UK govt monitoring relief operations in Sidr-hit areas

---

A Z M Anas
The British government is monitoring the flow of emergency aid as well as its utilisation in the areas battered by Cyclone Sidr as it has channeled its assistance mostly through the United Nations and international charities.
"From time to time, we're monitoring relief operations to make sure that our assistance has reached where intended," Chris Austin, country representative of the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), said.
"This mirrors the process we have for all aid programmes, through the government or through the United Nations or through non-government organisations (NGOs)," he told the FE in an interview.
Elaborating on the monitoring mechanism, Austin noted that his agency would dispatch independent teams comprising consultants and DFID staffers to oversee the entire relief operations in the cyclone-hit areas and uncover the incidents of fraud, if any.
The United Kingdom, the country's one of the largest bilateral donors, has so far disbursed over $14 million to help the Sidr-survivors with non-food aid. The relief materials have been provided through the UN bodies and some British and American relief agencies.
The UK's official development agency gave around 29 per cent of its total aid to the Bangladeshi NGO sector in 2005, reflecting the increasingly prominent role of NGOs in British foreign policy, according to a World Bank report.
Austin, who has more than 20 years of development experience, made a powerful defense of directing emergency aid to the UN bodies, insisting they have proved efficient so far as faster aid delivery is concerned.
"This (UN system) is the best possible way … It has proven track record of delivering aid promptly and has financial accountability," he said.
He, however, said that the UN system needed to be overhauled to make the international aid architecture more effective.
"We're interested in improving the effectiveness of international aid system as a whole, not just the UN and not just Bangladesh," he said, acknowledging the aid Bangladesh receives a year, hovering in the range of US$1.0-1.5 billion, could have "better impact."
"The UN is also reforming and we are supporting this through programmes in health, education and urban poverty that involved more than one UN agency," Austin said. "Although the UN agencies have overlapping mandates, they are not competing with each other."
He said that the British government has fairly rigorous reporting requirements for NGOs in place that could ensure effective use of emergency aid.
Asked how his government was responding to Bangladesh's appeal to the donor community for food support, the DFID official said the food aid request is unclear and the request is ostensibly too big to be considered by a single donor.
"The scale of food aid requested is beyond the capacity of a bilateral donor. That requires international support," Austin said.
In late last month, the interim administration launched an appeal to the international community seeking a delivery of 500,000 tonnes of rice by March to feed an estimated 4.0 million coastal people, whose livelihoods are now in peril. The savage storm that pummeled in Bangladesh's southwest coastline in mid-November claimed more than 4000 lives, while causing economic losses worth US$2.3 billion.
But he found the government's request to be far from clear, given the fact it has made similar appeal in conjunction with the World Food Programme, while the International Federation of Red Cross also sought the same for another 1.2 million affected people.
Austin, however, made it clear that the British government tended to favour cash and assets over food assistance in view of its worldwide experience in aid effectiveness.
The DFID-supported international relief groups, notably Oxfam, CARE, Save the Children Fund and HelpAge International, are carrying out relief operations in 13 worst-affected districts such as Barguna, Bagerhat, Barisal, Bhola, Jhalokathi, and Patuakhali, helping people with immediate needs.