amoroso said: "No emergency is going to be exactly the same. You can't take a template from a previous emergency and apply it to the next one because there's all kinds of other variables. "We can't just assume it's like Afghanistan, because it's not."

NEW ARRIVALS

NGOs needed to do their own assessments of water and security, for example, Amoroso said. The IMC said in a statement it had carried out an assessment in Umm Qasr hospital. An IRC assessment team also visited Umm Qasr and assessed water needs.

Cassandra Wilson, a spokeswoman for Mercy Corps in Kuwait, told the U.N. regional news service IRIN that her organisation was planning an initial trip to Basra this week. Norman Sheehan, a director of British-based War Child, told IRIN he would be travelling this week to Nasiriya -- between Basra and Najaf -- to identify the best place to set up a bakery, which would have flour supplies ensured by the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP). Ray Jordan of Irish agency GOAL told IRIN his group was going to Nasiriya this week to work with the WFP and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Staff of Oxfam GB have accompanied colleagues from the U.N. Childrens' Fund to assess water supplies in Umm Qasr and the NGO said in a statement it was likely to work on pumping stations at Zubayr, south of Basra.

Islamic Relief and Merlin told AlertNet in February that they were planning to start long-term work in former government-controlled regions of Iraq. According to information collected by OCHA in Amman, published on the website of the U.N. Humanitarian Information Centre for Iraq, Merlin bases were planned in Baghdad and Ramadi in central Iraq, and Arbil and Sulaimaniya in the north.

The Kurdistan regional government said on its website in October 2002 that there were 28 international NGOs from 11 countries operating in the semi-autonomous northern region. NGOs active in northern Iraq before this year included Italian-based Emergency, HelpAge International, Mines Advisory Group, Norwegian People's Aid, Peace Winds Japan, Qandil of Sweden and Save the Children Fund U.K.

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

World Vision communications manager James Addis, speaking to AlertNet from Amman, said his organisation was waiting for security clearance to work in Mosul, in northern Iraq. He said World Vision was approached by the WFP to carry out food distribution and monitoring and then arranged to work with the IOM to support displaced people.

"The level of coordination has been quite good, bearing in mind the huge number of agencies and the rather difficult, volatile situation at the moment," he said. "Everybody's talking to each other. At the moment, with so many of us not being able to get inside Iraq, that's one think we can at least do. "We don't have a huge experience in Iraq, and we don't have the national staff which some of the other agencies would have, so for us, talking to people on the ground -- church groups and other kinds of community groups -- using their local knowledge is important."

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