11 October 2001
Text: USAID Chief Natsios Details U.S. Humanitarian Response to Afghanistan
(Food delivery to reduce death rate is first priority) (2790)
The administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development,
Andrew Natsios, has presented a five-point strategy to deliver
humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
The strategy is designed to:
-- reduce death rates:
Natsios said the U.S. government is opening all possible pipelines to
move food, seed, and other emergency commodities such as blankets and
health kits into the country, especially to the mountainous areas, as
soon as possible before the onset of winter.
-- minimize population movements:
When people leave their villages because of famine, Natsios said,
their chances of dying rise dramatically. "We must do everything we
can to encourage people to stay in their villages by moving as much
food as possible into the villages and rural areas," Natsios said.
-- lower and stabilize food prices:
"Many people die of hunger during famine not because of a shortage of
food, but rather because of an inability to purchase food that is
available due to skyrocketing prices. The best way to counter this is
to sell significant amounts of food to local merchants in order to
bring down prices and discourage hoarding," Natsios said.
-- ensure aid reaches the intended beneficiaries:
He said the U.S. government must be prepared to shut down any food
program if the Taliban begin to loot or manipulate aid. He said
delivering large amounts of food to remote villages and towns would
discourage people from gathering in refugee camps where they are at
greater risk of manipulation by the Taliban.
-- begin developmental relief programs:
Natsios said the relief programs will be structured in a way to
encourage Afghans to start rebuilding their homes, villages, farms,
markets and businesses, where possible. "Distribution of seed for the
winter wheat crop or even small-scale repairs of irrigation systems
and wells can make a profound difference in the country's recovery
from this crisis," Natsios said.
Natsios said 1.5 million Afghans risk starvation and as many as seven
million Afghans face critical food shortages during the coming winter.
During fiscal year 2001 that ended September 30, the United States
donated $184 million in humanitarian assistance to the people of
Afghanistan, making it the biggest contributor of aid to the Afghan
people. President Bush has announced that the United States will
contribute another $320 million in aid to the Afghans.
Approximately 85 percent of the 210,000 metric tons of food aid in the
pipeline for Afghans -- temporarily stored in Pakistan or in shipment
-- comes from the United States, Natsios said.
He laid out the strategy in testimony before a joint hearing of the
Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and the
Subcommittee on International Operations and Terrorism of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in Washington October 10.
Following is the text of Natsios' testimony, as prepared for delivery:
(begin text)
Andrew S. Natsios Administrator, U.S. Agency for International
Development
Before a Joint Hearing of the Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South
Asian Affairs and Subcommittee on International Operations and
Terrorism Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate
Afghanistan's Humanitarian Crisis October 10, 2001
Madam Chairman, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Committee, thank you
for inviting me here for this extremely important and timely hearing
on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
Introduction
Afghanistan today is a country in crisis, a crisis that predates the
events of September 11th by many years. Three years of drought, 22
years of conflict, and five years of brutal Taliban misrule, have
brought untold suffering to millions of people.
The long drought has caused the near-total failure of rain-fed crops
in 18 provinces. Only ten to twelve percent of the country is arable,
and much of that land cannot be used due to mines and the fighting
that has raged about the country since the Soviet invasion of 1979.
Thirty percent of Afghanistan's irrigation infrastructure has been
damaged or fallen into disrepair, rendering about a half of the
irrigated lands unusable.
In 1979, Afghanistan was able to feed itself. By last year, 2.3
million metric tons (MT) of food had to be imported. The Food and
Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that the country will only
produce 10,000 of the 400,000 MT of seed that it will need for next
year's planting. We know the reason: most of the seed has already been
eaten by farmers who fear they may not survive until the next crop.
Approximately 12 million people, almost half of the country's
inhabitants, have been affected by the drought. Between the fighting
and the drought upwards of three million people have been driven from
the country and are living as refugees. Another 700,000 are internally
displaced. Many, many thousands more are unable to move, due to
illness, hunger, injury, or disability.
The World Food Program (WFP), which distributes most of the food
within Afghanistan, estimates that food stocks in the country are
critically short and they are aggressively seeking to move food into
the country. Although WFP was unable to identify commercial truckers
to take food in on Monday of this week, its operations are otherwise
proceeding as planned with deliveries yesterday and today going on
schedule. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been able to maintain their
programs in many parts of the country, especially those areas where
there is no military activity, through the efforts of thousands of
dedicated local Afghan staff, many of whom have worked for these
organizations for decades.
Still, we believe that 1.5 million Afghans risk starvation by winter's
end and that between five and seven million Afghans face critical food
shortages and are partially or fully dependent on outside assistance
for survival.
Actions prior to September 11
One of the first actions I took as the Administrator of USAID was to
order an assessment conducted by a team from our Office of Foreign
Disaster Assistance, working with the State Department's Bureau of
Population, Refugees and Migration. Their conclusion was inescapable:
Afghanistan was "on the verge of widespread and precipitous famine."
Based on this and other information, and with the support of Secretary
Powell, I ordered a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) to the
region. They arrived in June and have been operating in the region
ever since. Since then, we have focused on Afghanistan's humanitarian
needs as never before. Through closer cooperation with the UN
specialized agencies and the NGOs with whom we work, we have been able
to target our efforts more precisely toward those who need it most.
The United States, of course, has been monitoring and helping the
people in Afghanistan for many years. In the fiscal year that just
ended and in the few days since, the U.S. Government donated $184
million in humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people. This
includes a variety of programs run by the Department of Agriculture,
the Department of State and USAID.
Our country has long been the largest donor to the World Food
Program's Afghan humanitarian assistance program. Approximately, 85
percent of the WFP food aid in the pipeline now -- 45,000 MT stored in
Pakistan and another 165,000 MT on the way -- comes directly from the
United States.
The President has now added another $320 million of new money to this
humanitarian effort.
Humanitarian Situation inside Afghanistan
According to our DART, the conditions in many areas of Afghanistan are
well beyond the "pre-famine" stage. As best we can judge, the
situation will only get worse with the coming winter.
While most people comprehend famine as a dramatic increase in death
rates due to starvation and hunger-related illnesses, there are a
number of famine indicators that relief experts look for when reliable
information on death rates or malnutrition levels is not readily
available. These indicators include the following:
-- Seed shortages due to increased cost of seed and/or consumption of
seed stocks;
-- Widespread sale of family assets, including land, homes,
domesticated animals, and family possessions, to raise money to buy
food;
-- Rising prices of food staples and hoarding of grain stocks by
dealers;
-- Consumption of wild foods, domesticated animals, and inedible
materials;
-- Increased rates of wasting due to malnutrition and other
nutritional disorders;
-- Declining birth rates;
-- Mass migration in search of food and employment; and
-- Increased deaths from starvation and related diseases.
In Afghanistan, NGOs, UN agencies, and the media are reporting
evidence of nearly every one of these indicators. The Afghan people
are tough, seasoned by many years of war and conflict. But many have
exhausted their ability to cope. Their resources are exhausted, their
animals dead, sold or eaten. They enter this crisis in an
extraordinarily weakened state. Apart from the many sick, weak and
disabled, the most vulnerable population lives in remote regions,
often at very high altitude, cut off from most efforts to provide food
or seed.
We are now seeing whole communities on the move, and many villages
abandoned altogether. Although precise statistics are hard to come by,
many families have resorted to desperate measures, selling their draft
animals, mixing their food with inedible substances, selling off their
last possessions, or marrying off their daughters to strangers at an
abnormally young age.
While we have not been able to collect data on food prices fully,
there are ample signs that prices have risen rapidly in certain
places, even as family income plummets. In major Afghan cities, food
prices have increased between 30 and 50 percent in the past month.
Most alarmingly, there is evidence of abnormally high death rates in
some parts of the country.
Humanitarian Response Strategy
President Bush's strategy to deal with this vast and complicated
humanitarian crisis is designed to accomplish five critical
objectives:
-- reduce death rates;
-- minimize population movements;
-- lower and then stabilize food prices so that food in markets is
more accessible;
-- ensure that aid reaches those it is intended for; and
-- begin developmental relief programs, in which we can move beyond
emergency relief, where possible, to begin long-overdue reconstruction
projects.
Reduce Death Rates
Our primary goal, of course, is to prevent as many people from dying
as possible. Winter is fast approaching, so time is clearly of the
essence. We must get as much food as possible into the country as soon
as possible, particularly to the mountain areas of the Hindu Kush.
This means doubling the amount of tonnage going in, at the very least,
from approximately 25,000 MT per month to 50,000 MT. We are opening
all possible pipelines to move food, seed, and other emergency
commodities such as blankets and health kits into the country to
increase the volume of aid. Health care, nutritional surveillance, and
water and sanitation programs are also vital to the success of the aid
effort.
Minimize Population Movements
When people have sold all their assets for food and have run out of
options, many leave their villages to find food or work. In other
famines, we know that as many as 50 percent will die along the way or
in famine-induced refugee or internally displaced persons (IDP) camps.
So we must do everything we can to encourage people to stay in their
villages by moving as much food as possible into the villages and
rural areas. The million or more refugees that the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees has predicted has not materialized thus far.
One of our objectives is to see that it never does.
Lower and Stabilize Food Prices
We also need to do what we can to drive down the cost of food, so that
ordinary Afghan citizens can buy what they and their families need.
Many people die of hunger during famine not because of a shortage of
food, but rather because of an inability to purchase food that is
available due to skyrocketing prices. The best way to counter this is
to sell significant amounts of food to local merchants in order to
bring down prices and discourage hoarding. These merchants have their
own means of protecting their goods even in the midst of general
insecurity, and the incentive of profits to be made ensures that the
food will reach the markets. Experience from other famine situations
has shown this to be a particularly effective strategy, especially in
smaller markets where even limited amounts can have a significant
effect on prices.
Ensure Aid Reaches the Intended Beneficiaries
It will be necessary to do our utmost to keep U.S. Government
humanitarian assistance out of the hands of the Taliban or other armed
groups. Part of our strategy to do so is linked to our second goal,
limiting population movements. By moving as much food as possible to
remote villages and towns, we can help discourage people from
concentrating in refugee and IDP camps, where the risk of manipulation
by the Taliban and their supporters is comparatively high.
All such camps should be managed, and all food distributed, by
experienced expatriates; to permit Afghan refugees or IDPs to
distribute supplies or manage the camps, on the other hand, is to
invite their manipulation by the Taliban or other extremist networks
such as al Qaeda.
At the same time, we must be prepared to shut down any program if the
Taliban begins to loot or manipulate the aid. Where the security of
the food is an issue in refugee or IDP camps, we should avoid
distributing dry rations. Wet feeding programs in which prepared food
is distributed directly to beneficiaries, rather than uncooked or dry
rations, should be the norm wherever possible, even for adults,
because cooked food spoils quickly, is heavier to move and harder to
store, making it more difficult to steal and more likely that the
intended beneficiaries will receive their rations.
By opening as many food pipelines into the country as possible, not
only will we be able to move more food quickly to where it is needed,
we will also minimize the distance any given aid convoy must travel to
reach its destination, thereby reducing the opportunity for diversion.
We will also make it our policy that no more than two weeks' worth of
food is warehoused in areas the Taliban controls so as not to create
attractive targets for looting.
Finally, we will also implement a humanitarian public information
campaign so the Afghan people know aid is on the way. This will have
the dual effect of helping to discourage further population movements,
and will provide a check against diversion or manipulation of aid
since people will know what they are supposed to receive through this
information effort.
Developmental Relief
The constant conflict that has plagued Afghanistan has kept people
from rebuilding their homes and villages, their farms, their markets
and their businesses. We intend to structure our relief programs so
that they can begin this long-overdue process of small-scale
reconstruction at the community level where conditions will allow. Our
food-for-work programs, for example, will focus on practical sectors,
such as agriculture. Distribution of seed for the winter wheat crop or
even small-scale repairs of irrigation systems and wells can make a
profound difference in the country's recovery from this crisis. If
enough crops can be planted and livestock rebuilt, next year will not
have to resemble this one.
Commitment to the People of Afghanistan
The President and the Secretary have made very clear that the Afghan
people are not our enemies. The President said on October 4 when he
announced his new $320 million initiative for the Afghan people: "We
are a compassionate nation... We will work with the U.N. agencies,
such as the World Food Program, and work with private volunteer
organizations to make sure this assistance gets to the people. We will
make sure that not only the folks in Afghanistan who need help get
help, but we will help those who have fled to neighboring countries to
get help as well."
With the new funds the President has added, we can redouble our
efforts to get relief to those who need it most. Despite the events of
September 11, and the fact that we have no diplomatic relations with
the Taliban, and despite their refusal to hand over bin Laden and
dismantle al Qaeda, our humanitarian assistance policies will not
change. Food aid distribution will be based on need. The President has
made this very clear.
Accomplishing our humanitarian objectives under the current
circumstances is a huge task, but I am confident that, if we follow
the President's strategy, we can save many, many lives and help
Afghanistan begin to rebuild itself. Let me assure you that we at the
Agency for International Development are fully committed to doing
everything we can to work with you in Congress, the other Executive
Branch agencies, and the international community to accomplish these
objectives.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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