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For Lack of Support, U.N. Agency Shrinks Aid to Refugees - UN Finance - Global Policy Forum For Lack of Support, U.N. Agency
Shrinks Aid to RefugeesBy Barbara Crossette
New York Times
April 29, 2001The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, responsible for the welfare of 22 million people, is making drastic cuts in staff and services because of diminishing support, especially from Europe. The wealthy world loses interest when refugees are not in its own backyard or on television screens, refugee experts say.
"When we had Kosovo, we had no problems," said Soren Jessen-Petersen, assistant high commissioner for refugees, in a recent interview from the agency's Geneva headquarters. "When we had the Great Lakes in Africa in '95- '96, no problems; Bosnia in the early 90's, no problems," he said, "But when you've got the Afghan situation going on into the 20th year, we have enormous difficulties. And for most of the crises in Africa, there are enormous difficulties, too."
For three years, Mr. Jessen-Petersen said, the agency, which depends on voluntary contributions, has lived with a budget shortfall. The agency says it needs $900 million to $1 billion a year to do its job, but has been getting about $750 million. While the United States, which provides 25 percent of the contributions, as well as Japan, Finland and the Scandinavian countries have remained steadfast, the European Commission has cut its donation to about $40 million from $200 million five years ago.
Ruud Lubbers, the former prime minister from the Netherlands who became high commissioner last year, decided that he would no longer run this kind of deficit and is taking that message to governments. Now the agency is being forced to make cuts totaling $100 million yearly.
Arthur C. Helton, a lawyer specializing in refugee and asylum cases who is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the refugee agency's slow response to the Kosovo crisis in 1999 cost it dearly. "They had low-quality staff deployed late," he said. "They just misread the importance of the crisis." So donors switched to supporting nongovernmental organizations directly rather than through the United Nations, he said. The refugee agency agrees that was the case.
In parts of Africa, cuts are expected to be steep. An agency study suggested staff cuts of more than 40 percent in southern and eastern Africa, in order to maintain the programs in West Africa, where refugees have fled a war in Sierra Leone.
With a catastrophe on its hands in Afghanistan, the high commissioner's office has been unable to raise money among rich Islamic nations, Mr. Jessen-Petersen said. "Whenever we go to them and say, `This is an area where you should take the lead,' they say, `We're doing so but we are doing it bilaterally,' " he said. "But we don't see it."
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