Uganda is now holding the Position of the UN Security Council Presidency | Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda | NY, USA Read the full story

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JOHANNESBURG, (IRIN) – In a time of growing food shortages and high prices, humanitarian agencies have begun exploring ways to respond to crises sooner. Pre-positioning food aid closer to where it is needed to save money and time is one idea gaining ground. 

Leading the efforts to scale-up positioning food ahead of a crisis is the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the aid arm of the United States of America, the world’s largest food aid donor. 

The agency will set up several food aid warehouses in 2009 to be able to respond rapidly to hunger crises across the world. The first food aid warehouse was established in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa on the Red Sea, in 2007, to preposition food aid for Africa and Asia. 

USAID said the facility, which stocks corn-soya blend, corn-meal and vegetable oil, reduced delivery time by 75 percent, saving “a lag time of three to four months if the same food were to be dispatched from ports in the US.” 

There is some, but limited, promise in prepositioning. It is an important prospective operational improvement in food aid delivery, but far from a magic bulletThe Djibouti warehouse has been able to send food to Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Afghanistan, Iraq and Myanmar. Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia have accounted for about 57 percent of the total metric tonnage sourced from Djibouti pre-positioned stock. 

The example of USAID has been followed by the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest food-aid agency, which recently said it would launch a global campaign to raise money for an advance-purchase facility, and to position the food ahead of distribution needs. 

A welcome improvement? 

Food aid experts and the US Government Accounting Office (GAO), the Congressional investigative agency that examines the use of public funds and evaluates federal programmes, have acknowledged the advantages of prepositioning aid to save time, but have raised some concerns, including the long-term costs. 

Christopher Barrett, who teaches development economics at Cornell University and edits the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, is cautious. “There is some, but limited, promise in prepositioning. It is an important prospective operational improvement in food aid delivery, but far from a magic bullet.” 

USAID plans to open one or more warehouses for pre-positioned aid soon in:

Horn of Africa

Central Africa

Southern Africa

West Africa

Southeast Asia

United States Gulf area The Djibouti experiment is “too recent for us to have a good sense yet if it’ll really work well,” he said. “It can clearly reduce response time, but only for initial shipments; the volumes available are typically small, and if one tries to go to large-scale storage, costs rise very fast.” 

Marc Cohen, a humanitarian researcher at Oxfam America, an international non-governmental aid agency said pre-positioning opened up more possibilities for sourcing and dispensing aid. 

“WFP is increasing its flexibility [in dispensing aid] with this approach: to have cash in hand to either dispense cash vouchers, or position a supply of food near where it could be needed.” 

In a 2007 report on its investigations into US food aid programmes, GAO found that in fiscal 2005 and 2006, contract and freights costs had pushed up the price tag of prepositioned food aid by at least $30 per metric ton. 

Cohen said there were concerns about the costs of the Djibouti warehouse, which was near the ocean but needed air-conditioning throughout the year because of the high temperatures. “But in the end, the costs might even out what it might have [cost] to ship the food across [in an emergency].” 

Significantly, USAID said it was raising the cap on storage costs associated with overseas pre-positioned commodities from $2 million per year to $10 million per year, beginning in fiscal year 2009. 

WFP’s intended “forward purchase facility” is currently in its pilot phase, according to Natasha Scripture, a spokeswoman for the agency. “The facility is part of a wider WFP toolbox and allows us to purchase food in advance of having a specific project to allocate it to,” she said. 

“This involves us looking at the regional needs, considering past trends with an eye to projecting the amount of food needed and when, and then undertaking a purchase in advance. The risk is small, as we have been working in many of these countries for years, and know when food is usually needed and in which country.” 

Alternatives 

GAO suggested in its report that USAID investigate the long-term cost-effectiveness of pre-positioned food aid, but also cited two other pre-positioned food aid alternatives: 

• Ethiopia’s national grain reserve – capitalized by donors, including the US – functions as a “de facto prepositioning site” for about 400,000 metric tons, enough to feed around 5.4 million people for about 6 months, according to the Ethiopian government’s Emergency Food Security Reserve Administration. 

• Floating aid, in which ships carrying WFP food set off for a particular region, but can then be diverted to another destination in the event of an emergency. 

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President Marc Ravalomanana’s proposal of  holding a referendum to end Madagascar’s violent political crisis has been met with rejection and, worse, a call for his arrest by opposition leader Andry Rajoelina. Read the full story

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NAIROBI, (IRIN) – Four UN staff members abducted by unknown armed men on 16 March in Wajid town, 340km northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, have been released unharmed some hours later, the UN confirmed.

The four were released late Monday night, according to a statement issued by the Office of the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.
The foreign staff members, one from UN World Food Programme (WFP), two from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and a Somali national, were abducted from a convoy travelling to the local airfield.
“I am very enormously relieved that our staff are free and safe,” Mark Bowden, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, said in the statement. “The United Nations is very grateful for the efforts and intervention of the local authorities who used their influence and reach to ensure our dedicated staff were cared for and ultimately released safely and quickly.”
He added: “This is an important affirmation that the UN presence and its activities in Bakool and the surrounding areas are accepted and protected by the local communities and leaders.”
The four were reportedly taken by a clan militia, according to a local journalist, who requested anonymity.

“The militia was angry that members of their clan were not employed as guards; it was about resources, nothing else,” the journalist said.
He said it took the intervention of elders and Mukhtar Roobow, spokesman for Al-Shabab – which controls much of southern Somalia – to secure their release.
“The quick and positive resolution of this incident will ensure the aid operation can go on unhindered,” Bowden said. “Wajid has been a longstanding aid hub serving relief activities in Somalia.”

Some 3.2 million Somalis, almost half the population, are reliant on humanitarian aid, according to the UN. One in every seven children is malnourished and the vast majority of those needing aid are in the south-central regions of Somalia.

Link to Article Source:  http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83513

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UNITED NATIONS, (IPS)   |   The political controversy that followed the indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes in Darfur is expected to pick up steam once again with the arrival of an African Union (AU) delegation to press its case before the Security Council.

A spokesman for the AU office in New York told IPS that no dates have been finalised yet, but the delegation is likely to arrive either in late March or early April.

The AU, the League of Arab States and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), three powerful political organisations with overlapping memberships, have criticised the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to proceed with the indictment. They argued, among other things, that an arrest warrant on al-Bashir would jeopardise ongoing peace efforts in Sudan.

The AU, which is taking the lead, is expected to invoke Article 16 of the Rome Statute that created the ICC, and which gives the Security Council the power to defer any investigations or prosecutions at least for a period of 12 months.

But such a resolution is unlikely to be adopted by the 15-member Security Council, which is divided on the indictment. And, as of Monday, there was no action contemplated by the Council.

The majority of the Council members, including the three veto-wielding permanent members, namely the United States, Britain and France, are opposed to any deferral.

“The votes just don’t add up – and the African Union, the League of Arab States and the OIC know this,” says the New York-based Coalition for the ICC, a non-governmental organisation that was in the forefront of the global campaign to create the Hague-based court.

Asked about the proposed Security Council intervention, William Pace of the CICC told IPS: “The leader of the U.S. negotiators at the Rome treaty conference stated the purpose of Article 16, proposed by the U.S., was for the Security Council to act at the beginning of an investigation the Council thought could interfere with peace negotiations.”

In this case, he pointed out, the Security Council not only did not defer, but explicitly authorised a Commission of Inquiry on the crimes being committed and then asked the ICC to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the crimes.

“There is no basis for the Security Council to offer a deferral to Omar al-Bashir,” Pace said.

“The Russians and Chinese knew at the time of the Security Council referral that the crimes involved the government of Sudan and thus likely the highest level officials who controlled the government and military,” he added.

Out of a total of 108 states that are parties to the ICC, 30 are in Africa.

Bill Fletcher, Jr., executive editor of BlackCommentator.com, has a different take on the indictment, telling IPS: “The indictment against al-Bashir is very unhelpful even if morally it is correct.”

He said the problems facing the people of Sudan go beyond President al-Bashir as an individual. “There is an entire regime in place. Going after one individual misses the point,” Fletcher said.

Second, he said, the ICC has no way of taking al-Bashir into custody. “In effect the indictment does not help bring about a political resolution of the ongoing situation in Sudan. Rather it encourages the al-Bashir government to remain firm in its position because it has little to lose.”

While the al-Bashir government will need to be held accountable for the atrocities in Darfur, said Fletcher, the indictment does not focus on the critical need for a political solution to the conflict.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior U.N. official refuted the charge that the court was only pursuing African, not Western leaders: “Really, this is all hysteria.”

“As you know, the African countries – Uganda, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo – are being looked at because they themselves petitioned the ICC,” the official said.

Sudan is being looked at because the Security Council sent it to the ICC, and neither Russia nor China nor African countries in the Council stopped it, the U.N. official pointed out.

The fault does not lie with the ICC but with the member states who drafted a law that allows cases to go to the ICC only if they give their consent or the Security Council sends it to it, the source said.

“Blame the nation states, not the ICC. The ICC prosecutor does not have the freedom to choose. And the bigger picture – what a message it sends to all heads of state and politicians – isn’t that positive?”

Asked about reports that some, or most, of the 30 African countries may withdraw from the court in protest, Steve Lamony, the CICC’s Africa officer based in Uganda, told IPS: “No, I do not think that African states would pull out of the ICC, because if they did, it would be going against the spirit of article 4 of the constitutive act of the African Union which rejects impunity. The AU has emphasised several times that it does not condone impunity.”

Lamony also said African states are also likely to perceive the news about the death threats to ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis-Moreno Ocampo, and suicide bombings in countries that support the ICC by the Coalition of Jihad and Martyrdom Movements, as attempts to hold the world hostage in order to condone impunity for perpetrators of human rights abuse.

Meanwhile, in the recent ICC elections held in January 2009, over 10 judicial candidates from Africa threw their hats in the ring, far more than from any other geographical region. Two of the six newly elected judges are from Kenya and Botswana.

The other African countries represented on the 18-judge bench include Ghana – vice president of the court and president of Pre-trial Chamber which issued the al-Bashir decision – Uganda and Mali.

The CICC says that delegates from Africa in New York and in Brussels/Hague are far more supportive of the ICC then their counterparts at the AU,” who are much less aware of the developments at the ICC.”

Within the governing body of the court, African countries are taking a leading role, with South Africa as the focal point for the review conference discussions.

Link to Article Source:  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46126

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Unaa Times News Team & Agencies | With the national flag dancing on its mast in the cold New York winter evening wind, the thirteen story high Uganda House building sat like a proud and talented cousin amongst her much taller and glitzier siblings. That evening of Saturday February 28th 2009, Plot 336 East 45th Street, Manhattan, New York once again provided the fabled Ugandan hospitality to informally welcome Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda as Uganda’s New Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Read the full story

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The Anglican Archbishop of Sudan has called on the UK and US to help catch Ugandan rebel, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader, Joseph Kony. Daniel Deng said he believes he is hiding in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan. Read the full story

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UN peacekeeping forces are standing by while hundreds of civilians are killed and abducted and scores of villages are burnt by Ugandan rebels, according to an international medical aid agency working in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Read the full story

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